In This Issue:

February 2009

What's New on DVD

Bomb It (2008)

Documentary. Offbeat/Scenic.
Color. 93 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Jonathan Reiss.
Most of us have seen the brightly colored "wildstyle" spray-can wall paintings that blanket ghetto neighborhoods. Reiss speaks with old-school originators like Cornbread and Taki 183 about this ... Read More >
 

Chop Shop (2007)

Drama. Intense/Moving.
Color. 84 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Rahmin Bahrani. Starring Alejandro Polanco and Isamar Gonzales.
For this neo-realist urban drama, a follow-up to the acclaimed "Man Push Cart," Ramin Bahrani enlisted local and nonprofessional actors to enact a heart-rending story about poverty, ... Read More >
 

Death of a Cyclist (1955)

Drama/Foreign/Mystery/Suspense. Brainy/Intense/Spine-tingling.
Black & White. 87 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Juan Antonio Bardem. Starring Alberto Closas and Lucia Bose.
Although it owes a debt to Hitchcock and American pulp fiction, Bardem's elegant, noirish thriller is a poison dart aimed at the double scourge of class privilege and social hypocrisy in Franco's ... Read More >
 

Europa (1991)

Drama/Foreign/Mystery/Suspense. Offbeat/Spine-tingling.
Black & White. 106 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Lars Von Trier. Starring Jean-Marc Barr, Max Von Sydow and Barbara Sukowa.
Narrated by Max Von Sydow, Lars Von Trier's early surrealistic political thriller looks and feels every bit as distinctive as a David Lynch period film. Combining some unusually effective special ... Read More >
 

Man of the West (1958)

War/Westerns. Scenic/Spine-tingling.
Color. 100 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Anthony Mann. Starring Gary Cooper and Julie London.
Cooper is at his grizzled, laconic best in "West," a tense Western about family ties, betrayal, and the effort of a one-time criminal to reform his murderous habits. London's turn as a saloon floozy ... Read More >
 

Overlord (1975)

War/Westerns. Intense/Moving.
Black & White. 84 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Stuart Cooper. Starring Brian Stirner and Davyd Harries.
Influenced by the real-life journals of young soldiers as well as Robert Capa's war photography, Stuart Cooper's hypnotic WWII film brilliantly weaves archival footage from the Imperial War Museum ... Read More >
 

Sabrina (1954)

Comedy/Romance. Moving/Witty.
Black & White. 112 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Billy Wilder. Starring Humphrey Bogart, William Holden and Audrey Hepburn.
This new Centennial edition features a remastered print of the classic film. Perfectly suited to high-brow romantic comedies, Hepburn blossoms before our eyes as the world's most cultivated ... Read More >
 

Still Life (2006)

Drama/Foreign. Moving/Scenic.
Color. 108 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Jia Zhangke. Starring Han Sanming and Zhao Tao.
Jia Zhangke has made social and technological progress in China the theme of his extraordinary movies, and the haunting "Still Life" examines the massive currents of change sweeping through his ... Read More >
 

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Drama. Offbeat/Spine-tingling.
Black & White. 110 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Billy Wilder. Starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson.
Recently remastered by Paramount, Sunset Boulevard is finally getting its due. One of the all-time great Tinseltown satires, this noirish tale of an opportunistic, down-and-out young writer and the ... Read More >
 

The Ballad of Narayama (1983)

Drama/Foreign. Intense/Moving/Scenic.
Color. 130 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Shohei Imamura. Starring Ken Ogata and Sumiko Sakamoto.
Imamura's retelling of this feudal fable, based on a Japanese novel, spares nothing in the way of brutal realities or the forbidding environment in which his characters (a family of five) scrape for ... Read More >
 

Trafic (1971)

Comedy/Foreign. Farr-cical/Offbeat.
Color. 91 mins. Rated G. Directed By Jacques Tati. Starring Jacques Tati, Marcel Fravel and Maria Kimberly.
Coming on the heels of his brilliant "Playtime," Tati's trans-European road farce pokes fun at the absurdity of car culture through the dunderheaded odyssey of M. Hulot, Tati's perennially naïve, ... Read More >
 

White Mane (1952)

