In This Issue:

February 2010

What's New on DVD

A Walk in the Sun (1945)

Drama/War/Westerns. Intense/Moving.
Black & White. 117 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Lewis Milestone. Starring Dana Andrews and Richard Conte.
Scripted by Robert Rossen from a novel by Harry Brown, "Sun" follows an American troop on their march to a rustic Nazi hideaway outside Salerno (their motto: "Nobody dies"), with each of the G.I.'s ... Read More >
 

District 9 (2009)

Action/Adventure/Horror/Science Fiction. Fast-paced/Spine-tingling.
Color. 112 mins. Rated R. Directed By Neil Blomkamp. Starring Sharlto Copley and Nathalie Boltt.
Even with state-of-the-art special effects creating a most convincing race of aliens, Neil Blomkamp's disarming new science fiction feature succeeds first and foremost on the fundamentals of story ... Read More >
 

Downhill Racer (1969)

Action/Adventure/Drama. Brainy/Scenic/Spine-tingling.
Color. 101 mins. Rated PG. Directed By Michael Ritchie. Starring Robert Redford and Gene Hackman.
Michael Ritchie's underrated debut film finally gets a first-rate DVD release from the Criterion Collection, and not a moment too soon. "Racer" holds up beautifully, thanks to a script that dispenses ... Read More >
 

Il Divo (2008)

Drama/Foreign. Fast-paced/Offbeat/Witty.
Color. 110 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Paolo Sorrentino. Starring Tony Servillo and Anna Bonaiuto.
The furthest thing from a respectful, politically correct biopic, Sorrentino's kinetically edited, go-for-broke, almost operatic feat of visual imagination and historical reconstruction takes a slyly ... Read More >
 

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Drama/Foreign. Brainy/Offbeat/Scenic.
Black & White. 94 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Alain Resnais. Starring Giorgio Albertazzi and Delphine Seyrig.
A luxuriantly stylish, almost uncannily hypnotic drama, Resnais's groundbreaking "Marienbad" (written by novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet) plays a kind of cinematic game with the viewer, loading ... Read More >
 

O'Horten (2008)

Comedy/Drama/Foreign. Offbeat/Scenic/Witty.
Color. 90 mins. Rated PG-13. Directed By Bent Hamer. Starring Baard Owe and Espen Skjonberg.
Bent Hamer's wonderfully droll "O'Horten" tracks the unusual nighttime adventures of a mild-mannered train conductor coming to terms with the banality of his existence. He visits his mother in an ... Read More >
 

Sita Sings the Blues (2009)

Musicals. Offbeat/Scenic/Tuneful.
Animated. 82 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Nina Paley. Starring Annette Hanshaw.
Combining the Betty Boop-ish Jazz Age vocal stylings of Annette Hanshaw (via 78RPM phonograph records) with classical Indian mythology, literary interpretation, autobiography (the director's own ... Read More >
 

The Exiles (1961)

Documentary/Drama. Brainy/Intense/Offbeat.
Black & White. 72 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Kent Mackenzie. Starring Homer Nish and Yvonne Williams.
This no-nonsense, starkly realistic film by Kent Mackenzie debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 1961 to great acclaim, then mysteriously vanished into obscurity, until a recent DVD reissue put it ... Read More >
 

Trumbo (2007)

Documentary. Brainy/Moving.
Color. 95 mins. Rated PG-13. Directed By Peter Askin. Starring Michael Douglas, Donald Sutherland and Joan Allen.
Based on a play by son Christopher Trumbo, this riveting, often touching film portrays the steep and very public price one man paid for his principles. The gifted writer would spend over a decade in ... Read More >
 

Une Femme Mariee (1964)

Drama/Foreign/Romance. Brainy/Offbeat/Witty.
Black & White. 96 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Jean-Luc Godard. Starring Philippe Leroy, Bernard Noel and Macha Meril.
Like a series of cut-up Polaroids stitched together into an episodic film, Godard's visually adventurous frolic is divided into mini-vignettes, chapters, and lovely documentary digressions (the ... Read More >
 

Theme of the Month: Mardi Gras!

