A week or so ago, I got an email notification informing me that my annual subscription to The Criterion Channel would be auto-renewing at the end of the month. I guess it is good they sent that email, because I had completely forgotten that I even had a subscription to The Criterion Channel.
The email prompted me to start looking around on the service. Qt the risk of stating the obvious, it has some really good movies.
I have been watching Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas in 45-minute chunks over the last few days. I am pretty sure I was supposed to watch this movie for one of the film theory/criticism classes I took in college but apparently I never did. I remember seeing the trailer for it when going to see other stuff the Film Society was showing, but that’s it.
My loss! Maybe it will completely fall apart in the final thirty minutes, but this movie is fantastic.
I may or may not post more thoughts on Paris, Texas itself at some point. More broadly though, watching it has reminded me that I miss watching movies. I do, of course, watch movies somewhat regularly, but all the time I have for that is entirely consumed by watching Star Wars and Marvel genre stuff with my kids. Don’t get me wrong—I really like these movies and I don’t have much time for complaints about how they are ruining cinema. Still, I do miss genuinely thought-provoking fare.
So assuming that I am actually able to get through to the end of Paris, Texas in a reasonable timeframe, I think I need to figure out how to actually get some use out of my Criterion Channel subscription. I was thinking that I would keep going with Wenders—Wings Of Desire, maybe—but then I noticed that Michael Mann’s Thief is leaving the service on August 31. I think I may hit that one next instead.
Who knows? Maybe I will even make it back around to some Tarkovsky films… eventually.