1. Feb 14. To Be and to Have. French film about a dedicated teacher and his students in the rural Auvergne region of France. Heartwarming.
2. Feb 15. Bus 174. Account of a bus hijacked by a street kid in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The scene was broadcast on local and national TV for 7 hours before the final violent ending. Horrific.
3. Feb 28. Touching the Void. (Delayed until May 16) Harrowing film about mountain climbing. Two English climbers scale the heights of a 21,000 foot peak, Siula Grande, in the Peruvian Andes. On the return one climber breaks a leg. As his mate lowers him from one snow peak to the other, he slides down into a deep crevasse. His mate cuts him loose. He falls down further, but is able to drag himself out and returns to camp, to the amazement of his mate, who had abandoned him.
4. Mar 7. Moolaade.
5. Mar 14. The Mother
6. Mar 21. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
7. Mar 28. The Return. A Russian film about a man who returns after 10 years to his family, takes his two sons on a 'holiday' to the sea, where he finds a buried trunk, gets into a violent argument with his sons, and falls to his death from a high wooden platform. Fairly reeks with symbolism: images of Christ as he lies on his bed, etc.
8. Apr 4. Osama. First film out of Afghanistan in decades. Harrowing story of a young girl, whose father is killed by the Taliban. Her grandmother cuts her hair so she can get a job as a boy. (Women are not allowed outside without a male escort) She is eventually found out in an Islamic school--by being hung in a well indefinitely-- and given to a nasty mullah as a bride. A perfect example of a worthwhile film that you won't find in a commercial cinema. 
9. Apr 11. Young Adam A writer works on a barge sailing between Glasgow and Edinburgh. He has an affair with the wife of the barge captain.
10. Apr 18. My Architect A biography of Louis  Khan, one of the great architects of the 20th century, filmed by his illegitimate son. Khan designed the Kimball Art Museum and the capital of Bangladesh, among many other fine buildings. In his spare time he also fathered three families.
11. Apr 25. Strayed Survival of a French family during the Nazi takeover of France in 1940. A woman and her two children flee Paris along a refugee-clogged road. Their car is destroyed by strafing planes, so they take refuge in an abandoned house in the country, where they are helped by a tough young boy, an escaped convict, who becomes involved with the mother.
12. May 5. Red Lights
13. May 9. Before Sunset

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  Feb 24. The WRONG BOX, starring Michael McCain, Ralph Richardson, Dudley Moore. Madcap comedy of 1965 involving a lottery to be given to the last survivor of a school class and the resulting shenanigans to determine which of two elderly brothers will win and hand over his inheritance to the nephews and nieces. Worth a giggle.
  
• Mar 6. The Practitioners of Musick, Eugene Roan at the harpsichord and John Burkhalter on the flute, played at the Calvary Baptist Church in Hopewell. The concert featured Mr Handel and his friends, Maurice Green, William Boyce. Angelo Corelli, and others of the 18th century. The concert was followed by drinks and snacks at the home of Naomi Chandler-Reik, Wescott Rd in Princeton.
  
