My Life as a Dog (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

My favorite movie of all time.
Few movies come this close to perfection. This is an intelligent and moving story of a boy who must come to terms with abandonment, loss and the casual betrayal of adults. Extremely well acted on all sides, with a bold script that dares to ask the important questions. Ingemar must try to find some balance in his life, as he is tossed from one "home" to another, like a stray dog... or, like the Soviet space-dog Laika, who was sent into space only to starve to death in orbit. "They never intended to bring her back." The final scenes of "My Life as a Dog" do win out, when the odd town's crazy old man takes a swim in the frozen river. The whole cast of peculiar town-folk come out to "rescue" him, and offer him a place by the fire, a blanket, a little whiskey... Here, Ingemar finds balance in the love of other people, so one is left, not with a sense of despair, but with a sense of hope in the midst of sorrow and loss.

Note: I recommend the...

ONE OF THE ALL TIME GREATS IN CINEMA
A massive world wide hit when it was first released.Simply the greatest film about childhood ever made.An absolute flawless film in every way. The final scene combined with the memorable music will stick in your mind forever. A masterpiece of film making - truly unforgetable and exceptionally moving.I have seen it numerous times over the years.One of the ten best films I have ever seen.

When bad transfers happen to good films...
This was so disappointing to me. "My Life as a Dog" was one of my all-time favorite films. I already had it on video, and wanted to have a cleaner copy on DVD, as well as some features.

! IT IS NOT, I repeat, *NOT* WIDESCREEN!

Worse, the transfer is grainy, and there seems to be little or no remastering. CRITERION would do a bang-up job on this film, it's just a shame that so many distributers can't get their act together and put a little effort into what they're doing.

If you want to hear commentary, see it in its original film ratio, or even see a decent transfer for heaven's sake, go to Criterion's web-site and send them a message that you want to see this film done right.

You might also go to Fox Lorber's web site, and let them know you expect more than VHS-on-a-disk. DVD, as a media, is in a critical state right now, and the studios are trying to see if the general public will accept bare-bones releases. We need to let them know that we won't.

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