THE CAMERAMAN - #1033

Buster Keaton was an independent producer and director making his own starring vehicles in the silent era when, in 1928, he decided to sign on with MGM and let them foot the bill. This was despite warnings from his friends and peers, who didn’t see why a successful artist would give up his freedom and control. Keaton probably should have listened, as MGM immediately paired him with a director, Edward Sedgwick, and though their collaborations yielded some excellent funny business, it does feel like something is different in the two features offered on Criterion’s release of The Cameraman. 

Before criticizing things, though, it should be noted that there is much to rejoice about in this new 4K restoration. Though still missing three minutes of footage, this is the most complete version of The Camerman that anyone has seen in quite some time. The picture is clear and beautiful, and it allows for a fresh perspective of this pivotal moment in Keaton’s career. The score is also very good, enhancing the picture as necessary without overplaying the comedic actions or trying to hard to mimic what is onscreen (the same cannot be said for the music on the second film). 

The scenario as devised by Clyde Bruckman and Lew Lipton sees Buster playing a street portrait photographer who falls for a beautiful girl (Marceline Day), whose picture he takes before she is whisked away by her boyfriend (Harold Goodwin). The fella, Stagg, is a cameraman for MGM newsreels, and Buster decides to get his own movie camera and join the freelance crew as a way to get close to Sally. What follows are plenty of mishaps as Buster tries to figure out the business, finds a monkey to be his pal, and gets tangled in a Chinatown gang war. The latter sequence is incredible for the chaos and mayhem that erupts on the screen. There is a real sense of peril, and we fear for our stone-faced hero. 

This is probably the closest we get to a vintage Buster Keaton situation. His previous comedies all have a sense of danger, as his elaborate set-ups and stunts would consistently put him in harm’s way, only for him to stumble through unharmed. Most of the gags in The Cameraman are dialed way back from what audiences would have expected from Buster. Weirdly, we get more wordplay in the title cards than ever before, which is not really what we signed up for. We also get more romance. If anything replaces the danger, it’s an increased sweetness. Sure, we’ve seen Keaton work the love angle before in pictures like Battling Butler, but there is a dogged earnestness to The Cameraman that is almost less effective because it replaces his trademark cluelessness with confidence. 

In truth, The Cameraman and the second feature on the disc, 1929’s Spite Marriage, also directed by Sedgwick, remind me more of classic Charlie Chaplin than classic Buster Keaton. The relationship of City Lights comes to mind, where we root for the Little Tramp to win the blind girl’s heart. It’s not that we don’t also root for Buster in his other films, but I think we are more inclined to see him take a licking, his famously rigid face keeping us from being nearly as invested in his well-being. Perhaps this was what MGM was hoping to undo, thinking that maybe making him more like Charlie he could start to outpace the other man’s success. 

It’s hard to say. And it’s also still hard not to like both The Cameraman and Spite Marriage. Both are very funny. Spite Marriage even features one of Keaton’s most lauded bits, when he has to put his drunk wife to bed. It a routine he would perform live for many years to come. It’s just some of the inventiveness is gone. The precarious situations, the elaborate sets, the prop work, the daredevil stunts--these are all dialed back. 

You know what it is, actually? It’s that Buster Keaton was always the little guy standing up to an indifferent world that consistently outsized him. Just as MGM took away his full control, so too did they shrink the threats. It levels the playing field, it’s not nearly the contest it once was. Buster is still the champ, but fighting in his own weight class, and so the victory is not as sweet. While the performer has the charm to be a rom-com lead, it’s not what he really made his name on, and it’s a classic example of the business side of show business not really understanding the show.

 This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

DOV'E LA LIBERTA...? - FILMSTRUCK

This review was originally written for DVDTalk.com as part of the Roberto Rossellini 2-Disc Collector's Edition in 2008.

Dov'è la libertà...? (Where is Freedom?) a dark social comedy from 1954 that stars Italian screen icon Toto as Salvatore, a man pleading his case before a judge in a Roman court. Salvatore has spent twenty-two years of his life behind bars, and after only a short time of being on parole, he was arrested again, this time for trying to break back into jail.

