Yellow Submarine (1968)

With a sureal adventure story about the Beatles taking a yellow submarine into the wilds of imagination, director George Dunning pushed the boundaries of animation.  With great music and eye-poppying  visuals and lots of wit, this really is a timeless film.  So check it out and drown out those Blue Meanies bringing you down.  The Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is here.  Grade: B+

Amarcord (1974)

Federico Fellini made many great movies but none of are as fun and enjoyable as this one about the various people living in a small Italian village during pre-WWII Fascist Italy.  Like a wonderful collage he gives you a sense of memory and a celebration of life in all its ups and downs.  The central character is a young boy named Titta but for me it's the town that is the hero, and maybe the boy and the town are the same, symbols of all the growing up Italy is about to go through in the coming years.  Grade: A-

Another Woman (1988)

In this drama from Woody Allen, a professor played by Gena Rowlands overhears a conversation between a woman and her psychiatrist through a vent while working on her next book.   Hearing of this woman's problems, she starts to look at her own life and the choices she made.  As always an impressive character study from Mr. Allen.  Grade: B+

The Los Angeles Diaries by Jim Brown (Memoir)

This memoir is written with such raw honesty and soulfulness it is more than an account of a writer-teacher-husband-father-son-brother dealing with addiction but it's a work of art as well.  Mr. Brown could have avoided some details, but he doesn't.  He painfully paints an unflattering portrait of himself to demonstrate the destructive force of drugs.  If you want to read an engaging account of addiction and how the destroy families as well as individuals then you must read this.  Grade: A

Antoine and Colette (1962)

François Truffaut's sequel of The 400 Blows revisits Antoine Doinel as a teenager.  This isn't a feature film but a short that was originally shown in the anthology titled Love At 20.  Although brief this story about first love is wonderful.  No wonder Truffaut would return to this character again.  Grade: A-

Melancholia (2011)

Lars von Trier directs an astonishing film that takes place before a meteor strikes the Earth wiping out mankind.   There are two sisters, a manic depressive young woman soon to be married played to perfection by the underrated Kristin Dunst and the older responsible sister played by Charlotte Gainsbourg (last seen in von Trier's film Antichrist) who is married to a wealthy man and who has a child.  The first part takes place at the wedding of Dunst's character, Justine, and it is here we are introduced to a myriad of characters and where various themes are set up, such as fatherhood, respect and self destruction.  The second part focuses more on Claire, the older sister, with Justine come to stay with her and her husband when news of the meteor is on its way to supposedly graze Earth.  This is really an amazing movie, it sticks to the side of your brain and haunts you with its themes and images.  I would go out on a limb and say this might be Lars von Trier's best film (although I haven't seem them all yet).  While not really a happy film (does von Trier make any other kind), it does inspire with its brave nihilistic optimism (if that's possible which for me it was) and brilliant craftsmanship.  If you're interested in a challenging work of art that might spit on all your beliefs of hope and purpose, but at the same time make you appreciate the importance of life and love and all that your hold dear, see this film. Grade: A-       

Flight (2012)

Finally Robert Zemeckis returns to form making an actual movie again.  He's such a great cinematic storyteller.  Even with a predictable addiction drama like this one, he succeeds at making a film better than most directors.  The plane crash alone is visually amazing.  Denzel Washington plays an airline pilot who expertly crash lands a plane while intoxicated.  As he fights to keep his job, he battles the even bigger conflict of his own addiction.  Washington is so good in this, it would be criminal if he doesn't get nominated for best actor.  The screenplay by John Gatins is flawless in execution.  The only aspect of the film that keeps me from calling it a masterpiece (beside the typical music selections used on the soundtrack) is that I knew how it was going to end almost from the start.  The story couldn't (and shouldn't) really end any other way, mind you, but no matter how suspenseful Zemeckis tries o makes it, I knew how the story would unfold.  That doesn't ruin the movie for me, but it does lessen its impact.  Grade: A-