The Early '60s

A couple of grizzled movies, nearly 50 years on:

MARNIE (1964) (B) -- This luscious color film from late period Hitchcock fetishizes Tippi Hedren in the extreme and goes schizoid-nutso on the Freudian psychodrama. I've often had trouble with the aging process of many of Alfred Hitchcock's movies; their quirkiness and idiosyncrasies seem to leave the candy-colored films coated with an amber, uh, film. In a word, they're dated. Here, Hedren plays the title role as a grifter haunted by a childhood trauma that interferes with her relationship with her mother. She gets caught stealing money from her employer and is bullied into marriage by the hunky executive played by Sean Connery in full Don Draper mode. Diane Baker and Alan Napier sizzle in supporting roles, and Connery and Hedren click at times. But Hedren too often is a glamorous cipher, struggling to sustain her character's trauma. The suspense ebbs and flows, and the big reveal isn't much of a shocker. For a while, Marnie's fear of intimacy with the opposite sex hints at an intriguing suggestion of homosexuality, but the idea fizzles at some point, and Hitchcock's psychoanalysis grows trite by the final reel. A running time of 130 minutes doesn't help. This one's fun and at times fascinating, but it doesn't rank with the master's classics.

JOHNNY COOL (1964) (C) -- I keep running across this one on the THIS TV channel, and it hits so smack dab in my early-childhood wheelhouse and formative media-world view that it's hard to resist. Henry Silva ("Manchurian Candidate," "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai") stars in the title role as a Sicilian outlaw recruited to America to knock off a string of underworld figures in that pre-"Bonnie and Clyde" style where gunshot victims merely wince and fall over and spill no discernible blood. Silva gives an almost bizarre monotone performance amid a swirl of hammy turns from B-list Hollywood types like Jim Backus, Mort Sahl and Telly Savalas. With Peter Lawford executive producing, we get Joey Bishop as a hyperactive TV car salesman and an eye-patched Sammy Davis Jr. crooning the hacky theme song. California co-stars as the dream location, so seductive in teasing black-and-white. But the real reason to tune in is for Elizabeth Montgomery as Darien "Dare" Guiness, who gets drawn in as Johnny's moll and loses her crazy head over the meatball. Montgomery (her husband, William Asher, directed) smolders as the aimless rich divorcee who takes leave of her senses like a high school girl seduced by a letterman's jacket. The future "Bewitched" star can barely contain her sexuality, and the scene in which she tells the bad boy "Johnny, I need you; I need you right now" is a rush. Otherwise, this cheeseball story is a leftover relic from Sinatra's '50s run ragged by "Ocean's Eleven" audition rejects. This guilty pleasure has its moments.

BONUS TRACK

A clip from "Johnny Cool"

New to the Queue

A smattering of titles from among the new releases in theaters and on DVD that I've added to my Netflix queue:

• "No" with Gael Garcia Bernal
• "Almost in Love" with Alex Karpovsky
• "Like Someone in Love" from Abbas Kiarostami (coming to the Guild Cinema in spring)
• "The Jeffrey Dahmer Files"

 And a couple of classics on recommendation:

• Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in "Bedazzled"
• Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn in 1967's "Two for the Road.

Finally, two that have been sitting unclaimed in the queue are newly available for streaming:

• The quirky indie film "Fanny, Annie and Danny"
• The gazing-at-animals doc "Bestiare"

ABQ Confidential

Movies around town this weekend:

"West of Memphis," yet another take on the West Memphis Three case of the men wrongly convicted of killing three boys in Arkansas in the 1990s. Our New York source reports that the 2.5-hour doc is worth the effort. It's playing Downtown.

"Life of Pi" is screening at the Southwest Film Center at UNM on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoon.

The Guild is hosting the beloved farcical fairy tale "The Princess Bride" for a pair of matinees Saturday and Sunday (11 a.m. and 1 p.m. each day). The Guild's main feature this weekend is the cartoon-pulpy "John Dies at the End," from the man who brought us the memorable "Bubba Ho-Tep" (2002). Then make way for Hitchcock double features Sunday through Thursday.