February 16th marks Mardi Gras, (French for "Fat Tuesday") in New Orleans. Costumes, masks, parades and plenty of alcohol fuel this centuries old carnival which has its roots in ancient Rome. Early Christian Church fathers after the Reformation, recognized that their new pagan converts couldn't completely transform overnight, so they permitted observance of the traditional, circus festival "Lupercalia". This celebration honored the gods associated with Faunus or the Satyr - a wild, unruly bunch. Feasting, drinking, and abandoning themselves to all forms of pleasure, Romans reveled for days before they succumbed to tamer Christian ways on Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of Lent and forty days of penitence.
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This February, Mardi Gras and the New Orleans Saints playing in the Super Bowl give us more than a few reasons to revel. Here are a few outstanding movies to jumpstart that celebration honoring New Orleans, its past and its ever-present spirit.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Cornerstone Titles/Drama. Intense.
Black & White. 122 mins. Rated PG. Directed By Elia Kazan. Starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh.
Brando's force-of-nature performance in Kazan's "Streetcar" - an electrifying mix of brute physicality and smoldering sexuality - made Stanley Kowalski's infamous bellow a permanent part of pop ... Read More >
 

Dead Man Walking (1995)

Drama. Intense/Spine-tingling.
Color. 122 mins. Rated R. Directed By Tim Robbins. Starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.
Adapted from Sister Helen Prejean's non-fiction book by actor/director Tim Robbins, "Dead Man Walking" is an intense, harrowing account of one woman's dogged attempt to assure spiritual (if not ... Read More >
 

Down by Law (1986)

Comedy. Farr-cical/Offbeat/Witty.
Black & White. 107 mins. Rated R. Directed By Jim Jarmusch. Starring Tom Waits and John Lurie.
An oddball road movie with three of the quirkiest characters you're likely to encounter, "Law" is a hilariously deadpan portrayal of hipster cool on the skids. Waits is perfectly cast as ... Read More >
 

Jezebel (1938)

Drama/Romance. Moving.
Black & White. 103 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By William Wyler. Starring Henry Fonda and Bette Davis.
"Jezebel" was Davis's consolation prize for not landing the part of Scarlett O'Hara. Inevitably compared to "Gone With the Wind" (released one year later), this lavish ... Read More >
 

Panic in the Streets (1950)

Action/Adventure. Intense/Fast-paced.
Color. 96 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Elia Kazan. Starring Jack Palance, Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas and Barbara Bel Geddes.
Breathlessly exciting film is one of the best manhunt pictures ever made, with the plague twist adding an extra jolt of tension. Kazan's peerless on-location shooting never obscures the terrific ... Read More >
 

When The Levees Broke (2006)

Documentary. Intense/Moving.
Color. 256 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Spike Lee.
Originally aired on HBO, Lee's marathon "Requiem in
Four Acts" covers in grim, engrossing detail the storm, the surge
over the levees and resultant flood, the looting, the mass ... Read More >
 

Spotlight

• It's finally here!! Kalmbach Publishing has just released "The 100 Greatest Train Movies" ranked and reviewed by John. To order your copy please visit Trains Magazine.

• Sunday, Feb. 7th – John hosts a screening of "Ball of Fire" at the Union Club in New York City.

• Tuesday, Feb. 9th – Best Movies by Farr and A Girls Guide to Paris host a complimentary wine tasting and movie, "Le Diner de Cons" (The Dinner Game) at 6:00 at the Avon Theatre in Stamford, CT. Admission is free for those who sign up for our newsletters – that means all of you!
R.S.V.P. to john@bestmoviesbyfarr.com or doni@girlsguidetoparis.com

• Saturday, Feb. 27th – John hosts a screening of
"The Thomas Crown Affair" at Myopia Hunt Club, site of the movie's famous polo match.

• It's Oscars Night at the Avon! On Sunday, March 7th, 7:30 p.m., come join host John Farr at the Avon Theatre in Stamford for a live simulcast of the Oscars. Call or email the Avon Theatre for details (lgreene@avontheatre.org) (203) 661-0321.