A self-involved pop singer (Corrine Marchand) walks the streets of Paris in an all-consuming anticipation of her biopsy results during the afternoon hours of the title. Agnes Varda's New Wave near real-time work is smooth, free flowing, and crisply and beautifully shot, while a little light in plot though not substance. Marchand is a unique and glamorous presence.

*** 1/2 out of ****

A fallen ronin (Tatsuya Nakadai) who has lost everything, namely master, livelihood, and family, arrives at a lord's residence in order to commit seppuku, a ritual form of suicide. In an attempt to deter his actions, he is told of another recent samurai who made a similar request and was forced to carry out his demand, as he was suspected of attempting to fleece the manor by being turned away with riches. Instead, the noble ronin at the castle's doorstep has a more damning revelation about his relationship to the pitiable young man. Kobayashi's Harakiri is vivid, violent, and harsh, with an aim for calling out hypocrisy yet exists largely for generating empathy and is always utterly compelling, unfolding in a serpentine and novelistic fashion. Nakadai is excellent as the principled and vengeful warrior.

**** out of ****

After a series of often drunken encounters with old friends, mentors, and subordinates, a middle-aged businessman (Chishu Ryu) decides he should marry off his daughter (Shima Iwashita) rather than selfishly letting her take care of him and become an old maid in the process. Ozu's final film, made with the same delicate touch and mise-en-scene that predominated the rest of his body of work, is both moving and bittersweet while at the same time lighthearted and humorous. Longtime Ozu collaborator Ryu is wonderful in the lead.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Tales of Terror and The Raven were two in a succession of early 60s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations by Roger Corman, both of which featured Vincent Price (which was par for the course for most of these other collaborations). Tales of Terror is a well-crafted, generally excellent, and often very funny presentation of three short stories (Morella, The Black Cat, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar) as concocted by Richard Matheson. Peter Lorre is hilarious, Basil Rathbone is very effective, and Price is great in all three shorts. The Raven is a goofy fabrication presented as straightforward comedy and using the famed poem only really as a springboard. The picture runs out of steam, but still is rather riotous with Boris Karloff and again Lorre and Price all a hoot.

Tales of Terror: *** 1/2 out of ****

The Raven: *** out of ****

Convicted murderer and career criminal Robert Straud (Burt Lancaster), all but given up on life, continually broods clashes with the rigid warden (Karl Malden) from his cell at Leavenworth Penitentiary until the day he rescues a downed sparrow from the yard thus beginning an unimaginable and unmatched career in studying birds. In spite of some expected cliches, John Frankenheimer's prison expertly shot prison success story biopic is surprisingly offbeat, but unravels in the finale with an unsatisfying emotional and action culmination. Lancaster offers a typically noble, stoic, and powerful though not always convincing performance and the film is marred by unnecessary, godawful narration.

*** out of ****

The Keller family, totally unequipped to handle their increasingly frustrated deaf/blind daughter Helen (Patty Duke), calls on a noted New England school for the blind. In response, they receive Anne Sullivan (Anne Bancroft), a resolute former student whose unorthodox and uncompromising methods help to break the communication barrier and ultimately bring drastic changes to those in Helen's condition. Directed by Arthur Penn, from a screenplay by William Gibson adapted from his own play, is not opened up particularly well for the screen, feeling more like an episode of American Playhouse, although some interesting ideas are attempted to ease the translation of the action. Worthwhile to see the great, unusual, offbeat physical acting from Bancroft and Duke, who also starred on Broadway in Gibson's play.

*** 1/2 out ****

Humbert Humbert, a British gentleman and emigree haunted by a lost childhood sweetheart, falls in love with his landlady's precocious pre-adolescent daughter and dreams of a future with the two of them together. When Vladimir Nabokov's not only highly controversial but literate, layered, and thought to be unfilmable novel was billed to the public as a film adaptation in 1962, it came with the tagline "How did they ever make a movie out of Lolita?" And yet it was remade again 35 years later, though under much more relaxed censoring conditions. Stanley Kubrick's initial version (with a script credited solely to Nabokov) is pristinely filmed in black and white, with James Mason as Humbert and Peter Sellers (whose role in the book as the chameleon like, and equally lecherous Quigley got an upgrade in the movie) both extraordinary. However, the film's ending is soapy and offers too many explanations. Adrian Lyne's 1997 remake is probably (after hesitating to say and again given the times) the superior film version. Although, in contrast, the film is too explicit, it cuts closer to the essence of Nabokov's novel, contains pristine cinematography, and features an ideal Humbert in Jeremy Irons.