Let the Drummer Have Some

Sometimes it all comes together, and a project seems to be blessed with a magic touch. I wouldn't be surprised if Jay Bulger never made another documentary (or any kind of film) again; but his one and only so far -- "BEWARE OF MR. BAKER" -- is a loving, wild ride with the wildman drummer, known primarily for his stint with the short-lived supergroup Cream, the original acid-rock heroes of the late '60s.

Ginger Baker is a capital-C character, a natural subject for a documentary. And Bulger, who spent years both filming the crusty old coot and befriending him, has a confident touch with creating a structure for an entertaining 100 minutes. Bulger doesn't hide his affection for the chain-smoking former junkie, and he doesn't hold himself out as an objective observer. He may have started out as more of a journalist -- the origins of the documentary are in a piece he wrote for Rolling Stone in 2009 (itself a year and a half in the making) -- but after years of hanging out with Baker at his remote country estate in South Africa, Bulger is clearly a sympathetic fan.

But that doesn't stop Baker from bashing Bulger's nose in with a cane, a scene that playfully bookends the movie. Baker also frequently disparages and curses out his interrogator, though you can detect a perpetual wink behind his dark sunglasses. This is clearly a warts-and-all valentine.

The cast of characters is impressive: Baker himself, in his wild-haired hippie prime, has the haunting demeanor of the missing link between Charles Manson and the Unabomber. Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, his compadres in Cream, are featured prominently. All four wives are accounted for, including the ridiculously young South African mother of two whom Baker, now in his 70s, shacks up with. Drummers praising him as an influence include Stewart Copeland, Nick Mason, Neil Paert, Mickey Hart, Charlie Watts, Simon Kirke (Jemima's dad from Bad Company) and the always-unctuous Lars Ulrich, reminding us of a doc with a similar vibe, "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" (2004, A-minus). We get classic footage of Baker jamming with his heroes, like Art Blakey, Elvin Jones and Max Roach. John (Johnny Rotten) Lydon serves as a sort of oracle for the proceedings.

Bulger also expertly weaves in archival footage, much of it courtesy of Baker, who famously disappeared (with camera in tow) to Africa in 1971 and spent most of the decade in Nigeria, hanging out with Fela Kuti and others from that scene and indulging his love of those native rhythms long before David Byrne and Paul Simon "discovered" the continent for pop audiences. Bulger relies too much on '60s-style animation and faux-3D photo tricks, but otherwise his hand is sure. Then again, this project has the feel of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; if he dares try again, beware the sophomore slump.

This labor of love easily spills over into the viewing audience. (I saw it with a good-sized crowd at the Guild Cinema.) Maybe it's the primal joy of percussion (there are more than a few drum solos featured, speaking of "beware"), but "Mr. Baker" takes a surprisingly bittersweet story and makes it somehow life-affirming. It's a rollicking rockumentary.

Grade: B+

Bonus Track: A clean-cut Ginger Baker in garage heaven with the Graham Bond Organization in the mid-1960s:

Classic doc

VIETNAM: A TELEVISION HISTORY (1983, revised 1997) (Grade: A-minus)

Airing eight years after the fall of Saigon, and in production for six of those years, PBS's definitive documentary about the war in Vietnam is a compelling -- and at times horrifying -- account of America's decades-long involvement in Southeast Asia. The series (originally 13 episodes, edited down to 11 for its re-airing in 1997) is refreshingly old-school in its technology; we get talking heads, simplistic maps and graphics -- simple storytelling.

And we get the rawest of film footage. The camera doesn't blink at the horrors of war. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did on Japan and Germany combined during World War II. Even as late as December 1972, the intense bombing of Hanoi during the final stages of the Paris peace talks was compared to the devastation of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. We see body parts, scorched earth, starvation. Obscure film sources from a variety of sources help tell a comprehensive story.

The film is noticeably even-handed, with a generous share of Vietnamese talking heads, from both the North and South. We get the big American names, spanning from Rostow to Kissinger, but also the voices of soldiers and Marines. Episode 4 revolves around the stories of two U.S. military men. The filmmakers focus more on the front lines than on the view from our shores; we get very little from the perspective of protesters or network broadcasters.

