My “Best” Lists for DVD Beaver’s Annual Poll, 2016

Please go here for all of the listings. — J. R.

Top Blu-ray Releases of 2016

1. Early Murnau (F.W. Murnau, 1921-26), Masters of Cinema, RB, UK)

2. Muriel (Alain Resnais, 1963) (Criterion, RA, US)

3. I Want to Live!  (Robert Wise, 1958) (Twilight Time, RA, US)

4. Electra, My Love (Miklós Jancsó, 1974) (Second Run Features, RB, UK)

5. The Driller Killer (Abel Ferrara, 1979) (Arrow, RA & RB, US & UK)

6. His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940) + The Front Page (Lewis Milestone, 1931) (Criterion, RA, US)

7. Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927) (BFI, RB, UK)

8. The Magic Box: The Films of Shirley Clarke, 1927-1986: Project Shirley, Volume 4 (Milestone Films, RA, US)

9. Son of Saul (Laszlo Nemes, 2015) (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, RA, US)

10. Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (Samuel Fuller, 1973) (Olive Films, RA, US)

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2016

1. Coffret Nico Papatakis (1963-2004) (Gaumont Vidéo, PAL, France)

2. Les Saisons (Marcel Hanoun, 1968-72) (RE:VOIR, PAL, France)

3. Tricked (Paul Verhoeven, 2012) (Kino Lorber, US)

4. Something Different + A Bagful of Fleas (Vera Chytilová, 1963 & 1962) (Second Run Features, PAL,  UK)

5.  Read more

Notes Toward the Devaluation of Woody Allen

This appeared originally in the May-June 1990 issue of Tikkun, and was reprinted in my first collection, Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism, five years later. — J.R.

“Why are the French so crazy about Jerry Lewis?” is a recurring question posed by film buffs in the United States, but, sad to say, it is almost invariably asked rhetorically. When Dick Cavett tried it out several years ago on Jean-Luc Godard, one of Lewis’s biggest defenders, it quickly became apparent that Cavett had no interest in hearing an answer, and he immediately changed the subject as soon as Godard began to provide one. Nevertheless it’s a question worth posing seriously, along with a few related ones — even at the risk of courting disbelief and giving offense.

Why are American intellectuals so contemptuous of Jerry Lewis and so crazy about Woody Allen? Apart from such obvious differences as the fact that Allen cites Kierkegaard and Lewis doesn’t, what is it that gives Allen such an exalted cultural status in this country, and Lewis virtually no cultural status at all? (Charlie Chaplin cited Schopenhauer in MONSIEUR VERDOUX, but surely that isn’t the reason why we continue to honor him.) Read more