1962 version: *** 1/2 out of ****

1997 version: *** 1/2 out of ****

A coma prone Englishman (Ray Milland) with a pathological fear of being buried alive goes to extreme measures to prevent his greatest nightmare from coming to fruition. Premature Burial, Roger Corman's third adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe work, offers an inventive screenplay (considering Poe's story was more of an informative on catalepsy) whose collaborators including Twilight Zone veteran Charles Beaumont. In addition, the film boasts wonderful set design which includes a memorable tour through a "survival" crypt. Milland's performance is enjoyable, especially when he atypically ranges out in the heightened conclusion.
*** out of ****

Told in twelve varied, discontinuous episodes, Vivre Sa Vie tells the tragic story of a young Parisian woman who leaves her husband with aspirations of becoming an actress, but winds up a prostitute. Jean Luc-Godard’s New Wave staple is fresh and well-realized with then wife and favorite collaborator Anna Karina lovely in the lead role. Details of the protagonist’s professional life are frank and shocking which are blended with other lighter, more poignant moments offering a unique cinematic experience all told through Raoul Coutard’s tremendous black and white photography.

*** 1/2 out of ****

Joseph K. (Anthony Perkins), an significant pencil pusher, is arrested at his flat for an unspecified crime. As he fights the system through layers upon layers of red tape in an exercise of sheer futility, while encountering increasingly bizarre scenarios and characters, his ordeal sharply turns from farcical to tragic. Kafka's vivid and uncompleted novel gets lost in Orson Welles' spectacular visuals and bemused, lackadaisical, and occasionally confounding storytelling. Perkins is impressive in a perfectly cast role.

** 1/2 out of ****

The dysfunctional Tyrone family, consisting of a penny pinching, alcoholic father (Ralph Richardson), a morphine addicted, unstable mother (Katharine Hepburn), an angry, bitter, and also alcoholic older brother (Jason Robards), and a fragile, tubercular younger brother (Dean Stockwell), gather for a summer afternoon at their Connecticut ocean home as festering resentments and blame come swelling to the service. Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical play is both challenging and somewhat redundant but is opened up for the screen quite well by Sidney Lumet who gives it a thorough and unabridged treatment and presents a cast that is roundly excellent.

*** 1/2 out of ****

A sociable Frenchman (Henri Serre) and his brooding German best friend (Oskar Werner) alternately (and civilly) romance a beautiful, free spirited woman (Jeanne Moreau) in the years bookending the First World War. With its amazing, quick-cutting photography and fast paced, catch as catch can narrative, Francois Truffaut's much beloved Jules and Jim is as breezy as its characters in this affable and very, very French film.

In 1959 Francois Truffaut, along with other members of the French New Wave, shook the world when he introduced the character of Antoine Doinel, a class clown quickly graduating to juvenile delinquency with disinterested parents and an affection for Balzac, in his masterful and intensely personal The 400 Blows. Played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, whose earnestness won over his director during the casting process, would return to the character with Truffaut five times over the course of twenty years in a series of films that turned away almost entirely from the inward emotiveness of the debut to a more lightly comic but still mostly masterful touch. 

As part of the 1962 anthology Love at Twenty, Antoine and Colette was the first followup and shows Antoine surprisingly on his own as a young man and attempting to woo a young woman whose feelings aren't exactly reciprocated. The film is observant and an excellent example of short form storytelling.

After a six year hiatus, Truffaut and Leaud returned to Doinel with Stolen Kisses, a light, disarming, and insightful picture showing their hero discharged from the military, job hopping, and taking up with an ex-girlfriend.

1970 saw the release of Bed & Board which was a little more dense and mostly focused on the story's comic highs. Here, Doinel finds himself married with a child on the way but still manages to entangled himself in an affair with a Japanese client.

Love on the Run concluded the series five years before Truffaut's death in 1984, although he claimed it was the final installment. Its story shows Antoine's marriage still intact although he continues to seek extramarital company elsewhere. The film imposes a flashback structure composed of clips from the other films which doesn't really work, but the new material is presented in the same vein as the others and is generally entertaining.