The storytelling and the visuals are top rate. Episode 8 (about Cambodia and Laos) begins and ends with the same chilling scene: A toddler walks alone down a street in Phnom Penh in June 1979, six months after the Vietnamese defeat of the murderous Khmer Rouge, and four years after the Khmer Rouge had defeated the American-backed regime in Cambodia. The camera cuts from the street scene to close-ups of bones and skulls. The Khmer Rouge, from 1975 to 1979, the narrator intones, "went on to starve or slaughter hundreds of thousands, perhaps two million Cambodians; nobody knows." The ninth episode offers a scene of a cocky Nixon in mid-1972 taunting the reporters and editors who would soon bring him down; it ends with the funeral of LBJ, followed days later by the signing of the January 1973 peace agreement between the United States and the North, and then by the parallel release of American POWs and North Vietnamese prisoners as the country itself remained very much in turmoil.

It's a powerful story.

In memory of Vietnam veteran Carroll Hawley.

The series, based on Stanley Karnow's authoritative account, is available on DVD and on YouTube.

'70s Punk

PAUL WILLIAMS: STILL ALIVE (Grade: B) (trailer)

Few celebrities so wholly embodied the crassness of the 1970s more than songwriter and "actor" Paul Williams. And who was a better poster boy for the evils targeted by the mid-'70s punk-rock movement than the man who christened the start of the decade and the end of the Beatles era by writing "We've Only Just Begun" for the Carpenters, the brother-sister duo who just may have been the Antichrists that Johnny Rotten was spewing about seven years later.

But who knew that Paul Williams was such a bad-ass? While the rock stars were choking to death on their own vomit, the adult-contemporary Williams was flying high as a kite guest-hosting the "Merv" show or inviting Peter Lawford onto the "Mike Douglas Show" so that they could score some primo coke in Philadelphia. He was rolling with Sinatra, winning Oscars with Streisand, and penning mega-hits for Kermit the Frog.

With his feathered Farrah blond locks and oversized glasses and platform shoes (he's listed at 5-foot-2, which is probably generous), the ubiquitous Williams seemingly never turned down a chance to ham it up on a variety show. And the cheesy hits just kept on coming throughout the decade: "Just an Old Fashioned Love Song," "Rainy Days and Mondays," "Evergreen," "The Rainbow Connection." But then the hits dried up and Williams desperately needed to go off somewhere and dry out.

Enter Stephen Kessler, a Williams fan since boyhood, to find out whatever happened to Paul Williams, now 72 and, yep, still alive. Kessler does an admirable job of capturing the phenomenon that Williams was in the '70s. We get delirious archival video of Williams being shot by Angie Dickinson on an episode of "Police Woman," doing pratfalls with the likes of the Captain and Tennille, yukking it up with Johnny Carson, and accepting his Academy Award for "Evergreen" from "A Star Is Born."

The documentary does a workmanlike job of telling a compelling story of a man wrestling with his past and struggling with sobriety. But too often, Kessler gets in the way of a good story with the bland conceit that the story here is the filmmaker's as well as the songwriter's. The director overreaches in the first half hour by overplaying his own relationship with Williams; he makes his subject seem like a crank, often ranting at the cameras like an old man shooing the neighborhood kids off his front lawn.

The filmmaking is generally clunky, and the narration at times is annoying. But in the end, this works, thanks to Williams himself embodying the inner turmoil of the long-faded superstar now 20 years in recovery and making the rounds of the has-been circuit. His hair is now short and spiky, and his glasses are small and round, and his face is wrinkled. Yes, he's often cranky, but his eyes convey the constant yearning to not so much reconcile his past as denounce it and escape it lest he go crazy agonizing over that younger version of himself.

At one point, the director sits Williams down in front of a laptop to watch a video from that guest-hosting stint for Merv Griffin, in which Williams is obviously tripping while mugging and riffing like a fool. Williams walks away, unable to watch the spectacle. The film then cuts to an interview with Williams, in full close-up, who explains it all this way:

"I wish I had a sentence to sum up all the stuff that I feel when I watch that -- and that could clean it up.  But I can't clean it up if I sit and I watch it again and feel the same way, and watch it again and feel the same way. It only happened once. But that horrific behavior that night got caught on [video] and now exists in zeroes and ones. And I can go back and get crazy about that anytime I want to; I just choose not to. I'm a different man. That behavior was totally unacceptable to me and the man that I am today. But it was also -- what really frightens me -- is to think that at the time I didn't have a sense of that going on. That I would just plow ahead and be like that and not have a sense of how arrogant and grandiose and shallow and ruthless an image of myself I was presenting. I don't ever, ever want to see that again."