As Salvatore explains, prison life had an order built on a mutual need amongst the imprisoned to survive their incarceration with as little hassle as possible. Ten or more men to one cell meant forming a miniature society, one where the quiet barber muddled through by keeping order and helping the others maintain a fresh perspective. Salvatore himself was sent down the river for killing a man who tried to force himself on his wife, a crime of passion he is ready to put behind him. Unfortunately, the march of time has passed him by while being away, and he is surprised to find the world is not as trusting of him as he is of it, nor as honest. On the outside, Salvatore bounces from one bad situation to another, getting involved in a crooked marathon dance, the flirtations of the selfish daughter of a boarding house landlady, and even his former in-laws, who prove to be the least trustworthy of the bunch. And don't even ask what he finds out about his late wife! With each set-back, Salvatore loses a little more of his faith in humanity, making him long for the moral order of prison life and inspiring his reverse jailbreak.

Dov'è la libertà...? is a quietly satirical film, avoiding broad jokes and relying on a sort of common sense comedy. For as irrational as Salvatore's actions seem on paper, his point-of-view makes perfect sense, particularly as it is explained by Toto. With his expressive eyes and hound-dog face, the actor's weary bafflement comes across as totally logical. He's a little like a latter-day Buster Keaton, with maybe a smidgen of Marty Feldman and Peter Sellers thrown in. There's just something about his exasperated expression that makes you want to believe him even as you laugh at him for being so gullible. How can society be so out of tune with a man so down to earth?

THE PARTY - FILMSTRUCK/CRITERION CHANNEL

This review originally written for DVDTalk.com.

Peter Sellers reteams with his Pink Panther [review] co-conspirator Blake Edwards to cut loose and indulge their love of silent film comedies. The concept for The Party is something Chaplin or Keaton could have done wonders with, and though the movie does have quite a few verbal jokes, the majority of the more elaborate gags could run without sound and still inspire a huge round of guffaws.

Sellers plays Hrundi V. Bakshi, a recent transplant from India to Hollywood trying to make his way as an actor. After a particularly disastrous day on the set, where Bakshi's clumsiness brings the production crashing down, a mix-up causes him to be invited to the studio head's glitzy soiree rather than be fired. From there, comedy ensues, as the good-natured Bakshi just tries to fit in. He loses his shoe, runs afoul of parrots and dogs, tries to communicate with starlets, and even learns to play pool from a cowboy actor (Denny Miller), who is the only person in the movie that has an accent more extreme than Sellers.

The Party is a fantastic showcase for Peter Sellers' true talents. Not only does he completely lose himself in the role, but his physical agility as he traverses the many architectural oddities in the thoroughly modern home (inspired, perhaps, by Tati's Mon Oncle?) lets the actor show just how marvelous of a comedic athlete he is. The Party is one of those films I can watch a million times, and it never fails to make me laugh. I can even put it on while doing other things and check back in and out as the task demands, and every time I check in, I know it will make me smile. It's no hyperbole to call it a masterpiece.

I think a big reason for that is it's all just so good-natured. While there is definitely a sense of making fun, the only people really being made fun of are the stuck-up fatcats whose old-world mentality and opulence are becoming passé. Note the exchange that Bakshi has with the impossibly tall daughter of the hosts (Kathe Green) about the painted elephant, and how quick she is not to offend. It's 1968, and Edwards and Sellers are definitely "with it," seeing a more colorblind world on their horizon (those incorruptible optimists!) and adjusting accordingly. Though a Brit playing Indian would be a little harder to pull off today, Sellers' caricature is less about racial stereotyping and more about capturing the genuine anxiety of a well-meaning outsider. The scenes where he wanders the room alone, on the outskirts of the crowd, have a surprising pathos, identifiable by anyone who has ever ended up at a shindig where they don't know anybody. I would guess that's why they chose Claudine Longet to play the love interest. She is also an immigrant, though one assumes she would have an easier time since she's a cute French girl (read: pretty and white). Still, theirs is a sweet courtship. Plus, we get the singer's performance of the super sugary Henry Mancini-penned pop song "Nothing to Lose." (Not to mention the awesomely cool-daddio title number.)

