When film professors and Ph.D. students engage in dry discourse about film adaptations, they often choose to ignore the most basic and most substantial aspect of having multiple versions of a text. A film based on a book provides (re)viewers with a built-in “anchor,” or point of comparison, which will inherently dictate the flow of discussion like an analytic magnet. The strengths of “high” literature, which are notoriously unreproducible in cinema, thus become weaknesses of the film, often before the lights of the theater have even dimmed. With this in mind, director/producer Steve Jacobs and writer/producer Anna Maria Monticelli deserve applause for even attempting to adapt J.M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace for the screen, and their ambition makes the project a success, even if the final product is discernibly flawed.

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As far as explosive action films are concerned, I will always retain a soft spot in my heart not only for the magnum-wielding, no-b.s. neo-fascist vigilante Dirty Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), but for the fourth installment of the Dirty Harry series: 1983’s Sudden Impact. This month marks the 25th anniversary of that opus, which reminds me of one of my most memorable film viewing experiences.

As a third-year student at Boston University, I decided to spend my spring semester of 1999 in the Sydney, Australia study and work abroad program, which led to the most miserable five-month period of my life.

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Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, for all of their sterling reputations as movies, have had a rough and uneasy life on the home screen — at one point re-edited by Coppola so that their narrative was linear, the movies have never wholly satisfied home viewers, especially given their theatrical reputations. And no one was happy — with the color or the quality, or much else — in the Godfather complete DVD set issued at the start of the twenty-first century.

Paramount Pictures, in conjunction with Coppola himself and film preservation specialist Robert A. Harris (best known for his work on Hitchcock’s Vertigo and David Lean’s Lawrence Of Arabia, have solved most of the problems associated with The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, with meticulously restored prints, which are making their DVD and Blu-ray debuts on September 23, 2008.

But for true fans of the film, there’s no substitute for a theatrical screening — these images were meant to be seen on screens 40 feet across (or more), not 40 or 50 inches. And for those in the northeast and specifically in the New York area, there will be three full weeks of the two epics, in tandem, at New York’s Film Forum (209 West Houston Street, New York, NY 10014, 212-727-8110) from September 12 through October 2. The restored print of The Godfather, seen by this writer, looks as good as it did in 1972, with Gordon Willis’s photography given its original luster — there are rich, deep tones to the color in almost every shot, and intensely crisp detail throughout. And on a modern theater sound system, the movie takes on an almost 3-D audio profile. It’s worth the commitment of time and energy to see it in a theater, and the wealth of detail revealed in the frame-by-frame restoration makes this one also worth jockeying for a seat nice and close to the screen (third row is ideal — but fourth or second would suffice, and anyplace will keep your eye good and busy).

It’s been said before, but it bears repeating – Peter Watkins may be the most under-appreciated important filmmaker of his generation, an artist and thinker whose challenging approach to both global politics and the formal structure of cinema has resulted in a body of work that’s had a powerful effect on the few who’ve been lucky enough to see it. However provocative Watkins critiques of the balance of political power and influence may be, they haven’t endeared him to the mainstream film industry, and the fact most of his movies have been produced outside the studio system – for television or independent concerns, and in some cases with the support of academic institutions as part of advanced film classes — hasn’t helped them gain the visibility they deserve. But it’s significant that the one feature Watkins produced for a major studio has been nearly as hard to see as any of his other pictures. In 1967, after Watkins had briefly become an international cause celebre thanks to the controversy over his award-winning look at the aftermath of a nuclear attack on England, The War Game, he became one of a handful of maverick talents who were signed to make low-budget films for the UK branch of Universal Pictures. At a budget of $700,000, Watkins’ Privilege was among the least expensive of the lot, though it remains the most lavish project of Watkins’ career. Despite receiving some excellent reviews in the United States, Privilege didn’t fare well at the box office and enjoyed only a brief run in cinemas; it reached its largest audience when it was included in a package of movies Universal syndicated to local television stations in the 70’s, and by the end of that decade, the film had all but vanished. Fortunately, Project X Distribution in Canada and New Yorker Films in the United States have been making a growing number of Watkins films available on DVD, many for the first time, and this month they’ve teamed up to give Privilege its first authorized home video release ever.

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Never heard of All Night Long? You aren’t alone. This wonderfully sweet and gentle yarn (original on just about every level) suffered from inexplicable critical excoriation when it bowed theatrically in March of 1981, then fell into obscurity for almost 20 years. That began to change in the summer of 2001, when the Oxygen women’s network started running a censored version ad infinitum, and in late 2004, when it finally received a DVD issue thanks to the brass at Universal Home Video. Still, most people have probably never heard of it.

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As the Reagan decade drew to a close, the movies were richer then at anytime since the glory days of the 70’s. The mainstream thrived with Batman, the third Indiana Jones Film, and the second Lethal Weapon movie. Family films were getting a good name again with The Little Mermaid. Al Pacino was back on screen after a long lay-off with Sea of Love. The direct to video market produced as much cheese as Wisconsin. And the independent film movement gained real traction with three trend setting films that established the careers of Spike Lee, Gus Van Sant, and Steven Soderbergh.

Here’s a look back at how the staff of All Movie Guide feel about this influential twelve months.

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Overlooked by many critics and dismissed by others as mediocre when it took its domestic theatrical bow in the late summer of 2005, The Baxter – contrary to the assessments of some – feels enormously successful and enjoyable. The movie relays the tale of Elliott Sherman (Michael Showalter), a thoroughly geeky but sweet-natured Manhattan CPA whose romantic history consists of being jilted ad infinitum from early adolescence – a status that prompts him to term himself a ‘Baxter,’ short for a bachelor with lots of exes. The premise deals with Sherman’s engagement to a gorgeous, WASP-y magazine editor, Caroline (Elizabeth Banks) – and the way in which those nuptials are repeatedly sabotaged by one of her unctuous ex-boyfriends, Bradley (Justin Theroux), even as the possibility of a secondary romance with an office temp named Cecil (Michelle Williams) presents itself to Elliott.

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As a director, Pavel Lungin represents one of European cinema’s greatest unsung talents – a visionary craftsman with an unapologetically innovative and idiosyncratic world view – which probably explains why several of his features have never secured stateside release. The filmmaker, a Russian Jew from Moscow who took his directing bow about 18 years ago at the ripe old age of 41 (after years of authoring screenplays), did so with the assistance of European megaproducer Marin Karmitz (also responsible for backing Louis Malle’s apotheosis Au Revoir les enfants). The resultant debut, Taxi Blues, won Lungin the Best Director Award at Cannes in the spring of 1990. I screened the movie for the first time this week and felt blindsided by how emotionally uncompromising it feels and by the multi-layered sophistication of the narrative. For those in the mood for something a little bit different than the usual video store haul, this one’s worth a look.

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