It's a powerful revelation. It's a touching (if awkward) articulation of what I can only imagine is the moment-to-moment existence of a recovering alcoholic and addict. A profound observation from the man who once penned the line, "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down" (inspired by his mom's life with his alcoholic father).

This is the low-key story of a survivor. Paul Williams the phenomenon has long faded into VHS obscurity. But the songwriter and performer soldiers on. According to recent reports, Williams is collaborating on a long-awaited new album from electronica heroes Daft Punk. Take that, Carpenters fans.

Paul Williams is a punk.

***

(Bonus Track: Here's Curtis Mayfield's version of "We've Only Just Begun")

New to the Queue

Here are the latest titles I've flagged among the films released in New York or nationwide or on video in the past few weeks:

• "Side Effects" from Steven Soderbergh
• "Upstream Color," Shane Carruth's long-awaited follow-up to the cult classic "Primer"
• "Luv," a father-son story
•  "Caesar Must Die," with a cast of prisoners
• "Computer Chess" from Andrew Bujalski ("Mutual Appreciation")
• "Crystal Fairy" starring Michael Cera
• "I Used to Be Darker" by Matthew Porterfield (I disliked "Hamilton" and still haven't seen his "Putty Hill")
• "Koch"
• "Lore," which I missed at the Santa Fe Film Festival in December
• Raoul Ruiz's "Night Across the Street," ditto
• "Once Every Day," an experimental narrative
• "Supporting Characters" starring Alex Karpovsky
• "The Playroom," a '70s period piece

And here are the 7 titles at the top of my queue:

• Paul Williams: Still Alive
• 28 Hotel Rooms 
• Nobody Walks
• The Wise Kids
• Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel 
• Little White Lies
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Staff Picks

Our correspondent Hannah Wilson, 13, chimes in with today's Teen Perspective on the animated Disney film "Wreck-It Ralph," now in second-run theaters:

"Wreck-It Ralph" was a good movie. It was really creative. It was just like a video game. I liked how people could go through the electric cords to travel from place to place.  It was a smart way of making a movie like that. It was really cute and had a great plot. I recommend this movie to anyone. It was amazing.

(Here's my review.)

Film (figuratively speaking)

I rarely watch DVD extras. The last commentary track I viewed was for "Strangers With Candy," which came out around 2006. I have little interest in the technical aspects of filmmaking. I purposely avoid 3-D. CGI leaves me cold. I've never seen "Star Wars" or "Avatar," and I have no desire to do so. I remember being wowed by "Wall-E" at the cineplex but wanting to weep as the credits rolled by as I realized how many hundreds or thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars were devoted to a disposable commercial spectacle. I want storytelling. I want it simple, real, vivid and striking.

The documentary "SIDE BY SIDE" (A-minus) wisely avoids nostalgia in favor of mixing a love of cinema with sober analysis of technology in this impressive chronicle of the history and future of filmmaking in the digital age. And it appealed to a Luddite like me.

Most of the significant filmmakers are accounted for, led by legends Martin Scorsese and David Lynch, but it's dominated by mid-career auteurs: Boyle, Soderbergh, Nolan, Rodriguez, Linklater, von Trier, the Wachowskis. We also get old-school greats like the "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" director of photography Vilmos Zsigmond (few people have more impressive resumes). I gained an appreciation for James Cameron, even though I've never seen one of his movies.

We get a satisfying range of opinion from filmmakers across the spectrum. Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" was a breakthrough (winning an Oscar for its digital cinematography); Scorsese has said he plans to shoot exclusively in 3-D, threatening to besiege us with vapid fairytales like "Hugo"; Christopher Nolan and his cinematographer/DP Wally Pfister vow to continue shooting on 35mm celluloid.

One not insignificant setback is the presence of executive producer Keanu Reeves, who serves as interviewer. He creates a distraction with his appearance (his rotating hairstyles, patchy beard, occasional nylon cap), his drab on-camera anecdotes, and his zombie-like narration.

The archival footage from the 1970s and '80s wonderfully chronicles the early days of video/digital, and it's perfectly complemented by interviews with pioneer George Lucas. When you see the history of technological progress condensed into 98 minutes, it's all quite amazing and a little scary, exhilarating but unsettling. On the one hand much of it seems sterile and pedantic; on the other hand, some of the images (captured by the latest 5K-DPI cameras) have a luscious texture you could mistake for celluloid. One talking head points out that the world has seen 80 different video formats since the dawn of TV.