I should note, though The Party is very funny, it's not a gutbuster. The largely improvised comedy is of a kind that is observed and absorbed more than it is convulsively reacted to. As noted, it's more Chaplin and Tati than it is Jerry Lewis. Its slapstick is designed around character and as a send-up of the unnecessary conceits of the modern age rather than just silliness for the sake of being silly, and one could argue that The Party has likely aged better than most just for that reason.

LIMELIGHT - #756

“I thought you hated the theatre?”

“I do. I also hate the sight of blood, but it’s in my veins.”

As I write this, it’s Charlie Chaplin’s birthday. Born April 16, 1889, he would have been 127. This puts him at more than 60 years old when he made his final American film, the bittersweet tribute to vaudeville, Limelight. Though he had a couple of more movies to come following his exile to Europe, of all of his efforts post-1950, this one feels like the final curtain, a summing up of a well-spent career, with a few touches of real life for those looking to see the man in his art.

Chaplin stars in Limelight as Calvero, the last of the great stage clowns, known for his wordplay and hobo persona. (Perhaps it was the presence of the former that discouraged the performer from actually making the film about his own Little Tramp, a character born of silent cinema.) Calvero’s act has passed into the history books, drowned in alcohol and anxiety. As the picture begins, he stumbles home from the bar, only to realize his downstairs neighbor Theresa (Claire Bloom, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold [review]) has locked herself in her flat with the gas on. The old man kicks in the door and rescues the young woman from suicide, letting her sleep it off in his apartment where the air is clear. Terry is a dancer who is despondent over many things. She let the love of her life, a composer (Sydney Chaplin) get away, and her sister’s turning to the streets to pay for her dancing career has left the girl unable to take the stage, the guilt is too much to handle.

In fact, following the attempted suicide, Terry is so upset, she can’t walk, her mind has completely shut down the lower half of her body, not unlike how nerves and booze have overtaken Calvero’s ability to step in front of a crowd. The pair of artistes bonds over their respective blocks. Calvero swears off the sauce and nurses the girl back to health, giving her pep talks, all the while dreaming of his old routines, sometimes inserting Terry into the act, sometimes waking up in terror, realizing his dream self is playing to an empty house. Helping her gives him purpose, and a chance to lead by example.

It’s a lovely and loving relationship, one that could have been tainted by Chaplin’s real-life dalliances with younger women, but the honesty with which he presents their shared experience avoids any actual creepiness. Calvero’s view of Terry is paternal, despite the cover story that they are married as a means to fend off gossip. In fact, there is a frankness throughout Limelight that is surprisingly fresh, even if the script must tap dance around saying some things outright. Calvero first thinks that the whispers about his new roommate being a prostitute are true, and that she tried to kill herself due to consequences stemming from the profession. Though the truth is far more mundane, the way in which the elder statesman is prepared to accept the younger’s indiscretions--he notes that he himself is an old sinner--makes for a sweet dynamic between them. They accept each other’s faults only in so far as they encourage their companion to overcome them.

Chaplin was likely looking for a little acceptance himself, following accusations of Communism and FBI smear campaigns due to some of his less idyllic carnal affairs. (Check a recent episode of You Must Remember This to hear how this affected the auteur’s previous release, Monsieur Verdoux [review]). Later in the film the clown demands truth in both performance and life, as it’s the only thing he knows to be steadfast in a fickle world.

Despite all of this off-screen drama, Chaplin does not allow for any cynicism in Limelight. Quite the contrary, the film is entirely romantic, in both its love stories and in its view of the theatrical community. Behind the laughs beats a great big heart, and Limelight is less a comedy and more of a melodrama. Working with a plot structure more befitting a play--and often staging his scenes in small spaces like in a theatre, focusing on the two characters in conversation rather than the surroundings--Chaplin draws from a variety of theatrical traditions to create something perfectly cinematic. The filmmaker pulls out and goes wide, funnily enough, when in the theatre space itself. The cutaways to the dream sequences, showing Calvero on stage, and later showing Terry dancing, give us both the breadth of the performance space, but also the size of the crowd. In a way, his framing suggests that our own lives are small, and its art that gives them larger meaning, transcending borders so that people around the world may share all that they have in common, including not just our own foibles, but also the natural world in which we live and operate (mother nature and human nature). Most of Calvero’s routines center around animals (worms, sardines) or compulsions (love). The only exception being a fun skit featuring Chaplin and the great Buster Keaton--a comedian down on his luck for real--as two inept musicians that ends up being Calvero’s ultimate encore.