• Apr 2. ROSENKAVALIER at the Met. Glorious three hours of music and frolic, with a whopping dash of nostalgia for old times and old loves thrown in. Angela Denoke as the Marschallin, Susan Graham as Octavian and Peter Rose as Baron Ochs. The major surprise: the most engaging music is played to the oafish shennanigans of the Baron, who in the first act pants after Graham, playing a man dressed as a maid. A three-way switch!
  Apr 5. A WOMAN BEFORE A GLASS at the Promenade Theatre on Broadway near 76th. The great art collector Peggy Guggenheim, warts and all, played convincingly and profanely, by Mercedes Ruehl. Poor kid, she was sent out into the world with only about 2 million dollars, instead of the 10 million given to her cousins. She loved hanging out with the arts crowd and collected some of their best works. Lots of tragedy in her life: her father went down with the Lusitania, her daughter committed suicide, and she lost or drove away two husbands. A portrait of an era as well as a treatment of Peggy. Tickets furnished by Jay and Jan.May 20.
• Apr 22. LOOK AT ME, a French film about two writers, one famous and the other obscure, and the narcissism in their lives. Their women, who are immersed in music, are treated as mere appendages. Wonderful score of church music. The daughter of the successful writer, played by Marilou Berry, who bitterly resents her father's icy behavior, is nasty to everyone in her own way.
• Apr 23. MRS DELANEY'S DUBLIN: Music and Letters in 18th century Dublin, organized by John Burkhalter, held at the Unitarian Church, Princeton. A fine soprano, Laura Heimes, a baroque cello, a harpsichord, baroque violins, a soprano recorder and Marian as the reader, Mrs Delany. Eighteenth century music from Dubourg, Boyce, O'Keefe, Arne, Woodcock, and the great Handel.
• Jun 7. HAMLET at McCarter. The great Shakespearean play in modern dress on an unadorned stage, with each player, except Hamlet, playing multiple rolls. Takes a lot of imagination to enjoy it. Rob Campbell as Hamlet and David Margulies as Polonius were great. A play riddled with clichees, like "leave her to heaven" and "to be or not to be" (that's where they came from in the 17th century).! The constant switching of rolls was confusing. Left at the intermission. Heard that the ending was gory.
• June 17. DIAL M FOR MURDER at the Princeton Summer Theater. Good professional cast, especially Jed Peterson, the artistic director, who played the role of the killer. Ghoulish entertainment, however. Remember the 1954 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ray Milland and Grace Kelley?
• July 31. ANDREI RUBLEV by Tarkovsky (1969) a cinematic masterpiece of the Stalin times. Rublev, an icon painter of the 14th century, loses his skills and mastery as life in Russia is traumatized by Tartars, famine, and plague. The cruel, inhumane treatment of the peasants is demonstrated by vivid scenes. For example, the police, in order to calm down a suspect, bash his head against a tree, rendering him unconscious. Only for the hardened cinema lover. He begins to paint masterpieces after the successful molding of a giant monastery bell by a youth, symbolizing the recovery of Russia from the savagery of the Tartars.
• Oct 2. PROOF, a mad mathematician story at U of Chicago and Northwestern (not Princeton this time) Mystery surrounds the author of a new proof in mathematics. Is it the famous father, who is certifiably mad (in the last few years of his life, he fills his math notebooks with gibberish), or his daughter, who just has occasional spells of madness (she talks with her dead father)? Gyneth Paltrow plays the mad daughter.
• Oct 4. BRIDE OF THE WIND. The beautiful and bewitching Alma Mahler gets around in Vienna at the turn of the century. She marries the composer Gustaf Mahler, and has affairs with most of the local intelligencia of the period, including Gropius (a famous architect), Kokochka (an even more famous painter), and Franz Werfel, a novelist. Just to see her was to want her.
• Dec 2. COOL YULE JAZZ II, an extravaganza at Westminster, featuring Philip Orr at the piano and others at the clarinet, the drums, and bass fiddle. Ever hear Jingle Bells and Good King Wenceslas with a jazz beat? It blows you away! The incongruity of it reduces me to giggles.
• Nov 4. The Westminster bell ringers, including Yuko, put on a very popular Christmas concert at the Bristol Chapel.
• Dec 5. Organ Performance Class (Westminster) at the University Chapel. The NATIVITY, 9 meditations on the organ, by Olivier Messiaen. Yuko performed number 3, Eternal Purposes. Messiaen was the greatest organ composer of the 20th century, introducing many of the innovations of classical music.
• Dec 10. RIGOLETTO at the Met. Introduced to two new singing sensations in the opera world, Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon and Russian soprano Anna Netrebko. Fervid applause every time they sang.
• Dec 30. THE WHITE COUNTESS. Ralph Fiennes, a blind former US diplomat and Natasha Richardson, an impoverished Russian aristocrat, find themselves thrown up as flotsam in Shanghai during the thirties. He runs a stylish night club for foreigners and hires her to give the place class. The Japanese take over, and their lives are brutally interrupted. Absolutely implausable ending, but otherwise a great show.