The documentary truly earns its stripes at its climax, during its final 20 minutes when it generates a sharp debate about What It All Means and whither cinema. Several talking heads warn of the likelihood that the democratization of the moving image will water down everything, drowning out what one calls "the tastemakers." "Side by Side" doesn't miss an issue; it reminds us, for instance, that digital images aren't infallible (there's no guarantee we'll be able to read those 1's and 0's 50 years from now). There are worries that young generations won't be able to discern what's real and what's not. But then Cameron reminds us the movies have been mostly about make-believe from the start-- sets were fake, the rain wasn't really rain: "You're street-night-exterior-New-York was a day-interior-Burbank; what was ever real?"

If you love film (figuratively speaking), you'll appreciate this peak behind the scenes that isn't just for cinephiles or tech nerds. As I watched, my mind wandered to my videotape collection; I reminded myself that vinyl albums still exist. I watched this documentary on DVD projected through my flat-screen high-definition television. I couldn't help feeling nostalgic for '70s American road movies and fearful for the local analog art-house cinema. Will the old school hang on as long I do?

Danny Boyle eloquently sums up that shift from old-fashioned communal screenings of celluloid in movie theaters to private digital viewings on iPhones: "You've got to go with it, you know. And if you become unable to deal with it, then that's fine. Because that means your time is finished, and it's time for other people to take it on."

Coupling

Let's call it a Valentine's Day pregame. Here are three titles that revolve around couples.

- READ MY LIPS (2001) (B+)
This is an early film from Jacques Audiard, who has had a fine seven-year run as a writer/director with "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" (2005), "A Prophet" (2009)" and the current release "Rust and Bone." This is a low-key love story, or more precisely, the saga of two homely sad sacks who find an unlikely bond after a chance meeting.

Here, Emmanuelle Devos ("Beat ...," "Kings and Queen") is dirtied up for the role of the budding spinster Carla, who is hustling to spin her secretarial post into a bigger role at the design/construction firm dominated by men. She hires a temp, Paul (Vincent Cassel, who comes pre-dirtied and -Picasso'd); he happens to be a homeless ex-con trying to avoid bad influences and keep his appointments with his parole officer (who comes with his own odd, vague storyline). Mix in Carla's hearing impairment (she's essentially deaf) and we're off and running.

Carla goes out of her way to help Paul stay straight. She also quickly develops a crush, and Devos is quite touching during scenes in which she plays dress-up at home with sexy outfits or snoops around Paul's flat (a secret spot in one of the company's apartment complexes in progress) and takes a deep whiff of his bedsheets. She's no workplace wallflower, though; to gain an edge, she soon starts exploiting Paul's criminal inclinations by getting him to steal from a partner and bully a client as a way to advance a key project. Meanwhile, to work off a debt with the main bad guy, Paul takes a job as a bartender in his club. When Paul finds out that Carla can read lips, he guilts and bullies her into setting up a perch on the bar's rooftop so she can spy on the bad guy and his crew and thus help Paul intercept a big score.

This is a compelling film. Audiard takes his time solidifying the bond between Carla and Paul, and he fills in the margins expertly with stray but satisfying subplots like the parole officer's missing wife and the sexual adventures of Carla's pretty pal, Annie (the striking Olivia Bonamy), who seems clueless to Carla's romantic pain and longing. Audiard also plays soundtrack tricks with Carla's hearing impairment, helping the viewer experience that helpless underwater feeling when her hearing aids are out.

My main reservation with the film: No matter how expert Audiard is at character development and plot cultivation, it's difficult to ignore the 800-pound cliche in the room. Akin to Audiard's "Rust and Bone," where I couldn't get over the blatant CGI effect of Marion Cotillard's leg stumps, here the gimmick that weights this down into B-grade territory is the gimmick of a deaf person being used to read lips from a distance (with the aid of binoculars and from a rooftop, of course) of criminals who don't have the sense to draw the curtains before plotting their Big Score. It's like Hitchcock dramatizing a George Costanza plotline from a "Seinfeld" episode.

But it's not a fundamental flaw; it's just a quaint bow to convention. Even Audiard's masterpiece, "A Prophet," is a traditional prison movie, although that's like saying "The Godfather" is a nice mob film. "A Prophet" stands proudly with "The Godfather," and it remains Audiard's only flawless film. "Read My Lips" is carried by Devos and Cassel and their complicated bonding process, and we forgive the filmmaker his own sins.


CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER (B-minus)
I was patient with this film and liked it a lot at times. I admired the effort of Rashida Jones (co-writer, co-star) in trying to hammer a few dents in the armor of the romantic comedy genre. When she succeeds, this is fun. But I have issues:

* You can drag a decent performance out of Andy Samberg ("Saturday Night Live's" digital shorts), but alas, you still have a movie relying heavily on Andy Samberg, who would come in a distant second in a dramatic crying contest with his prototype, Adam Sandler (see "Reign Over Me").
* The gay-best-friend character is rendered ironically, but the jokes miss by a wide mark, and in the end, he's still her "gay best friend."
* Does anyone still laugh when characters mock yoga and veganism? You're not making "Annie Hall," and this is not the '70s.
* While we're at it, drunken wedding toasts, no matter how smartly crafted and heartfelt, are another 800-pound cliche.
* And who would have guessed that Quincy Jones' daughter would have such bad taste in music, cluttering the overbearing soundtrack with a cacophony of smooth sounds.

The premise is intriguing -- a couple in the process of a divorce still get along famously and hang out every day (he lives in the guest house), until he gets his feelings hurt and starts dating. He's an unemployed loser and she's a successful go-getter (she works as a trend expert), but can you guess which one gets his act together and which one starts to fall apart? To Jones' credit, we're spared a predictable ending.

But this one is painfully hit and miss. I liked the clever wordplay (her book is called "Shitegeist"; they hang out at the "Yogurt Yurt"; and their divorce is handled by the law firm of "Stein, Weinberg, Steinberg & Jimenez"). But for every fresh bit, we are insulted with trite scenes of Jones pigging out on fast food or hitting the bong hard during her self-loathing nadir. Let's give Jones a B+ for effort, at least.


WRECK-IT RALPH (C+)
I think Sarah Silverman has found her calling: cartoon voices. Silverman shakes off the snark of her painfully sarcastic TV show and has a blast voicing her racecar-driving videogame character, a girl with a glitch (she's Pixelexic). Cute Vanellope bonds with the big lug, Ralph, who is tired of being the bad guy in his own game as the wrecker and foil to good-guy Fix-It Felix Jr. The two outcasts join forces to help Vanellope out-maneuver the popular girls and the evil king of Vanellope's Candy Land hometown in order to win the big race and gain popularity and acceptance for her and Ralph.

The set-up is slow and the rest of it is predictably hyper. John C. Reilly is just OK as the voice of Ralph. Jack McBrayer ("30 Rock") as Felix and Jane Lynch ("Glee") as a hard-ass (and unnervingly violent) GI Jane have no chemistry (if such a thing is possible while voicing cartoon characters). If you're not a geek from the classic era of arcade games, you probably won't appreciate most of the references. I went with a 13-year-old (I've commissioned a review from her), and neither of us fell into the target audience.

We were rewarded with a heartfelt ending and a sweet message, but it's all Disney formula, packed with screechingly obvious product placements. I would think that this fairly nasty and violent version of a "Scooby-Doo" episode would traumatize kids and bore most adults.

One-liners: Docs

Quick hits on a couple of documentaries:

KORDAVISION (2005) (C+) - A disappointingly amateurish production tracks the origins of the iconic image of Che Guevara snapped by Albert Diaz -- who labored under the nom de zoom "Korda" -- in the heady early days of the Cuban revolution and reproduced on T-shirts and posters to this day. This documentary apparently was shot with a Sony digital camera, but the quality is more along the lines of a family birthday party in the 1980s captured on videotape. And Korda himself proves to be a surprisingly dull subject for a film. He was essentially a propagandist for the first decade of Castro's Cuba who was lucky enough to be in the right spot for the Che shot and a few other memorable images. Most of the film has him, in his dotage, reminding everyone he sees that he's the one who created the Che visual or the one of a little girl clutching a piece of wood as her "doll." He and his fellow photogs come off as over-the-hill braggarts rather than respected artists. The only reason, though, to watch this film (as a rental, so you can fast-forward) is for the scenes of the men meeting with Castro a dozen years ago (most of the footage was shot around 2000). The Cuban leader, still spry four decades after the revolution, banters with the four men like kindly old Uncle Fidel; it all has a found-footage/home-movie feel to it and is a rare glimpse of the Cuban leader in casual mode rather than in his chest-puffing world-leader guise.

