In No Particular Order

Brokeback Mountain
When I first heard of this film, a few months before it was released, I was sure Ang Lee was out of his mind. Gay Marlboro Men? Is he kidding? So the most impressive aspect of the film for me is that it works precisely because they're cowboys and despite the Big Sky and open spaces, the love these two men have for one another has nowhere to go. That's the tragedy here, as the years pass and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Heath Ledger) attempt to live impoverished lives in straight society, meeting secretly (and only occasionally) to carry on their relationship. Of course this all can't end happily, but in the mysterious way tragedy works, I don't think you leave the theater feeling depressed. "Brokeback Mountain" is a tremendous love story whose title, after all, suggests a fatal wound. Lee gets superb performances from Gyllenhaal and Ledger who balance restraint with passion, never forgetting the sense of loss at the heart of love.

Casino
I can't imagine that Martin Scorcese and company weren't walking through the production of this film with feelings of deja vu stronger than a cheap champagne New Year's morning hangover. There's nothing here that wasn't done before and much better in "Goodfellas." Even Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci as gangsters who go to Vegas where their trade is practically legitimized by the corruption that is Vegas, are plucked right from that earlier, superior film. The first third of this 3-hour epic is pure voiceover exposition; only in the final hour is there some semblance of a plot and a story that moves forward without crutches.

Les Diaboliques
Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1955 follow-up to the "Wages of Fear" (Le Salaire de la Peur) is a remarkably restrained, dirty little film. Set in what Netflix calls a "moldering" boarding school, the film details the murder of the evil headmaster by his mistress and his wife and what happens when the corpse disappears. The direction is almost painfully neutral. Only a keen eye will detect the cockroaches scurrying across the table in a medium-shot of the teachers and students eating a meal of bad fish in the dining hall. Built on suspense and surprise it's difficult to explain the plot without giving up the ghost, but I'll say this: after a very slow start (typical of Clouzot) I was riveted.

March of the Penguins
I'm looking for a documentary for next year's Art of Film course. Ms. Lukoff suggested this film as a possibility and I think it's terrific. "March of the Penguins," as the title promises, follows the unbelievable seventy-mile trek that empire penguins make from the water to their nesting grounds. And not just once in a year, but again and again as new penguin parents take turns caring for their egg while the spouse returns to the sea to feed and bring back food for their hungry, newly hatched chick. However, while the footage of the penguins courting, fighting, and huddling together against the intractable polar weather is eye-opening, I think the film is too antiseptic and geared for a younger audience, as its G-rating will attest. There wasn't enough science or detail here for me about the environment and the life cycle. (Not to be indelicate about it, but I still don't know how empire penguins actually make babies.) It's an enjoyable documentary but probably not the best example of the genre for the Art of Film. So, I'm still looking, and open to suggestions.