In the coming months Driven By Boredom is going to get a make over. The facelift is tentatively scheduled for April 1st but knowing how these things work, and on my limited budget, it could be 2015 before it really happens.  Part of that redesign is going to give the party photos their own part of the website so that I can do more blogging about other things without bumping the photography down to the bottom of the page.  This is going to let me do a lot of shorter blogs and do posts on videos, music, events and other things that I usually just post on my Tumblr account. I really want to do a lot of shorter posts like I was doing when DBB 3.0 first launched and soon I will be able to do that.  I mention this for two reasons, one is to keep you updated on things on DBB, and the other is because I am about to do one of those type of posts right now… (This actually ended up being a lot more substantial than I thought it was going to be…)

Hulu Plus announced recently that it has worked out a deal with the Criterion Collection to stream their films uninterrupted.  Criterion owns the digital rights to over 800 films and over 150 films are available now.  The films will be shown with commercial before the movie so that you don’t have to have unnatural breaks while watching.  Some Criterion films will be available on a rotating basis with commercial breaks as part of Hulu’s basic service.

I actually just quit my Hulu Plus subcription. Many of the TV shows I wanted to watch weren’t available to stream on mobile devices. It seemed totally pointless. I have no real interest in watching every episode of Cougar Town or The Dick Van Dyke show. I am pretty sure the addition of Criterion Collection is going to get me to sign back up. If you aren’t familiar with the Criterion Collection you probably have no business watching any of their movies anyway (although they do have a couple of Michael Bay films in there…) but they have one of the largest libraries of film classics around.  All their films are amazingly restored and are usually the best (and in many cases only) versions around.  Criterion DVDs run between $30 and $40 for a single film so being able to watch them all for $7.99 a month seems like a steal.

I am a huge film nerd and one of the main reasons I moved to NYC was so I could watch movies. I was driving 6 hours to NYC from Richmond, VA every month just to watch films that I couldn’t get in Virginia. When I was living in Richmond I was watching more than 30 movies a month and amassed a DVD collection of well over 1000 films (Including 36 from the Criterion Collection). Unfortunately when I moved to NYC I had much less time and much less money to devote to my film habit. I watch maybe 5 movies a month now and usually they are Hollywood films because I don’t devote the time to figuring out what is playing at Film Forum or the Angelka.

I just wish that Netflix streaming and this Hulu Plus Criterion thing existed when I was living in Richmond. I probably would have watched 50 movies a month and had an even deeper understanding of film history.

Anyway, here are the trailers to 3 of favorite films in the Criterion Collection.  More than 20 of their films are in my top 100 list so it was impossible for me to pick my three favorites so I picked 3 films that you may not have seen before that are also easily accessible.  I understand that not everyone has the patience to sit through hours of silent Stan Brakhage films.

My first pick is Man Bites Dog which is in my top 10 films of all time for sure. It is a French mocumentary about a serial killer that is unflichingly realistic and one of the most brutal, and often funny, films I have ever seen.  My second selection is The Harder They Come. Another one of my all time favorites, it is about a Jamacian guy who can’t make it as a musician so he turns to crime.  But after he becomes famous for his crimes his record becomes a huge hit and he becomes a folk hero.  The movie was made entirely in Jamacia and features Jimmy Cliff in the starring role. The soundtrack is one of the best Reggae records of all time.  The last film I chose was F For Fake. It is a documentary about art forgery directed and hosted by Orson Welles. The movie is a documentary unlike any other I have ever seen and has an amazing twist ending.  If you haven’t seen it you need to.  Enjoy the trailers.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcPhaieTg4o[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvIEfPxLjcY&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n52q_BywGuY&feature=related[/youtube]

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