Quintessence of dust

Black Saturday M4

The most awe-inspiring element of my first Manhattan movie trip in months came about via a film I didn't see, a Japanese animated feature called The Mystical Law, which had a couple of young woman (including the director, I suspect) at Cinema Village in support of its weeklong run. As I waited for the film I was there for to seat, one of the women interviewed a 13-year-old audience member from their film's previous screening.

She started off the young man (who looked much younger than 13, in fact) with a softball, "How did you like it?" He gave the hoped for response, but with a spin at the end, commenting that the conclusion was unconvincing, declaring as it did that we must pray for the world to be saved. It seems the idea that holding your hands in a certain way while reciting prescribed words didn't resonate with him.

OK, I'm with him, and I'm impressed. But it gets better. She asked another simplistic question, "What was your favorite part?" and again he refused to give a simplistic answer. "My favorite idea was the oneness of the world." OK, seriously? Thirteen?

Finally, she asked whether he believes in aliens. He considered the question a moment, then began, "I believe in extraterrestrials, but . . . " and I'm thinking, no, he's not going to make that distinction. Yes, yes, he was: "I believe in extraterrestrials, but to call them 'alien' makes it sound like they don't belong."

Jesus! I hope I'm that smart and sophisticated if I ever get to be 13 again. Also, I'm really glad this wasn't at the start of the day, because the films on the agenda would have had a hard act to follow. As it was, while there were no Hall of Famers, the lineup was full of good, solid players, maybe an All-Star or two. And it seems extremely unlikely that any will ever reach New Haven. So a successful day.

Barrymore

VE

First, let me say: SIX DOLLARS! SIX FREAKIN' DOLLARS for your ticket before noon! (Though they will then get $ 13.75 from you for your large corn & soda.)

This is one of those odd stage-cinema mergers the point of which is perhaps less to tell you something about the subject than to reconfirm your appreciation of the actor embodying that subject. In which case, mission accomplished. Funny, this is the first time in ages I've seen Christopher Plummer in a film and been reminded of what I saw him in first, repeatedly. We've discussed this before, right? I don't have to go into it again, right? Suffice it to say, Catholic kid, early '60s, OK?

Anyway, I'm guessing no one would have guessed then that he'd have the chops to play a Barrymore (multiple Barrymores, actually--John mimics the old man and Ethel, too, and while I have no way to gauge the accuracy of those takes, or of Plummer's John, for that matter, I can testify that Plummer's John Barrymore does a bangup Lionel Barrymore. A limited film, but a fine one of its ilk.

Price Check

IFC

Ah, Ms. Posey, you have come back to indy, and indy still loves you. A potentially conventional story of a good man and good husband seduced in more ways than one by his crazy, obsessive boss, but the film is smart enough to use the potential for conventionality only as a tease en route to something more interesting and infinitely sadder (though conventionally happy, too).

The Central Park Five

IFC

The notorious gang-rape case that gave crypto-racists the word "wilding" as a convenient label for savage "urban" depredation gets the justice-deferred treatment from the second-generation documentarian Sarah Burns.

There's a lot of angry-making here, but I think the angriest-making point is one articulated by the history professor Craig Steven Wilder (disconcerting surname, that, in this context) that "Their innocence never got the attention that their 'guilt' got." Which, as a onetime journalist, I heard on corrections with much lower stakes. Police, prosecutors, press, even the majority of the Harlem community, were all so invested in what Ed Koch called "a test of our legal system," and on mutual congratulations for passing that test, that "we walked away from our guilt."

Chasing Ice

CV

Photographer James Balog's frustrating, exhilarating, heroic quest to document the deterioration of the Northern Hemisphere's glaciers into Slushies. That quest is challenged by brutal weather, equipment that can't stand up to said weather, and a gimpy knee that shouldn't stand up, full stop.

The point is climate change, of course, but the surprise is the terrible beauty--"the miracle, the horror," he says--that the planet's literal meltdown displays.

Trailers

• Waiting for Lightning--Yeah, that sounds like a good idea: dude's gonna jump the Great Wall on a skateboard.
• In Our Nature--Fathers, sons, and their lovers.
• Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet--Rocking in spite of ALS.

Holy crap! A postscript

Sunday morning, and, ahead of making a return trip to the city to meet an author/friend for lunch, I'm getting a Diet Dr Pepper and preparing to read a bit of the Times when my doorbell rings. "What the what?" I think. "I don't do 'social' on Sunday a.m." I go to the door, expecting to see Sunday-dressed Jehovah's witnesses, but there's just one man, in casual dress, unknown to me.

I feign welcome as I open the door, and he greets me warmly and says, holding up something that looks a lot like my wallet and my driver's license, "This is you, right?"

Well, yes. I had no idea it was missing, but it must have slid out of my hip pocket on the train. Funny, I'd almost gone back to check to see whether I'd left anything on the seat, but it was one of the new cars, and the big Amtrak-style restroom was between the door I was standing at and the seat I'd occupied, and I didn't.

Naturally, I was gobsmacked, so much so that I turned into my mother and hugged the guy, so much so that though I gave him all the money that was in the wallet, which was only about eight bucks, it didn't occur to me to get his name & address so I could send him more. Best I could do was to wish him an extra Thanksgiving, because he had certainly given me one. Now I feel bad about rewarding him so lightly--but not, I confess, as good as I feel to have come through this apparently unscathed.