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The pack of documentaries in this year’s Panorama selection has thrown up an interesting pair on the Berlinale’s opening weekend. Moving from filmmaking to photography, just one day after Aaron Brookner’s Uncle Howard opened in the Panorama Dokumente section, we find another non-fiction feature immersed in the creative explosion and ultimate tragedy of the gay scene in ’80s New York. Directed for HBO by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato — the subversive television production couple behind RuPaul’s Drag Race, Deeper Throat, and Sex Change Hospital — Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures provides a snappy, confidently explicit overview of the photographer’s work and life that chooses not to sugarcoat the man’s ruthless ambition or seemingly exasperating personality.

Born to English and Irish parents in Queens, New York, Robert Mapplethorpe would take the ritual and symbolism of his Catholic upbringing and use it to create some of the...

There are multiple Fausts. Ever-multiplying, in fact, as if to outbreed all other fictional characters. The good doctor is unusual: Marlowe and Goethe's plays are both classics, and then there's Mann's novel; at least fifteen operas... In movies, Murnau rules supreme, but I like William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster just as much. René Clair's La beauté du diable is one of his best films, with Michel Simon and Gérard Philipe trading places as tempter and tempted, both utterly charming in their quite distinct ways. Sokurov just made another, well liked here at the Notebook. But for sheer visual rapture, Claude Autant-Lara's 1955 version Marguerite de la nuit takes the Technicolor cake and runs cackling all the way to perdition.

Based on a novel by author/songwriter Pierre Mac Orlan, who also provided source books for Le quai des brumes for Carné and La bandera for Duvivier,...

June is just around the corner, which means hot temps, the occasional sunburn, and a major influx of movie releases. Many of us will beat the heat by noshing on some popcorn in a overly-air conditioned theater, but in the sea of blockbuster hopefuls, what’s worth our $12.50? What packs the heat, without causing pit stains? Considering the sex appeal of the stars, steaminess of the story, and cling of the wardrobe, we’re counting down a dozen flicks that’ll sizzle the summer months, from lukewarm to piping hot.

12. Sex and the City 2, May 27th: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis hit the Middle East in 5-inch heels, high-slitted designer dresses, and sparkly turbans. Beefcake and baby-less Aiden returns to tempt Mrs. Big.

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11. Letters To Juliet, May 14th: Amanda Seyfried paid this year’s (or...