Family/Foreign. Moving/Scenic/Wholesome.
Black & White. 40 mins. Rated G. Directed By Albert Lamorisse. Starring Alain Emery.
Lamorisse is best remembered for his timeless children's classic, "The Red Balloon." But he won a Cannes jury prize—his first—for this affecting tale of a young boy and the gallant mustang he ... Read More >
 

Theme of the Month: Presidential Movies

In observance of Presidents Day and the new administration in Washington, we focus this month on our Commanders-in-Chief. The Presidency is a lonely job, where the lives and welfare of millions ultimately fall on the shoulders of one mortal, and you have the most giant and fascinating of paradoxes. And the stuff of great movies. The best films about the Presidency effectively explore these public and private flip-sides of the office, and whether intended to scare or amuse us, put us on the inside of the highest-stakes game we know.

All the President's Men (1976)

Mystery/Suspense. Fast-paced/Spine-tingling.
Color. 139 mins. Rated PG. Directed By Alan J. Pakula. Starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.
Although you never glimpse anyone playing Nixon, this Oscar-nominated film documents how the power of the press and determination of two young journalists brought down this president, who two years ... Read More >
 

Dick (1999)

Comedy. Farr-cical/Offbeat.
Color. 94 mins. Rated PG-13. Directed By Andrew Fleming. Starring Will Ferrell, Dan Hedaya, Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams.
... Read More >
 

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Cornerstone Titles/Comedy/Family. Farr-cical/Offbeat.
Black & White. 93 mins. Rated PG. Directed By Stanley Kubrick. Starring George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers.
The most inspired piece of Cold War satire ever and one of the screen's supreme black comedies, Kubrick's 1964 "Strangelove" confronted jittery audiences in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, ... Read More >
 

Fail-Safe (1964)

Mystery/Suspense. Intense/Spine-tingling.
Black & White. 111 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Sidney Lumet. Starring Walter Matthau and Henry Fonda.
Of all the edgy doomsday thrillers that have unnerved us since the 1960s, my favorite is Sidney Lumet's chilling "Fail-Safe." Throughout the film, set in the control room of Strategic Air Command, ... Read More >
 

Seven Days in May (1964)

Mystery/Suspense. Intense/Spine-tingling.
Black & White. 117 mins. Rated PG-13. Directed By John Frankenheimer. Starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Ava Gardner.
Two years after "The Manchurian Candidate," director Frankenheimer scored again with this gripping political thriller. Beyond serving as a showcase for two frequently paired stars - Lancaster as a ... Read More >
 

The Contender (2000)

Drama. Moving/Intense.
Color. 127 mins. Rated R. Directed By Rod Lurie. Starring Jeff Bridges, Gary Oldman and Joan Allen.
A gripping political drama that appeared in the aftermath of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, Lurie's "The Contender" sheds serious light on the presidency and our political process. A star-making ... Read More >
 

The Missiles of October (1974)

Drama. Intense.
Color. 150 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Anthony Page. Starring Martin Sheen and William Devane.
Interspersed with newsreel footage to heighten its gripping realism, Page's riveting and groundbreaking made-for-TV docudrama reaches for "you-are-there" verisimilitude in its depiction of the ... Read More >
 

The Parallax View (1974)

Mystery/Suspense. Spine-tingling/Brainy.
Color. 102 mins. Rated R. Directed By Alan J. Pakula. Starring Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn and Paula Prentiss.
One of our top political paranoia thrillers, director Pakula uses this story to stir up close-to-the-surface fears and doubts about hidden machinations deeply embedded in our country's recent past. ... Read More >
 

TR: The Story of Teddy Roosevelt (2006)

Documentary. Brainy.
Black & White. 225 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By David Grubin. Starring David McCullough and Jason Robards.
Part of PBS's estimable American Experience series, and narrated by the late Jason Robards, "TR" is the fullest portrait yet of the rough-riding, Nobel Prize-winning commander-in-chief. We get a ... Read More >
 

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

Drama. Brainy/Moving.
Black & White. 100 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By John Ford. Starring Henry Fonda and Alice Brady.
Based on the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Lamar Trotti, and unspooling with the simplicity of a frontier parable, "Lincoln" teamed Fonda with Ford for the first time, resulting in an ... Read More >
 

Spotlight

• February 8th – John screens "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" at a private club in New York.

• February 9th – John introduces "Driving Miss Daisy" at a private club in New York.

• February 12th – John screens "My Man Godfrey for a private club in New York.