It’s interesting to consider that Chaplin himself must have seen many tides turning, and rather than submit to the trends, he instead dug in his heels and tipped his hat to where it all began for him (including street performers). Not that Limelight is a completely fanciful representation of theatre life. There is a toll to be paid for the spontaneity and joy of stagecraft. Not just age and passing fads, but also the isolation and the physical and mental demands come to bear for the comedian and the ballerina alike. Chaplin sees a kindred spirit in the dancer--both disciplines require perfection and control, but they also allow for improvisation, for injecting one’s personality into the material.

The final act of Limelight has some O. Henry-level twists, including ironic sacrifices and difficult decisions. Yet, even with the heavy foreshadowing--Calvero tells Terry pretty much exactly how it will go--by the time the change-ups and misunderstandings occur, you’ll be so invested in the characters and the drama itself, the artifice won’t bother you. Plus, the artifice is kind of the point. Limelight is as much about the movement of the bodies on stage as how they affect one another offstage--though no moreso than the movement in the ballet Chaplin pauses to show us, featuring both the clown and his admirer, and which itself draws from traditions of the Commedia dell’arte. In Chaplin’s narrative, the history of the stage is as interlocked as humanity’s. We all build on what came before, and so by extending a hand, the old can aid the young with their experience and wisdom, and maybe themselves get a new lease on life.

And, of course, as throughout, Chaplin walks it like he talks it. The ultimate message of Limelight? Always leave them laughing.

A few images from this review were borrowed from my old alma mater, DVDTalk.com. Read Justin Remer's review here.

JOUR DE FETE - #730

The journey to bring Jour de fête, Jacques Tati’s 1949 full-length directorial debut, to screen was not one I had been familiar with. When making the comedy feature, Tati shot simultaneously with two different cameras. One used a then-untested color process, and the other recorded the performances in standard black-and-white, a precaution just in case the color process didn’t work. This concurrent fascination with and distrust in technology is amusing, given how this would be a regular theme in Tati’s later M. Hulot films. It seems art did imitate life in this case.

It also turned out to be a smart move. The color labs behind the film shut down before ever processing a reel, and so Tati released the black-and-white version to cinemas. In the 1960s, he would revisit Jour de fête and hand-color certain elements, as well as putting in some new footage, but it wasn’t until 1995 that a full version was finally made from his original color negatives. All three options are given here, in Criterion’s lead disc of their The Complete JacquesTati collection. I opted for the 1995 release, which looked pretty good, even if the color is not as vibrant as a 1940s Technicolor picture from Hollywood.

In Jour de fête, Tati stars as Francois, a bicycle-riding postman for a small village. On the “big day” referred to by the title, Francois’ village is preparing to host a traveling street fair. The run of the movie shows the carnies getting ready, the town’s participation in the festivities, and the hangover the morning after, focusing mostly on how Francois gets through his day. The mustachioed public servant is the object of regular ridicule from his customers and neighbors, and even the visiting carnival workers get in on the act. They can read this rube from a mile away. He’s eager to please and none too bright.

Francois’ main problem is combining defensiveness with hubris, and so most of his misfortune occurs by his trying to prove he is a big man. He’ll go from nearly being beaned by a falling pole to instructing the men on how to put it in the ground. Seeing a film that claims American postal workers are using helicopters and airplanes to deliver letters faster and farther makes Francois work on his speed techniques--with a little help from the roustabouts who run the merry-go-round.

It’s one of Jour de fête’s best gags, the gangly bicyclist riding his bike in a stationary position while the carnival ride spins round and round. It’s a whole lot of effort just to end up in the same place. Francois is too self-assured to see his own ridiculousness. That’s perhaps why we laugh along with those teasing him rather than feeling sorry for him: he kind of deserves it. Late in the film, when he discovers one prank has left a ring of ink around his eye, Francois fails to laugh at himself. Instead, he deflects and lays into criticizing his coworkers for being slower than he is--making it all the more hysterical when, shortly thereafter, Francois’ bicycle takes off on its own, and he must run after it in a lengthy chase sequence. Instant karma.

