Sheesh, I haven't written anything in a while (have I, Dad?). It's just that the physical world is so much more enjoyable at times than this little world of pink ones and zeros. In fact, don't even bother reading what follows--just go for a nice walk in the sunshine instead. It's better for you.

What are you still doing here? Oh, you want to know what's been doing? Well I've been working a lot, and I've been watching some movies.

I've only seen one theatrical release recently--An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary about global warming. Holy shit--this is basically the scariest thing I've ever watched. Al Gore is on a one-man crusade to draw attention to this crisis, and we ignore him at our peril. A couple years ago, I watched a video of Gore's basic slide presentation, which is the foundation of this film, and I was stunned at how he was able to connect the dots from the various political, social, scientific, and moral areas of this issue. The movie captures that well, and you'll be amazed and frightened by the urgency of the message. Gore reports that the expert scientists are pretty much in agreement: we get our act together to reverse global warming within the next decade or we fly over the edge of this cliff and there will be no coming back. Scary. I don't know how well the film is doing, but hopefully it will arouse some kind of groundswell among the populace. I strongly strongly suggest you see it in the theater as soon as you can. The website has listings of where it's playing now, and where it's coming to next.

At home, I've been busy filling in the gaps of my French cinema viewing experience. Recently, I've watched Renoir's Rules of the Game--a biting 1939 social satire dressed up as a comedy of manners. It's thrillingly dark--condemning social convention, the immortal battle of the sexes, and the separation of the classes. Renoir himself plays a pivotal role in it, and he's does so with a combined grace and swagger that only the French can carry off.

Also from 1939 France, and also rather dark, is Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows. The French have a way of making completely innocuous situations tense with sexual energy, and this film noir melodrama oozes that kind of tension in almost every scene. Jean Gabin is wonderful (you must see him also in Renoir's Grand Illusion (1938)) as an AWOL soldier who finds love, shame, murder, and a loyal dog all in a short 24 hours. It's great.

But the focus of my French cinema studies recently has been Louis Malle, the master of late 20th-century coming-of-age films. Criterion just released four of his previously-unavailable-on-DVD films: a trio of nearly perfect coming-of-age films--Murmur of the Heart (1971), Lacombe, Lucien (1974), and Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987), and a restored version of his very first film Elevator to the Gallows (1957).

Murmur of the Heart follows a 15-year-old boy through the pains of a loving but dysfunctional family life in the provinces in the 1950s. It is so poetic, and so perfectly captures the loneliness and excitement of adolescence that you will cringe and smile to yourself at the same time.

Lacombe, Lucien is about Lucien Lacombe, a poor country boy--17ish--who is not exactly the brightest bulb on the tree. The movie is set in the closing days of WWII, in rural southwest France, and our hero attempts to join the resistance, but they reject him. He accidentally comes upon the local gang of collaborators who are working for the Germans and suddenly finds himself accepted by them and given nominal power to "police" the area. His moral transformation is horrifying, though because of his situation he's fairly blameless--even as he becomes something rather despicable. The film is an extremely complex balancing act of emotions, points of view, moralizing, empathy, and--ultimately--love. I honestly did not know how to feel when it was over. Frightened, and awed, but also calmed and resigned to the randomness of life. Truly unlike any other film I've ever seen.

I have never had any problem knowing how to feel at the end of Au revoir, les enfants. I first saw it in it's theatrical release as a freshman in college, and have never missed an opportunity to see it when it's been revived since I moved to NYC. When it ends, I collapse into tears and sobs that usually last hours. (This time, I made my way over to Christopher's place just after watching it, and scared him silly with my emotional breakdown). It's a WWII story set outside Paris at the beginning of the German occupation of France. It follows a boy of 12 or 13, and his friendship with a Jewish boy who is hidden by priests within their provincial private school. If I tell much more of the plot I'll break down into tears now, so just trust me on this one. Rent it, buy a box of tissues, and prepare to have your heart ripped from your chest. It's an absolute masterpiece.

Jeanne Moureau, as we all know, is herself an absolute masterpiece, and she proves as much as she wanders the Parisian streets of Malle's (again, sexually tense) noir drama Elevator to the Gallows. She has a lover, a husband, a driver, a penchant for walking in the rain, a taste for booze, and that amazing blank look of sexual openness all over her face. Miles Davis jazz score, perfect pacing, and wild imagination make this rather claustrophobic film a wonder to behold.

As a side note, I also recently watched a 2003 Jeanne Moreau film--Josee Dayan's Cet Amour-La--in which Moreau plays the aging, dying Marguerite Duras. Duras was novelist, playwright, and filmmaker who helped transformed French literature in the 20th-century through experimental form and the use of extremely pared down language. Late in life she had a long-term love affair with a much much younger man, Yann Andrea. This film tells their story. It's not great, but it's an interesting movie, and Moureau is as wonderufl as ever. It's worth a watch if your a big fan of either Moureau or Duras.

C'est tout. For now anyway. Soon: music, bike rides, birthday.