The Criterion Collection

Repertory house moviegoers in the mood for love this coming week are in luck, as romance is in the air. Let’s start with one of the collection’s most intense romantic dramas: In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai’s visually and aurally sumptuous depiction of repressed desire in 1960s Hong Kong, starring the exquisitely dressed Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, plays at both the Cornell Cinema in Ithaca, New York, on February 10 and the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 16. More big-hearted movies abound at theaters this Valentine’s Day week: At AFI Silver in Silver Spring, Maryland, Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck wage a hilarious battle of the sexes in Preston Sturges’s The Lady Eve (February 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, and 16) At the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Fernando Rey splits the difference between Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina in Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire (February 14). At the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant engage in spy games and witty repartee in Stanley Donen’s Charade (February 14). At Seattle’s SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, Ruth Gordon catches Bud Cort’s eye in Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude (February 14). And at the Seattle Art Museum, Jean-Pierre Leaud’s Antoine Doinel is still looking for love, though married, in François Truffaut’s Bed and Board (February 16).

Meanwhile, Jean Vigo’s slow boat to romance, L’Atalante, is drifting into hearts all over the United Kingdom. It’s continuing its run at BFI Southbank in London, and can also be seen this week at the Barn Theater in Dartington (February 13 and 14), the Warwick Arts Centre in Coventry (February 13 and 14), and the Light House in Wolverhampton (February 14). And over at the Glasgow Film Theatre, David Lean’s romantic weepie Brief Encounter is paired with the less traditional Harold and Maude (February 14).

For those not in a lovey-dovey mood, there are plenty of other selections in theaters everywhere. Starting on the East Coast of the U.S.: Some fairly unromantic choices in Connecticut—David Cronenberg’s Videodrome brings the new flesh to the Bow-tie Criterion Cinemas in New Haven (February 10 and 11), Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique should scare up viewers at Hartford’s Real Art Ways (February 12), and the same city’s Cinestudio also gets diabolical with Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (February 12–15), though there is a touch of masochistic romance in that one. In New York, Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits brings fantasy and fun to the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center’s Amphitheater at the Film Society of Lincoln Center (February 12), while up in Ithaca, the Cornell Cinema has its own fanciful selections with Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums (February 10) and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (February 16), plus Jean-Luc Godard’s visual feast Contempt (February 16). And two classics of American seventies cinema hit upstate New York: Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show at the Picture House in Pelham (February 12 and 14) and Bob Rafelson’s The King of Marvin Gardens at George Eastman House’s Dryden Theatre in Rochester (February 15).

Dickens is the rage in Silver Spring, with David Lean’s Great Expectations (February 11) and Oliver Twist (February 12) at AFI Silver. Emory University’s Department of Film and Media Studies in Atlanta gets acerbic with Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success (February 15). Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center bets on Robert Bresson with Au hasard Balthazar (February 11 and 15) and Pickpocket (February 13), and the nearby Doc Films has both Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s wild World on a Wire (February 11) and Mikio Naruse’s world-weary When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (February 13). The University of Wisconsin – Madison Cinematheque drops anchor for Josef von Sternberg’s The Docks of New York (February 11). Omaha’s Film Streams takes flight with Ken Loach’s Kes (February 11, 12, and 16) and waltzes with Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (February 12–14). Jean-Pierre Melville’s casino heist flick Bob le flambeur slow-burns at the Salt Lake Film Society (February 10­–17). Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive has Bresson’s elegant and venomous Les dames du Bois de Bologne (February 10). San Francisco’s Castro Theatre fights the power with Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (February 12). And Los Angeles’s New Beverly Cinema frolics with Fellini’s 8½ (February 16).

Up in Toronto, TIFF Lightbox continues its own Bresson bash, with Pickpocket (February 10), Mouchette (February 11), and Diary of a Country Priest (February 12). London’s BFI Southbank has two British masterpieces from 1948: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (February 10) and Lean’s Oliver Twist (February 10). Lyon’s Institut Lumière goes on the road with Federico Fellini’s La strada (February 10, 12, and 14). Brussels’s Belgian Cinematek goes wild for Truffaut’s Jules and Jim (February 10 and 13), Louis Malle’s Au revoir les enfants (February 11), Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder (February 12), and Roman Polanski’s Cul-de-sac (February 15). Crazy, violent love abounds at Zurich’s Filmpodium, with Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (February 11 and 13), and at Lausanne’s Swiss Cinematheque, with Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (February 11). Paris’s Cinémathèque française takes it to the streets with Robert Altman’s political satire Tanner ’88 (February 12) and Jules Dassin’s noir Night and the City (February 15). Olivier Assayas’s delicate Summer Hours wafts over to the Munich Filmmuseum (February 15).

Finally, the Jerusalem Cinematheque begins a four-part screening of Fassbinder’s epic Berlin Alexanderplatz, with the first two parts on February 12 and 13; and the Metropolis Empire Sofil in Beirut finishes its Ingmar Bergman series with two of his later films, Autumn Sonata (February 10) and Fanny and Alexander (February 11).