Criterion Cast: Main Episodes

In our annual episode focusing on The Criterion Collection’s releases from the past year – and there’s a lot to celebrate – we’ve assembled a panel of CriterionCast regulars to share our favorite releases of 2023. David Blakeslee from Criterion Reflections hosts this discussion, which also includes Aaron West (CineJourneys), Josh Hornbeck (Criterion Channel Surfing), and longtime site contributors Jordan Essoe and Brad McDermott.

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In our annual episode focusing on The Criterion Collection’s releases from the past year – and there’s a lot to celebrate – we’ve assembled a panel of CriterionCast regulars to share our favorite releases of 2022. David Blakeslee from Criterion Reflections hosts this discussion, which also includes Aaron West (Criterion Now), Josh Hornbeck (Criterion Channel Surfing), and longtime site contributor Jordan Essoe.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes

In our annual episode focusing on The Criterion Collection’s releases from the past year – and there’s a lot to celebrate – we’ve assembled the entire podcasting crew from CriterionCast to share our favorite releases of 2021. David Blakeslee from Criterion Reflections hosts this discussion, which also includes Trevor Berrett (Inside the Box), Aaron West and Jill Blake (Criterion Now), Josh Hornbeck (Criterion Channel Surfing), along with longtime contributors to the site Arik Devens, Jordan Essoe and Scott Nye.

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To celebrate The Criterion Collection’s 2020 releases – and there’s a lot to celebrate – Scott Nye, David Blakeslee, Trevor Berrett, Aaron West, and Jordan Essoe gather to talk about the past year in Criterion, including their favorite three Criterion releases of 2020.

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On episode 211 of CriterionCast, Jordan Essoe is joined by Scott Nye, David Blakeslee, and Arik Devens to discuss Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker’s 1993 film The War Room.

The 1992 presidential election was a triumph not only for Bill Clinton but also for the new breed of strategists who guided him to the White House—and changed the face of politics in the process.

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On episode 210 of CriterionCast, Jordan Essoe is joined by Scott Nye, David Blakeslee, and Arik Devens to discuss Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1961 film L’eclisse.

Using the architecture of Rome as a backdrop for the doomed affair, Antonioni achieves the apotheosis of his style in this return to the theme that preoccupied him the most: the difficulty of connection in an alienating modern world.

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On episode 209 of CriterionCast, Jordan Essoe is joined by Scott Nye, David Blakeslee, and Arik Devens to discuss Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1961 film La notte.

Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau star as a novelist and his frustrated wife, who, over the course of one night, confront their alienation from each other and the achingly empty bourgeois Milan circles in which they travel. Antonioni’s muse Monica Vitti smolders as an industrialist’s tempting daughter. Moodily sensual cinematography and subtly expressive performances make La notte an indelible illustration of romantic and social deterioration.

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On episode 208 of CriterionCast, Jordan Essoe is joined by Scott Nye, David Blakeslee, and Arik Devens to discuss Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 film L’avventura.

Michelangelo Antonioni invented a new film grammar with this masterwork. An iconic piece of challenging 1960s cinema and a gripping narrative on its own terms, L’avventura concerns the enigmatic disappearance of a young woman during a yachting trip off the coast of Sicily, and the search taken up by her disaffected lover (Gabriele Ferzetti) and best friend (Monica Vitti, in her breakout role).

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This time on the podcast, Jordan Essoe, Scott Nye, David Blakeslee, and Arik Devens discuss Roberto Rossellini’s Germany Year Zero.

The concluding chapter of Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy is the most devastating, a portrait of an obliterated Berlin, seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy.

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This time on the podcast, Jordan Essoe, Scott Nye, David Blakeslee, and Arik Devens discuss Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan.

With its documentary-like visuals and intermingled cast of actors and nonprofessionals, Italians and their American liberators, this look at the struggles of different cultures to communicate and of people to live their everyday lives in extreme circumstances is equal parts charming sentiment and vivid reality.

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