The trouble the bike gets into and the distance it goes shows the kind of inventiveness that would be Tati’s calling card. It’s a little bit Buster Keaton, a little bit Charlie Chaplin. Having honed his skills in a series of comedy shorts, Tati appears confident in his humor here. His gags are mostly physical and largely pantomime, they are never really dialogue-based, borrowing more from the silent titans than contemporary movie comedians. Francois probably talks in Jour de fête more than Hulot in any of the other films combined, his repeated exasperated declaration “That takes the cake” getting more silly each time it’s uttered.

An example of the look of the color film.

Yet, Tati also takes full advantage of the soundtrack. Audio effects are important throughout, such as the aforementioned scene in the post office, where every time Francois steps out of the room, we hear an even more outrageous sound cue, only for his coworkers to barely react. A scene early in the film, when the actions of a carny and a local girl sync up with an English-language western being shown in the fair’s cinema tent, is vintage Tati, combining human emotion with a modern device in a way that allows one to supersede the other--a glimmer of the sort of commentary that would eventually make Playtime [review] such a vital masterpiece. So, despite being less vivacious and funny than Tati’s next several films, Jour de fête is still a worthy precursor.

PIERRE ETAIX: THE SUITOR/RUPTURE - #655

I am not exactly sure why the NW Film Center programmed their Pierre Étaix retrospective in reverse, but it means my viewing of the director's oeuvre was kind of a backwards journey, retracing the footsteps of the star's artistic travels.

Étaix's first major feature was 1962's The Suitor, an intentionally Keaton-esque romantic comedy. Pierre plays Pierre, a stargazing dreamer whose parents demand he give up his cosmic charts and get married. The only problem is that Pierre is totally uneducated in the ways of love, and so The Suitor follows him as he bumbles from one scenario to another, attempting to pick up on women in the streets, going to nightclubs, and eventually becoming obsessed with a torch singer. The film's funniest sequence comes when Pierre sneaks backstage at one of her concerts and engages in all manner of slapstick stagecraft trying to find her and avoid being thrown out. Étaix's past as a live performer is placed front and center, with most of his routines echoing vaudeville and even dabbling a little in sleight-of-hand magic.

I won't spoil the punch line by revealing what happens with the singer, but suffice to say, most of Pierre's downfalls in The Suitor have less to do with his inexperience and more with his illusions about what women are like. He has certain misconceptions about how people come together, approaching his first potential dates with an almost scientific calculation. He collects evidence, and experiments with what he's found. His only truly successful pick-up itself backfires, as the woman in question turns out to be a loud, overbearing drunk. Laurence Lignéres makes for a great comedic partner for Étaix. His energy is perpetually turned inward, his confidence receding; Lignéres is constantly pushing outward. Indeed, she spends much of the movie chasing after her man. Her high-volume antics at the bar wouldn't be out of place in the party scene in Blake Edwards' Breakfast a Tiffany's [review]. It's surprising to see that the actress did very little work after The Suitor.

As in the rest of Étaix's movies, the humor in The Suitor is gentle. Pierre is a bit of a buffoon, but there is no cruelty in how we laugh at him. Part of this, again, is the sadness that is inherent in his situation. He's hopeless, but he's trying. To remind us that he is kind and capable of love, Étaix keeps bringing us back to the Swedish maid (Karin Vesely) that is staying with his family. If she'd have him, he would marry her. Our suspicion is that the only reason she doesn't accept the offer is the language barrier prevents her from understanding what he's asking. Our expectation, then, is that this scenario will circle on itself--an expectation that Étaix cleverly fulfills in The Suitor's closing shot.

Showing alongside The Suitor is the original short Étaix made the year prior, 1961's Rupture. It's largely a solo effort set inside a one-room apartment, predicting a similar sequence that would show up a few years later in As Long as You're Healthy [review]. In Rupture, Étaix plays a man who has just been jilted via letter. The comedy erupts out of his clumsy efforts trying to pen his reply to his former lover. You've never seen a man have so much trouble licking a stamp!