Adapted for the screen twice from John D. MacDonald's novel The Executioners, Cape Fear tells the story of a convicted rapist being released after a lengthy prison term who makes it his life's mission to track down the attorney who sent him up the river (in the earlier version in was a witness who testified against him, the latter his own counsel who withheld evidence) and make his life a living hell. J. Lee Thompson directed the 1962 film which is surprisingly gritty for its time and most notable for Robert Mitchum's terrifyingly believable yet naturalistic performance (it made me wonder how close this role was to his actual persona) as the vile Max Cady. Gregory Peck is strong in the opposing role, but the character is always in the right and pretty uninteresting as a result, as are the female characters who are played by absolutely horrendous actresses. Martin Scorsese's 1991 remake serves as an improvement in almost every way: the heightened direction, photography, a screenplay involving new dynamics concerning the family, and fine performances by Nick Nolte (who takes over the Peck role), Jessica Lange, and Juliette Lewis. However, Robert De Niro as Cady is so over the top and the film ultimately turns relentessly unpleasant.

A woman (Monica Vitti) leaves her older lover (Francisco Rabal) to embark on a meaningless affair with a suave and vapid stockbroker (Alain Delon). L'eclisse completes Michelangelo Antonioni's three part treatise on modern emptiness and despondency and contains much of the turgidity of La Notte, its direct predecessor, but still has much more to work with, mainly with the beautiful Vitti, who returns following L'Avventura, and does such an excellent job emoting those feelings of alienation. Further, like most of Antonioni's films, this one has a superb ending.

A 12 year old kid, spurned by the murder of his family, assists his fellow Russians fighting off the invading Germans, as he stealthily moves amid the dismal swamps they are defending. Based on a true WWII story, My Name is Ivan (aka Ivan's Childhood) was Andrei Tarkovsky's debut film and like much of his other work it features great imagery and camerawork but is also awfully dense and occasionally dull, although the ending is a knockout.

Following a thorough beating in the ring (administered by a then named Cassius Clay), doctors, a loyal trainer (Mickey Rooney), and a kindly social worker (Julie Harris) try to convince a feeble-minded, brute (Anthony Quinn) that his boxing career is over. However his manipulative, disreputable manager concocts a humiliating plan to keep him in the ring in order to pay off his gambling debts. "Requiem for a Heavyweight" is a doleful and well drawn film from Rod Serling, who adapted his own teleplay (which originally featured Jack Palance), which is as dark and ironic as any of his "Twilight Zone" episodes. Quinn is excellent, although his character makes Rocky Balboa seem like an elocutionist and he receives fine support from veterans Rooney and Gleason. In addition to the cameo by Muhammad Ali, Jack Dempsey also appears in a notable cameo.

A troubled British youth (Tom Courtenay) from a low-income family with a terminally sick father at home finds solace in his lengthy runs. When he is sent to a reformatory following his participation in a petty robbery, he is quickly placed on a pedestal by the warden for his considerable athletic skilled, and charged to lead the prison's cross country team--a position which serves as a conduit for a major act of defiance. "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" is an Angry Young Man film from the British New Wave of filmmaking from the early 1960s. Based on a short story Alan Sillitoe who also wrote the screenplay, it is directed with delicate realism by Tony Richardson and invested with empathy by Courtenay. Also, the ending is an unexpected, perfectly realized kick to the gut.

Three generations of the Prescott family are seen to conquer the Old West, from their early travails in fording the Erie Canal, to encounters with bandits and Indians in the trek across the Great Plains, to dealings with the railroad and the San Francisco Gold Rush, up until service in the Civil War. "How the West Was Won" is a star-studded, expensive and expansive epic adventure film that is somewhat marred by its overlength, but kept in tack on the whole due to its hokey sense of fun and peril. Directed by three greats, John Ford, Henry Hathaway, and George Marshall and narrated by Spencer Tracy, the film is also buoyed  by the cameo appearances made by such stars as John Wayne, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, and Gregory Peck while other familiar faces such as Richard Widmark, Eli Wallach, Lee J. Cobb, and Walter Brennan. There are also several impeccable action sequences, including a dynamic Indian raid, that help pick up the pace following dull stretches of the film.