THE REVISIONARIES (incomplete) -I watched the one-hour version (on PBS' "Independent Lens"), which failed to sustain much drama in this recounting of the Texas school board's attempts to skew their textbook requirements away from hard sciences and toward a more fundamentalist view of history, social studies and science. (And, as goes Texas, so goes the rest of the nation, according to the dictates of the textbook industry.) We get a focus on the Bad Guy, a dentist who leads the conservative majority of the board, but the parallel story of his bid for re-election seems rushed. And the extensive footage of board meetings seems overdone. I'll reserve judgment on this one. The full version is coming to the Guild Cinema in March.


And our random one-liner comes from "Attenberg," where a Greek father who is dying tells his daughter:

"We built an industrial colony on top of sheep pens and thought we were making a revolution. I leave you in the hands of a new century without having taught you anything." 

Staff Picks

Our correspondent Lionfish checks in to warn us away from the latest horror show from the Guillermo del Toro stable:

MAMA (D+) - "Mama" had one good idea: feral kids are creepy. Sadly, it focuses on scurrying-and-flying-ghost crap instead. The dialogue is terrible, all the secondary actors are terrible, the story is full of clichés and absurdities, and most of the special effects are laughable. You’ve been warned.

If you want to contribute a capsule review of a title you haven't found covered here yet, send me an email or leave a comment.

Koch's New York

The documentary "Koch" was released in New York on the same day that former Mayor Ed Koch died at age 88. Garance Franke-Ruta, a senior editor at The Atlantic, takes a cinematic tour of Koch-era New York, comparing it to New York films that preceded his administration in the 1970s. It runs from the grit of "Serpico," through Woody Allen's nostalgic "Manhattan" to Whit Stillman's upper-crust "Metropolitan." Also featured is the trailer from "Koch," as well as a clip from the recent documentary "Blank City," a wonderful foray into the music and filmmaking (often intertwined) from Jarmusch-era New York in the 1970s and '80s.

Bonus track: the "Blank City" trailer.

The BEST films of 2012

I still haven't seen every 2012 release that I wanted to see, but it's silly to wait until, say, April, to put together a definitive list, so here we go, putting a bow on the best in show.

2012 was a pivotal year of sorts, and my list steps back a bit from any attempt at a grand analysis of cinema or the technical achievements of storytelling. As often as not I was aware of my moviegoing experience in the moment, and while I didn't forsake great filmmaking just for the popcorn and cushy chairs, I often treasured the idea of being in the theater with a certain crowd, stewing in that space in that time. I saw "First Position," a documentary about young ballet dancers, with a nearly sold-out contingent of mostly women and girls at the Guild Cinema. I packed in eight movies in two days with my favorite movie companion at the Santa Fe Film Festival in December. I walked out of "Damsels in Distress" after the first half hour in favor of a stroll around Downtown at sunset. I cried during "Flight" and "The Sessions" at the megaplex. I paid $13 in Manhattan for a solo matinee of "Oslo, August 31st." I was profoundly moved by "Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present" on a laptop in my living room.

But it was the kids who got to me the most. One-third of my Top 15 is made up of films that revolve around children. Let's not analyze it too deeply. I've developed a weakness, apparently. The Gilmore Girls have birthed a new generation.