The Suitor plays today, April 20, at 2pm, and again on Monday, April 22, at 7pm, as part of the NW Film Center's Pierre Étaix retrospective. View the full schedule here.

PIERRE ETAIX: AS LONG AS YOU'RE HEALTHY/FEELING GOOD - #655

Pierre Étaix's 1966 (and 1971) film As Long as You're Healthy (also known as As Long as You've Got Your Health) is an anthology picture, featuring a quartet of lengthy skits showcasing the clown's penchant for visual gags and physical slapstick. On its original release in the mid-60s, the stories were threaded together by a unifying character--essentially, Pierre Étaix. In 1971, the director regained control of the movie, and he re-edited the feature to fit his original vision. One segment was cut, and another, his previously unfinished short subject "Insomnia," was added in its place.

As Long as You're Healthy is presented as pure entertainment, framed only by the conceit that we, as the audience, are watching it in our own theater--not unlike what Jean Renoir would do with his "petite cinema." The tales have no connectors except for cutting back to the theatrical façade. Each section is distinct, with only stylistic overflows. "Insomnia" leads and is the most different, not leastwise because it's in color while the other 3/4 of Healthy is black-and-white. It shows Étaix in bed, reading a vampire book to fall asleep. The movie goes in and out of his brain, showing the words he reads on the page coming to life as actual events, and features several excellent bits connecting Étaix's behavior in the real world to what is going on in his imagination.

The second piece is titled "The Cinema," and it stars Étaix as a moviegoer trying to find good seats in a crowded theater before the action leaps from the auditorium and onto the screen for an extended stream-of-conscious riff on advertising. The way Étaix moves through the showroom and how the camera roams the audience, zooming in on other comic characters and showing how they interact with their fellow moviegoers and the movie itself, brought to mind old Looney Tunes that used a similar set-up. Only here the observational humor is more grounded, playing on the common irritations that cinephiles endure in a multiplex when catching a film with folks who are less invested than they are. Truth be told, the laughs I got watching "The Cinema" were kind of cathartic.

From a possible cartoon influence to a more credible contemporary parallel, the title track, "As Long as You're Healthy," has shades of Tati's Playtime [review]. Étaix careens through Paris on an average day, making comedic hay out of many modern problems, like traffic jams, quack doctors, and overcrowded restaurants. The best sketch comes at the beginning, however. A punishing jackhammer rocks a neighborhood, disrupting lives with its noise and vibrations, all the way up to Étaix's apartment, where the helpless comedian is trying to keep all of his stuff from falling over and breaking. It's a wonderfully choreographed sequence. Every time Étaix moves one precious object, another crashes down in its place.

Finally, As Long as You're Healthy ends with "We're No Longer in the Woods," a triptych of wilderness travelers crossing paths and tripping over one another. Étaix plays a hunter out for the day. The other participants are a farmer building his fence and a city couple looking to picnic. Through a series of elaborate incidents, as each tries to go about his or her business, each action sets off a chain reaction that affects the others. How the affected parties react to the intrusion sets off another chain, etc.

As Long as You're Healthy is a perfect showcase for Étaix's humor. He and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière are at their best when exploiting the tunnel vision of the average man. There is nothing mean-spirited in how they cause their characters to bump into one another, and yet all the jokes arise out of individual foibles, from folks too caught up in their own pursuits to consider that they share the planet with others just like them. It's surprising, then, that the most impressive skit is the the closing piece of "The Cinema," when Étaix leaves everyday occurrences behind and goes into the invented world of advertising, parodying the all-in-one, all-purpose products that must have been gaining popularity in 1966. The orchestration of these routines is marvelous, with each gag butting into the next, exploding and imploding in tandem. Étaix ends up the hapless victim of his own campaign, always doing something wrong, putting the product to use in ways that exposes its flaws, and then having to cover lest he also expose the gullibility of his friends.

Presented alongside As Long as You're Healthy is the short film Feeling Good. This is actually the original portion of the main feature that Étaix cut when he reassembled the picture. Judging by the content, my guess is that it somehow connected the city stories of "Healthy" and "Cinema" by moving the star outdoors for "Woods." Feeling Good begins with a Buster Keaton-like morning routine where the camping Étaix stumbles and bumbles his way through making breakfast, before taking us to a nearby campground full of oddballs and nutcases. Étaix links each tent together by having his character walk through the camp and observing his fellow campers in action, before he finally finds his way out through the other side, tunneling like Bugs Bunny on his way to destinations unknown.

