PONIJAO, A JOYFULLY mischievous Namibian infant, sits in the dirt with her older brother, playing with rocks. She reaches for a bottle; her sibling snatches it from her. She bites him. He slaps her. She cries. He turns back to the rocks indifferently.

It’s the kind of adorable moment that might rack up millions of views on YouTube. But this isn’t a Handycam clip, it’s the opening scene of Babies, a documentary full of crawling, cooing and, yes, even some crying. “I hope it inspires viewers to learn about different cultures,” says the film’s director, Thomas Balmes.

Out this month from Focus Features, Babies documents a year in the life of four infants—one each in Namibia, Mongolia, Tokyo and San Francisco—from birth through the torments of teething to their first unsteady steps. Nearly 80 minutes long and virtually dialogue-free, Babies is one of Balmes’ stark observational documentaries, which also include examinations of mad cow disease and tribes in Papua New Guinea. Embedded with his subjects, whom he cast while they were still in the womb, Balmes blends into the background and keeps his camera rolling as “reality offers these amazing moments.”

In Babies those moments are plentiful—from the sight of Mongolian tot Bayar sitting in a tub of water as a goat saunters up for a drink, to American baby Hattie discovering the edible part of a banana. Such scenes are presented without narration, which is one of the film’s great strengths. “I don’t like to take the viewer by the hand,” says Balmes. But there’s no guidance needed to get the message of Babies, which demonstrates that despite how little these far-flung families seem to have in common, when it comes to our earliest experiences, humans around the world aren’t so different after all.

Imparting such lessons is the overarching goal of Babies, which Balmes insists is about more than adorable cheeks and chubby toes. He hopes the film inspires viewers to see the world anew. “Hopefully it will make some of them want to have kids, too,” he says. “It’s one of the most beautiful things in the world.”

Senior editor ADAM K. RAYMOND still prefers his peas mashed.

Image – Stephen Voss/Redux

TV WRITER DAVID SIMON is not content to scratch the surface. That much was evident in The Wire, his acclaimed HBO series that ran for five seasons ending in 2008. Though often described as a crime drama, the show, set in Baltimore, was more like a kaleidoscopic sociological study, examining not only the city’s police department and drug gangs, but the municipal government, the school system, the newspaper and the harbor. The show’s granular detail sprang from Simon’s career as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun. He’d lived in the city for decades and knew it inside and out.

Although his new show, the New Orleans–set Treme (pronounced Tre-MAY and premiering April 11 on HBO) keeps its focus on a single neighborhood and the jazz musicians who call the area home, Simon still finds plenty to explore.

“In New Orleans, the good, the bad, everything’s completely intertwined,” he says. “Jazz and rock ‘n’ roll all came from this twelve-block area of Treme.” Though the city’s post-Katrina struggles loom large, music is at the show’s heart. Wendell Pierce, a New Orleans native who played Bunk in The Wire, stars as a trombonist, and Wire alum Clarke Peters plays a Mardi Gras Indian krewe leader urging residents to return after the hurricane. A number of musicians play themselves, and other characters are inspired by local faces.

Though he doesn’t claim an intimate knowledge of the city, