The central PA movie scene. Or lack thereof.

Downingtown.

Sure, we don't (currently) own a television. This makes the DVD collection somewhat difficult to put to good use, but it'll be remedied in due time. No Four Star-equivalent, so I suppose Netflix'll have to fill the void.

Could be worse, I suppose. It could be Blockbuster or nothing. Last I'd checked, they won't carry anything with an NC-17 rating. Any place that refuses to carry Crash likely won't have a great selection of envelope-pushing art films.

And Lewisburg doesn't have much in the way of movie theaters. The Campus Theatre is a sweet, Art Deco, single-screen cinema from 1941, literally around the corner from our house. They can get some interesting films - including an annual documentary film festival - but the single screen limits the selection. There's a multiplex over in Selinsgrove, and probably another somewhere north of town, but nothing that'll show anything that's not intended as a mass-market blockbuster.

None of that quashes the need for movies. We'd caught Ratatouille at the Campus, which is well worth anyone's seven bucks. (Or whatever.) With the Pixar and Disney - especially Disney - labels, I get the impression it's been unfairly pigeonholed as a "family film". As in, something that kids can watch that won't give their parents epileptic fits. I got that impression from one of Sharon's co-workers, who'd basically dismissed it as popcorn fare. Summer season filler.

But it's Brad Bird! After three¹ films, he's toeing the line of auteur. Yes, he makes films that any child can watch, but are intended to communicate to an adult audience. He has, after all, commented that "animation can do any genre; it's unfortunately limited by what people are willing to pay for. I think you could make an animated horror film. You could make an animated film about divorce if you wanted to, and make a good one."² And, as A.O. Scott writes in his review, Ratatouille "provides the kind of deep, transporting pleasure, at once simple and sophisticated, that movies at their best have always promised."

Think of any great director's work, and how that comment sums it up. From Akira Kurosawa to Billy Wilder to, say, Richard Linklater, that seemingly effortless combination of complexity and accessibility makes for cinema that draws you in, engages you, and brings you back again and again. Whether it be to watch the film once more or to simply to recall it, to think about it more profoundly days or weeks later. Though that may not be the surest sign of a great film, it describes one that's made a connection.

And for films that connect - sometimes with a gentle caress, sometimes with a thunderous, earth-shattering impact - there's no more reliable source than the Criterion Collection. It doesn't contain all of the greatest films ever made, though that's likely more an issue with publishing rights than anything else. Reading through the Laserdisc list - all out of print - in addition to the expanding DVD list gives a thorough picture of the films that Criterion would release, given the chance. (For example: Kubrick films other than Spartacus.) If it's on that list, you can feel assured that it's worth your time.

It's also exciting to note that Criterion has an offshoot label now: Eclipse. In order to make important films from cinema history more available and affordable, these boxed sets forgo the lavish extras, the commentaries and documentaries. Instead, they're lovely little capsules of cinema art, tiny explorations of a single director's work, whether it be the early (or late) work of a world-class auteur or the little-known side projects. Genuinely cool.

And while I'm at it, I might as well mention that it's within striking distance for the latest Cronenberg film, Eastern Promises. It's hard to know quite what the film is about, even from the trailer; the more straightforward Cronenberg's work seems at first glance, the more subtle the actual message turns out. I'm avoiding summaries and potential spoilers, figuring that I'd rather be shocked and surprised the first time through. From the trailer, it almost looks like it's retracing the steps of A History of Violence, but somehow I doubt that very much.

After all, trailers can be deceptive.

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¹The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. Plus two Krusty-centered episodes of The Simpsons and the fantastic Family Dog short.

²Also in the A.V. Club interview: "That's what I would like, to do something that's cool a hundred years from now."