Merci, Criterion

Hats off to Criterion, which continues to release the most exemplary DVD editions of obscure and out-of-print classics. I screened Robert Bresson's Au Hazard, Balthazar, which toured big cities in a newly restored print in 2003 and made such an impact that several critics voted it one of the best of the year; and Jean Renoir's The River this weekend. I'm still recovering from the former and the latter made a most soothing tranquilizer.

On the way: Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle, which I last screened in 1994 on a videotape copy so moth-eaten I could have stuck my big toe through the reel.