So, while my list might seem a little more pedantic this year, it feels awfully personal and fulfilling. Here are my favorites for 2012 (so far):

THE TOP 15

1.  Polisse - The cranky characters in a Paris precinct's child-protection division create the best "Hill Street Blues" episode ever
2.  Monsieur Lazhar -A stunning, simple story of students and adults in Quebec dealing with one big tragedy and assorted little ones, with the help of a random kind stranger
3.  The Kid With a Bike - A wrenching tale of a little boy looking for parental love
4.  Flight - Exhilarating story, a great actor, delirious fun, deeply moving
5.  Take This Waltz - Sarah Polley's perfect, lightweight snapshot of a hipster couple and their challenges and longings
6.  The Sessions - A sweet old-fashioned movie with two daring, magnetic stars
7.  Sleepwalk With Me - Mike Birbiglia serves up the funniest movie of the year, a real hoot
8.  Searching for Sugarman - It broke my heart but then lifted it; the music still resonates
9.  Farewell My Queen - A luscious visual feast and a gorgeous depiction of women bonding
10. Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present - The 2012 film that haunts me the most, six months on
11. Oslo, August 31st - A stark recounting of a young man's struggle to cope and go on
12. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia - Nuri Bilge Ceylan yet again has a firm grasp on the human condition
13. Hello, I Must Be Going - Melanie Lynskey is captivating yet understated in this quietly powerful story
14. Magic Mike - Maybe the most fun I had at a movie this year (on opening weekend with an audience that was almost entirely female)
15. Turn Me On, Dammit - The fifth film about kids on my list; this one is precious from beginning to end

JUST MISSED THE LIST

• Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson almost ended up on the "Off-Year" list below, and there's a tone-deaf performance by Bill Murray (speaking of off-years), but still a magical fairy tale of youth 
• This Is Not a Film - Simple yet haunting; tied (with "Starlet," below) for the best ending of the year
• Footnote - A high-minded and engaging portrayal of our competitive nature
• Attenberg - Kinetic, provocative and fun
• Alps - A good year for the Greeks
• The Turin Horse - Bela Tarr is working on a whole different level than the rest of us
• Sister - A hell of a story and a great performance from pre-teen Kacey Mottet Klein
• Starlet - A beautiful story about a disaffected young adult and the old woman she befriends
• The Deep Blue Sea - From Terence Davies, a mature, moving period piece about a woman aching to be loved
• The Color Wheel - A sharp, free-wheeling road movie featuring wonderfully sarcastic siblings
• Chicken With Plums - Lovely.
• Barbara - A smart spy saga and a subtle love story from behind the Iron Curtain
• Declaration of War - A touching tale of a French couple dealing with their infant's illness, fictionalized by the couple themselves
• The Last Ride - This year's Aussie entry in "The Proposition" category
• Union Square - I simply loved Mia Sorvino and Tammy Blanchard's performances as estranged sisters thrown together again by the former's latest drama
• Dark Horse - Not Todd Solondz's best, but his best in quite a while, continuing the comeback he started with "Life During Wartime"
• 17 Girls -  The French try their hand at a Sofia Coppola movie
• Jeff, Who Lives at Home - Silly at times, but also charming and touching in spots
  

BEST SCREENPLAY

• Kim Fupz Aakeson's Perfect Sense

TOP DOCS

• Beauty Is Embarrassing
• How to Survive a Plague
• Brooklyn Castle
• The House I Live In
• Samsara

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME

(Good films where we just didn't click)

• Argo
• Seven Psychopaths
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• The Queen of Versailles
• Holy Motors
• Rust and Bone
• Amour

GUILTY PLEASURES

• The Paperboy
• God Bless America (Bobcat Goldthwait has never let me down)
• Burning Man
• Nobody Else But You
• The Woman in the Fifth

ACTORS OF THE MOMENT

• Mark Duplass: Your Sister's Sister, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, Safety Not Guaranteed
• Brit Marling: Arbitrage and The Sound of My Voice

AN OFF-YEAR FOR TOP DIRECTORS

• Crazy Horse (Wiseman)
• Trishna (Winterbottom)
• The Master (Anderson)
• Keyhole (Maddin)
• 4:44: Last Day on Earth (Ferrara)

THE DUDS

• The horribly anachronistic and tone-deaf Damsels in Distress
• The tedious, monotonous, uninteresting and unfunny The Comedy
• The ridiculously lachrymose and embarrassing Rob Reiner fluff The Magic of Belle Isle

DIDN'T BOTHER

• Zero Dark Thirty
• Lincoln 
• Life of Pi
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Django Unchained

COMING ATTRACTIONS

• Tabu
• The Central Park Five
• Middle of Nowhere
• The Funeral Kings
• Not Fade Away
• Kumare

Stay tuned for reports on those last six titles once I catch up with them and plenty more as we charge forth into February . . .