In All Seriousness:
If you aren't already aware of The Criterion Collection, please read this post, especially if you consider yourself someone who is a huge fan of and knowledgeable about film. Criterion is every DVD/Blu-ray collector's dream, and instead of describing what it is myself I'll take the description from the criterion website:
"OUR MISSION
Since 1984, the Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, has been dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. Over the years, as we moved from laserdisc to DVD, Blu-ray disc, and online streaming, we’ve seen a lot of things change, but one thing has remained constant: our commitment to publishing the defining moments of cinema for a wider and wider audience. The foundation of the collection is the work of such masters of cinema as Renoir, Godard, Kurosawa, Cocteau, Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Fuller, Lean, Kubrick, Lang, Sturges, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Ozu, Sirk, Buñuel, Powell and Pressburger. Each film is presented uncut, in its original aspect ratio, as its maker intended it to be seen. Every time we start work on a film, we track down the best available film elements in the world, use state-of-the-art telecine equipment and a select few colorists capable of meeting our rigorous standards, then take time during the film-to-video digital transfer to create the most pristine possible image and sound. Whenever possible, we work with directors and cinematographers to ensure that the look of our releases does justice to their intentions. Our supplements enable viewers to appreciate Criterion films in context, through audio commentaries by filmmakers and scholars, restored director’s cuts, deleted scenes, documentaries, shooting scripts, early shorts, and storyboards. To date, more than 150 filmmakers have made our library of Director Approved DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and laserdiscs the most significant archive of contemporary filmmaking available to the home viewer."
If you were too lazy to read that block of text here is a short summary of what The Criterion Collection does: They take classic, lesser-known, under-appreciated, and highly acclaimed films, and restore the visual and audio quality to the best it can possibly be. Also they include in each DVD/Blu-ray case a booklet with an essay or essays about the film in it, and every movie comes with a variety of cool bonus features that you can only get from the Criterion edition of the film.
So why should all of this interest you? Well I'm gonna be honest, if the thought of classic and lesser know films (a good amount of them being foreign as well) in the highest quality with essays and bonus features to accompany it doesn't already interest you, you probably won't be too interested in most of what The Criterion Collection has to offer, but feel free to continue reading this post!
Below I'm going to list a few reasons why any true film fan should start their own Criterion Collection, or at least watch some of the films that are included on the list.
Cool Covers
The Criterion Collection is known for their super cool DVD box art. If you're a collector of DVD/Blu-rays then it's definitely nice to have a bunch of covers that are really nice to look at. Here are some of the covers that I like a lot:
Wide Variety
As of now there are over 700 films released or announced to be release through Criterion. In addition to that about 10 new films are announced every month, so the list keeps on going. While you're not going to see really mainstream films like The Shawshank Redemption or Avatar being released through Criterion, they do a good job of balancing out the variety. You'll get more well-known films (like Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums or Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory), and you'll get films you might have never even heard of (like Wim Wenders's film Pina or the Luchnio Visconti film Senso). There's also a good mixture of American cinema, but also a lot of foreign films. And the years in which the films were originally released goes from the early 20's silent-era to films like Frances Ha and Blue Is the Warmest Color which came out in 2013. This variety allows you to flock towards films you know you like, but also discover films you might have never seen before seeing it was in the Criterion Collection.
Bonus Features
If you're a film nerd like me, you go crazy for good bonus features on your favorite movies. I love them. I recently watched my favorite film Boogie Nights, and then the next day watched it again with Paul Thomas Anderson's director commentary. I spend hours with some films bonus features, and The Criterion films have the best ones. My Blu-ray Criterion edition of Fellini's film 8 1/2 has all of the following bonus features: a booklet of essays written about Fellini and the film, an intro to the film by Terry Gilliam, audio commentaries by film scholars, 3 almost an hour long documentaries, interviews with people from or regarding the film, behind-the scenes photographs, and the film's trailer. Criterion allows you to learn everything you could ever want to know about a film with it's bonus features.
As you can see I am a huge supporter of The Criterion Collection. What they do to preserve great films and make known films that don't get enough spotlight is encouraging to hopeful filmmaker like myself. It lets me know that my films could matter, and some people are trying to improve the film industry, as well as keeping the hobby of collecting DVDs and Blu-rays alive. If your as passionate about film as I am, do yourself a favor and at least look through the films that are available through Criterion. You won't be sorry.
~Ryan Moncrief
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