What’s All The Hulu-baloo About? This Week In Criterion’s Hulu Channel

Another week has gone by and as usual, Criterion has put up some choice content on their page on Hulu Plus. Using the service more than ever to stream films that I’ve seen before and don’t own or have never even heard of until Criterion put them up, I’ve valued Hulu Plus more than ever. I also want to thank all those who have used our referral link to sign up. It pays for this article to keep going so please, sign up here to keep it going with no hiccups whatsoever. But you want to know what new and amazing films are streaming. So without further adieu…

It’s Alain Resnais’ birthday so you should be streaming his film Night And Fog (1955), a very harsh and intense depiction of the Holocaust, one of the first truthful accounts around.

Also you can stream the film we’re covering this week, The Great Dictator (1941), the Charlie Chaplin film that deals a bit with World War II. That’s all I’ll say about that right now but you’ll know exactly how we all feel about this wonderful film next week on the Criterion Cast.

The first film that’s new to their page is Fat Girl (2001), a film that Criterion recently put out on Blu-ray. People have been wary as to why this film was put out on Blu, being one that isn’t as flashy as others. But Catherine Breillat’s film is one that delves into a darker side of childhood, one that we don’t see as often as nostalgia tries to paint it. And still to this day has an ending that still chills me to the bone. Glad to see more people will be able to catch up with it.

Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri (1962) which was recently re-imagined by Takashi Miike with his 3D film Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai, is one of the greatest samurai films of all time, not because of the action but because of the message dealing with feudal authority and the hypocrisy of it all. Just a masterfully shot film, one that most people glance over due to the other samurai films people hear about first.

We get another Mikio Naruse film, one that isn’t within the Criterion collection or the Eclipse sets yet. Mother (1952) deals with a mother (played by Kinuyo Tanaka, who was Japan’s first female director later on) who is trying to raise her four children the best she can in post war Japan. It’s an interesting film because it’s told from the mother’s point of view, and is acted superbly all around. Also, unlike most of Naruse’s films, this one is a bit more upbeat throughout.

We have a couple of other British produced films, one a comedy and the other a mystery. The first is Green Grow The Rushes (1951), is one I’m looking forward to checking out. Directed by Derek N. Twist and starring Richard Burton, Honor Blackman and Roger Livesey and deals with a small town who doesn’t want to move forward after the war and instead have claimed a right (from Henry III’s time) to evade government imposed duties and taxes which leads to comical rebellion. The second film, The Woman in Question (1950), is directed by Anthony Asquith (The Browning Version, Pygmalion) and is centered around a woman who is murdered and the varying ways she is seen by 5 people in her life. Sounds like a really intriguing mystery that other films seem to have tried and failed (I’m looking at you, Vantage Point!) so it’s one that is in my queue now.

It wouldn’t be a week without another Yasujiro Ozu film and this week is one of the greatest films in his career. Floating Weeds (1959), his own remake to his 1934 silent classic A Story of Floating Weeds, is a heartbreaking tale of an actor coming back to his hometown and reuniting with his former lover and illegitimate son which disrupts his relationship with his mistress at the time. This film is beautiful and shows how much, in 25 years Ozu had blossomed as a filmmaker and how nobody else could showcase sadness and joy like he could. And now you can watch both right on Hulu Plus. We also get Ozu’s 1956 film Early Spring which comes from the Late Ozu Eclipse set. Last week we had Early Summer featured in the article and this week it’s a perfect companion piece to that film. This was the film he did after the huge critical and financial hit Tokyo Story, where see Japanese life through a young salaryman who is sick of his normal day to day life and starts an affair with a beautiful co-worker. A wonderful film that should be checked out by all.

The same could be said for Kenji Mizoguchi, who has had new releases every week it seems. This time it’s a film that isn’t in either collection, which is excited because he is a director I’ve discovered later in my life and grow to love more each time I partake in one of his films. The Life of Oharu (1952) seems to follow the same structure as his Fallen Women films, where this time the unfairness treatment of women is from the point of view of a prostitute in medieval Japan. Always one fighting for the rights of women, he again shows the trials women must go through in life and how they continue to fight for what they believe in and ultimately for their lives themselves.

Les Enfants Terribles (1950) is a match-up of epic proportions. What I mean is it’s the pairing of Jean Cocteau and Jean-Pierre Melville to make a film version of Cocteau’s own novel about a horrible relationship between a brother and a sister. A series of mind games are played throughout and it seems this film has been passed over by others within the Criterion collection, which means now is the time to get some people talking about it again. A dementedly funny at times and twisted tale from the mind of Cocteau with the precision of Melville behind the camera means it’s a match made in cinematic heaven.

Having just seen the Arrow Films release of Bicycle Thieves, Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini’s first collaboration was the film The Children Are Watching Us (1944) and shows us an child’s innocence being dashed and the disintegration of a family in general. Heartbreaking as any film can be, we see Italian neo-realism from the godfather of the movement.

Pietro Germi’s follow-up to his Divorce Italian Style, Seduced and Abandoned (1964) continues the comic calamities that Germi was a master at. Nobody thought he could go crazier, but with this film he goes the full nine, showing what one man will do to restore his family’s honor. Hysterical and dark, a wonderful comedic affair that you see in many comedies today.

Finally we get one more film not in any collection within Criterion, which is Remorques (1941) and directed by Jean Grémillon. A romantic action drama from France, is essentially about a tugboat captain who has an affair with another man’s wife, even though he has a sick wife at home with a heart condition (which he doesn’t know about). A film more about temptation from another woman and another life he could have, it’s a conflicted tale where the ocean itself is the ruler of men and tears lives apart when you least expect it.

Another week, another Hulu-baloo and this week was another fantastic selection of films. If you see any other films popping up within the page (or any you have been watching or wish were streaming on Hulu), please comment below. And once more, thanks to everyone who has already used the referral code to sign up. And until next week, keep on streaming.