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Happy New Year!

 My Christmas gift to myself was to slip out of the house and off to Film Forum, which I hadn't seen since the dawn of Covid.


I'm so happy to report that this great institution has survived tough times, and it's now accepting credit cards. A highlight of any visit is just the lobby, which is styled as a kind of "museum of movies," and right now you can see period-piece advertisements for a restoration of Bertolucci's "The Conformist" -- the big event on the horizon.

The movie I went to see was Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt." It's such a pleasure to observe a nearly full house awaiting a Hitchcock film at noon on a weekday. (Only in New York.) The people who present Film Forum revivals try to highlight quirks about the movies on display -- so, for example, Film Forum now wants you to know that "Shadow" is one of only two Hitchcock films where the villain is also, indisputably, the protagonist. (The other film is "Psycho.")

Whether or not you make it to Film Forum this week.....Happy New Year! And I'm off for several days. I'm headed to Portugal; my reading list includes THE NEW YORKERS, HOW ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING SAVED MY LIFE, DEATH OF INNOCENCE, THE LADIES' MAN, and THE LIAR'S GIRL. I'm ready!
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