For all intensive purposes, Tarkovsky's last (and best) film may not have been designed to leave the viewer in shock. After all, it is the story of hope and selflessness, which are themes meant to leave an audience feeling good about the world they live in. Tarkovsky sets his film on the eve of certain doom for a small family in Sweden who inhabit a house that is the very reflection of their comfort, security and happiness. As the tale moves towards the title action, Tarkovsky, who has used dream sequences to much success in the past, outdoes himself using magic realism in a way I'm not sure I've seen any other filmmaker do it. The actual sacrifice the main character, Alexander (marvelously enacted with fear and intelligence by Erland Josephson) isn't quite as important as the chance Tarkovsky gives us to witness Alexander's last glimpse of his family, who cannot possibly realize what he has done for them. And we go back to the portrait that opens the film and is revisited, hauntingly, throughout: Leonardo's 'Adoration of the Magi by the Three Kings'. In it, a man kneels before the Jesus child, who holds the light of the world in his hands. Through this film, Tarkovsky allows Alexander to step into that painting and, for a few moments, hold the light of the world in his hands. It is hard to feel good about the world when you've seen something so powerful and so precious, in such an enlightening viewfinder as Andrei Tarkovsky's. More than any of his other opuses, this film will affect the viewer in an almost physical manner. A masterpiece.

Not always what I'd hoped, the film includes too many clips of The Sacrifice and too little Tarkovsky. The best sequences are those in which he's being interviewed about his technique, the monumental - scratch that, miracle - moment when hhe realizes he must rebuild a house to burn down for the virtuoso closing shot of The Sacrifice and some surprisingly moving moments wherein Tarkovsky is planning his next film while dying of cancer in a hospital bed. Watching his direction being filtered through a translator who would pare his Russian down and regurgitate it in Swedish and English is interesting - though it must have been maddening to him. Obsession over detail is nothing new, though Tarkovsky is so gentle, it feels more warranted. Cinematographer Sven Nykvist looks pissed off from start to finish. A not-quite entirely introspective look into the art of this master filmmaker.

Though produced by the usually creepy Russian-born Val Lewton, who believed in the mood of a film, Isle of the Dead is either nonsensical or, if it is what I think it is, just plain bad. The story of a brutal general haunted by his dead wife is quickly dropped as an assemblance of natives, the aforementioned general and a reporter are stranded on an island quarantined for the always entertaining "the plague". Acting is often silly, with Marc Cramer giving the most laughable performance. His voice of reason character looks so much like Christopher McDonald and plays up the melodrama so carefully that the few remaining vivid chiaroscuro crypt shots are all the film is good for. Based on a painting, apparently.

I think I'd have enjoyed the film more if I didn't feel De Sica's pain in every shot. The movie, originally meant to be devoid of commercial value, turns out too many moments, too many scenes that wouldn't have interested the neo-realist genius of Umberto D. and The Bicycle Thief. Montgomery Clift is outstanding as the American-Italian living in Italy who has just finished a short term affair with the married Jennifer Jones. The loose narrative finds the two of them on-again and off-again, still in love as her final departure closes in on them. Arrested for making love in an abandoned car, Clift is left to try to talk the police into allowing her to leave, in order to catch her train, so she can disappear from his life forever. The arcane cameos by real life inhabitants of Rome's train station seem out of place in this melodrama (written by Truman Capote). The film works because, at center, it is about relationships and how similar to the coming and going of trains they are. The intelligence stops there and the shame begins. The film needed to be either one expose or another. Jones' over-emotional performance doesn't help matters.

Quotable. Very quotable. Not any specific lines in mind. All I could think of watching what is, essentially, a companion piece to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (in almost every way), is: "This is a pure message movie". And nobody made them better than Capra. Meet John Doe gets obvious, often outrageously so (and at the expense of a humdinger of a plotline), but Cooper and Stanwyck are the glue at the core holding the story of a nobody pushed to fame by a phony declaration of principles that spins out of control and into a fad. Capra eventually turns the tides, introducing the evil puppeteer, holding the strings, trying to manipulate Cooper into being a political stepping stone aiding a newspaper mogul's (released the same year as Citizen Kane) path to the White House. Not as good as some of Capra's work with Jimmy Stewart, but worthwhile - - - and funny.

On second thought, even the rock and roll-style visuals don't distract us well enough to miss the rather uninteresting look at one of the most ordinary of all wasted lives: a mammoth drug dealer who repeatedly gets caught. When I first saw the film, probably because it was in the theater, I was able to allow the tone to overcome and was far too forgiving of what transpires between guitar riffs, split screens and freeze frames. If Martin Scorcese had made bad, meaningless films from scripts which only provided the main character an opportunity to act - - - they would look a great deal like <Blow.

Let's see if I can write this without giving away the secret that Rosebud is a sled. Alright - - - whoops! - - - Darn, I did it already. DVD in a pristine state of things, the transfer is immaculate, the sound is better than ever and watching the film, in turn, becomes even more of a pleasure than before. In true ironic fashion, the film does find its way into a couple of flaws thanks in part to such a clear picture - mouths moving with dialogue dubbed over, silhouettes that don't quite cover all and others that aren't as fortunate. Probably end up watching the film again with one of the two commentaries in the next month or so - don't want to use up all by B material.

Less a film than a series of vignettes that contain the same rotating set of characters, Truffaut's film is so whimsical, it almost falls over when the heavy cream of a beaten child rebelling against the world is introduced and developed (to mixed results). Still the majority of what takes place is borderline magical. There are great scenes, like the one where the little girl acquires her father's megaphone when left home one evening and announces to the apartment complex (and its many denizens, some of which are characters in the film) that she's been left alone, locked in and that she's "HUNGRY!". A deeply scary moment involving a toddler on a window ledge keeps Truffaut's focus on the perserverance of children. His usual trademark - giving life's simple moments the kind of attention they'd not warrant on their own and blowing their relevance to the important things up to a nearly grotesque proportion - is pretty clear and rather well stated in Small Change. Title was Speilberg's idea after Truffaut had to change the original title ('Pocket Money') because it had been taken by an American film a year prior.

Some genuine moodiness hardly excuses a C-rate cast acting very poorly around a tired, autopilot Edward G. Robinson. Doesn't help that the cinematographer seems somewhat obsessed with unnatural shadows. You'll figure it in the beginning and, if you're smart enough not to second guess yourself (the overall badness of the film practically prevents it), you'll have plenty of time to sit around and wait for the ending to justify your suspicions. In that time, you could reflect on better ways to spend your precious time. Less a film noir than a shadow-ridden diversion.

Folks, the DVD is immaculate. Dare to deny your maker by viewing its crispness. Dare.

Probably the last two and a half star movie I rewatch. Probably the last sci-fi movie with a subheading I watch this month. Its all stats people, I feel no different about the film. Visual - check. A step in removing reality froom the process - check. Story...story...story? Could we send someone out to get a - - - a friggin' - - - ah, nevermind.

Though its pace is crippled by a musical interlude twenty minutes from its conclusion, I still think O Brother, Where Art Thou? is prime Coen in tone (obviously), but also in the way they seem to grab hold of the colloquialisms of dialogue and, after making it their own, direct their movie as if their mission in life were to spotlight this one story. The attention they grant each project and the pleasing touch they seem to have make their films grow better and better. O Brother, Where Art Thou? benefits from Clooney, but like their more obscure films (Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy), they show that their vision is more important that pretty much anything else going on. The browning south with that old timey music never seemed so appealing. "Damn! We're in a tight spot."