A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Film Forum

What would I do without the fabulous revivals shown at Film Forum, the cerebral cineplex down on Houston Street? With nothing but down time on my hands, I've spent the last month there engorging on obscure animated epics (the jitterbuggin' Hoppity Comes To Town), Nicholas Ray morality tales (Bigger Than Life, in which James Mason becomes addicted to cortisone and develops an attitude), and new wavey gravy (Godard's Made In U.S.A., which is as simultaneously innovative and banal as you'd expect, but totally gorgeous thanks to lead actress Anna Karina and Marianne Faithfull in a bit role). There was also the Carole Lombard festival, with the screwball goddess pretending to be royalty and getting involved in a madcap murder mysery, as she's often wont to do, in The Princess Comes Across.

With Kim's Video having gone kaput, it's comforting to know there's still the Forum, where we can safely live in the past for a few hours at a time.