As Long as You're Healthy plays today, April 14, at 5pm, as part of the NW Film Center's Pierre Étaix retrospective. View the full schedule here.

SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 3/13

The non-Criterion movies I saw last month...

IN THEATRES...

* Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine's hotly debated, inconsistent subversion of Girls Gone Wild and thug life.

* Stoker, the weird, creepy, baffling English-language debut from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook.

* The We and the I, Michel Gondry's social experiment following a group of Bronx high schoolers on their bus ride home.

My Oregonian columns:

* March 7: featuring Tess, Roman Polanski's adaptation of Thomas Hardy; a climate change documentary called Greedy Lying Bastards; and an absolute waste-of-time horror anthology entitled The ABCs of Death.

* March 14: the documentaries A Place at the Table, about food distribution and poverty, and Turning, featuring a special performance piece by Antony & the Johnsons. Plus, Yossi, a sequel to the Israeli gay-themed love story Yossi & Jagger, picking up ten years after the events in the first film.

* March 21: horror-based documentary My Amityville Horror and war drama The Kill Hole. (Worst title of the year?)

* March 29: the poker documentary Drawing Dead, an indie "trapped in a car" thriller called Detour, and the Faux Film Festival.

ON BD/DVD...

* China Heavyweight, a documentary following three Chinese boxers on their way up and maybe on their way down.

* College: Ultimate Edition, the latest Buster Keaton reissue is predictably hilarious.

* Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, a documentary about the legendary fashion editor, whose career spanned half a century.

* Diary of a Chambermaid, the Jean Renoir adaptation from 1946, almost twenty years before Luis Bunuel.

* For Ellen, the third film from So Yong Kim is as emotionally wrought as her others, but lacking certain connections. Starring Paul Dano.

* The Great Magician, a recent period piece set in 1930s China, with Tony Leung as an illusionist. The movie wants to be old-style entertainment, but it's not much fun.

* Killing Them Softly, Andrew Dominik's crime film was my second favorite movie of 2012, and it's even better the second time. Starring Brad Pitt.

* On Approval, a witty British comedy from 1944, directed by and starring Clive Brook.

* The Song of Bernadette, a dismal religious picture from the 1940s, starring Jennifer Jones as the girl who sees visions.

* Strangers in the Night, a middling early career melodrama from Anthony Mann.

* This is Not a Film, the lauded political documentary from Iran turns out to be much ado about nothing.

SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 12/11

A round-up of the non-Criterion movies I saw in December.

IN THEATRES...


* The Adventures of Tintin, a surprisingly fun 3D adventure from Steven Spielberg with all the appropriate nods to Hergé.

* The Artist, a loving and entirely accurate tribute to the silent era of cinema.

* A Dangerous Method, Jung and Freud meet David Cronenberg.

* Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, is an absolute corker. Brad Bird delivers the best in the series.

* We Bought a Zoo, an effective new feature from Cameron Crowe...but is it any good?

ON DVD/BD...

* The Art of Getting By, a predictable but solid Young Adult story, with fine performances by Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore.

* Behind the Mask, a mid-40s misfire that attempts to turn the popular Shadow radio serials into...light comedy?!

* The Birth of a Nation: Deluxe 3-Disc Edition, D.W. Griffith's historically inaccurate epic is an important piece of cinema, but that doesn't stop it from being racist and boring.

* Crime Story: The Complete Series, the Michael Mann police drama set in the 1960s but made in the 1980s.

* A Farewell to Arms, Frank Borzage's masterfully melodramatic adaptation of Ernest Hemingway.

* Friends with Benefits, not even Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis can make this sex comedy misfire come off as either sexy or funny.

* Incident in an Alley, a middling early 1960s crime film based on a Rod Serling short story.

* Nothing Sacred, a slight bit of entertainment from 1937, directed by William Wellmen and starring Carole Lombard and Frederic March.

* Seven Chances, an hilarious Buster Keaton short where the great comedian plays a man in desperate need of a wife.