In This Issue:

March 2009

What's New on DVD

Back to the Future (1985)

Action/Adventure/Comedy/Family/Horror/Science Fiction. Farr-cical/Fast-paced/Wholesome.
Color. 117 mins. Rated PG. Directed By Robert Zemeckis. Starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson.
Robert Zemeckis put a hip '80s spin on the old time-travel conundrum about how to avoid negative future outcomes, stuffing his movie with clever plot twists, lots of anachronistic humor, and a sweet ... Read More >
 

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 >
 

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 >
 

Encounters at the End of the World (2007)

Documentary. Brainy/Offbeat/Scenic.
Color. 101 mins. Rated G. Directed By Werner Herzog.
If you're familiar with Herzog's work ("Grizzly Man," "Fitzcarraldo"), then you know he likes oddballs, deviants, and putting himself at extremes. In this superlative doc, Herzog finds characters ... 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 on Wire (2008)

Documentary/Mystery/Suspense. Offbeat/Spine-tingling/Witty.
Color. 94 mins. Rated PG-13. Directed By James Marsh.
Drawing on the conventions of the heist genre, James Marsh's exquisite "Man on Wire" is both a tale of gripping suspense—explaining how, exactly, a shady crew of conspirators penetrated security ... 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 >
 

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 >
 

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: The Ides of March

While the Ides of March in Roman times was a festive day with parades honoring the god Mars, it is better known as the day Julius Caesar was assassinated. This month we step back from that grim history and show you the best of Rome with movies that capture its history, beauty and romance.

Accattone (1968)

Foreign Language/Drama. Moving/Intense.
Black & White. 116 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Pier Paolo Pasolini. Starring Franco Citti and Franca Pasut.
An illustrious poet and novelist before he turned to filmmaking, Pasolini has always been interested in the urban "peasants" of Italy, whose everyday lives he felt still had a mythic, noble quality ... Read More >
 

Ben Hur (1959)

Action/Adventure. Intense/Fast-paced.
Color. 222 mins. Rated G. Directed By William Wyler. Starring Charlton Heston and Jack Hawkins.
One of MGM's finest widescreen spectacles, involving thousands of extras, over 300 sets (including a life-size replica of a Roman hippodrome) and a cadre of stunt coordinators, this massive ... Read More >
 

Contempt (1964)

Drama/Foreign Language/Romance. Brainy/Scenic/Offbeat.
Color. 103 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Jean-Luc Godard. Starring Michel Piccoli and Brigitte Bardot.
In the hands of New Wave master Godard, this brilliant, piercing film about alienation and the end of a marriage is also quite overtly about the cinema itself - especially the role of art in relation ... Read More >
 

Julius Caesar (1951)

Drama. Intense.
Black & White. 121 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Starring James Mason and Marlon Brando.
Mankiewicz's quintessential, star-studded adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy is a lavish, Oscar-winning production. Gielgud, Mason, O'Brien, Greer Garson, and Deborah Kerr all shine in ... Read More >
 

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Drama. Offbeat/Scenic.
Black & White. 167 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Federico Fellini. Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg and Anouk Aimee.
Daring for its time, Fellini's Oscar-nominated "Vita" is remembered best for the zaftig Anita Ekberg's swim in the Trevi Fountain and for the very first shot in the film, of a statue of Jesus being ... Read More >
 

Mamma Roma (1962)

Drama/Foreign Language. Moving/Intense.
Black & White. 110 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Pier Paolo Pasolini. Starring Ettore Garofalo and Anna Magnani.
In his first feature film, Pasolini uses a neorealist aesthetic to critique petit-bourgeois mores, training his sights on a poor outcast who strives and fails to become a respectable member of ... Read More >
 

Nights of Cabiria (1957)

Foreign Language/Drama. Moving.
Black & White. 118 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Federico Fellini. Starring Francois Perier and Giulietta Masina.
In this bittersweet, poignant early feature from Italian maestro Fellini, Giulietta Masina (who was married to the director) brings off another demanding role with finesse and charm. Her Cabiria is a ... Read More >
 

Roman Holiday (1953)

Family/Romance. Moving/Scenic/Wholesome/Witty.
Black & White. 118 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By William Wyler. Starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.
Off-screen, Peck was so convinced Hepburn would be a huge star that he confronted director William Wyler, insisting she share top billing with him. An extremely generous and unusual gesture, it also ... Read More >
 

Spartacus (1960)

Action/Adventure. Scenic/Fast-paced.
Color. 196 mins. Rated PG-13. Directed By Stanley Kubrick. Starring Kirk Douglas, Charles Laughton, Laurence Olivier and Jean Simmons.
This rousing epic was disowned by Kubrick after a contentious, difficult production, but "Spartacus" still offers grand-scale entertainment, thanks to bold, sure-handed direction and a powerhouse ... Read More >
 

The Conformist (1970)

Drama/Mystery/Suspense/Foreign Language. Brainy/Scenic/Spine-tingling.
Color. 115 mins. Rated R. Directed By Bernardo Bertolucci. Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Stefania Sandrelli.
Based on a novel by Alberto Moravia, Bertolucci's provocative, dramatic thriller explores the twisted psychology of Mussolini-era Fascism and its eventual demise as played out in the assassination ... Read More >
 

Umberto D. (1955)

Drama/Foreign Language. Moving.
Black & White. 89 mins. Rated Unrated. Directed By Vittorio De Sica. Starring Carlo Battisti and Maria-Pia Casilio.
Portraying the plight of the elderly dispossessed in an acknowledged masterpiece of the neorealist style, De Sica's "Umberto D." may surpass his own "Bicycle Thief" for heartbreaking poignancy. What ... Read More >
 

Spotlight

• On February 22nd, John and Olivia Farr received the Avon Award for their contribution in co-founding the Avon Theatre Film Center in downtown Stamford, CT. The Avon Gala on Oscars night celebrated the 70 year history of the theatre and also the films made in 1939. See The Greenwich Time and YouTube

• March 8th, John introduces "It Happened One Night," at a private club in New York City.

• March 11th, John will introduce the documentary, "Garrison Keillor: The Man On the Radio in the Red Shoes," at the Avon Theatre and lead a Q & A with the film's producer and director, Peter Rosen. The Avon Theatre

• March 19th – John will introduce and moderate a discussion of "Midnight", a 1939 Depression-era film at a private club in New York City.