Guillermo del Toro recently visited the offices of The Criterion Collection to review the supplements on the upcoming Blu-ray of his directorial debut,
Cronos. The studio has published a
video that features Del Toro being invited to the DVD and Blu-ray storeroom and raiding the BD shelves for the titles still missing in his collection, offering a window into his movie tastes.
Despite announcing that he was not going to "show any restraint," the Mexican filmmaker eventually picked up only eight titles (mainly recently-released BDs, such as
The Thin Red Line by "the master", the "Hitchcockian"
Charade or Bergman's
The Magician, which officially isn't out yet and makes him exclaim, "Really?
The Magician ... Fantastic!"). He explained that he'd already bought most of the rest (he was "sad to report").
The director of
Hellboy and
Pan's Labyrinth proved that he was well informed on upcoming Blu-ray titles when he specifically asked for
Paths of Glory, which isn't out until October 26. However, he also showed that he is much more of a cinephile than a collector when he asked if the movies were sorted alphabetically – a hardcore Criterion cultist worth his salt would have noticed that they were sorted by
spine number.
At the end of the video, Del Toro looks wistfully at the imposing DVD shelves at the other side of the aisle, but doesn't even look for anything, even if it is free.