The Auteurs

Now this is cool. I found out about this through looking up some info about certain Criterion Collection DVDS. In case you did not know the Criterion Collection is a a video distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to cinema aficionados. I have been a long time subscriber to their news periodicals and have found myself buying only Criterion DVDs because they are the only ones really worth buying nowadays, considering how much can be found online and from Netflix. Anyhoo, I was browsing their site when I came across The Auteurs, an online film website. Imagine this, a website that streams movies for free and allows you to connect to others with similar tastes through a social networking system. Well, this is that website. The Auteurs is partnered with The Criterion Collection (whose website The Auteurs designed and manage), the French film distributor Celluloid Dreams and Costa Films, a company specializing in the distribution of films from Latin America. Due to this arrangement, the site is able to stream films that are not currently available on DVD, such as Claire Denis's Vers Mathilde; the selection of viewable films depends on the country the site is being accessed from. In May 2009, The Auteurs formed an alliance with Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation to promote and distribute a number of WCF restored titles. Films that the WCF restores have a premiere at Cannes Film Festival before beginning a tour of other festivals and museum exhibitions. During the museum tour of the restored 35mm prints, the films are made available digitally through The Auteurs. For the streaming of films, The Auteurs sends compressed files to the browser's Flash plug-in. The Auteurs' engineers create compression settings for each film via a digital chain that includes mplayer, x264, ffmpeg, and mp4box. Audio is augmented with 5.1 Dolby surround sound. The Auteurs also hosts an online magazine called The Auteurs' Notebook, which is based in New York City and edited by Daniel Kasman. The Notebook is updated daily on weekdays and features several regular columns as well as movie reviews and coverage of major film festivals. I became a member right away, and I hope after reading this, you do too. Here, my friends, is the site. ENJOY!