PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — Film fans waited in long lines outside the Portland Art Museum on Friday for a chance to step inside a traveling version of one of the movie world’s most famous rooms: the Criterion Closet.
The Portland Art Museum’s Center for an Untold Tomorrow (PAM CUT) hosted the Criterion Mobile Closet, a van-built replica of the Criterion Closet originally based in New York City. The Criterion Collection is a home entertainment distribution company that licenses, restores and distributes classic and contemporary films and has become a well-known name among cinephiles and physical media fans.
The original Criterion Closet is stocked with Criterion Collection films—about 1,700 titles by about 600 directors from more than 50 countries. The company invites prominent film industry figures to visit, talk about meaningful films and choose their “picks,” with the visits filmed for Criterion’s YouTube channel.
The mobile version brings that experience to different cities across the country. Portland was the van’s seventh destination and the second West Coast city to host it after Los Angeles…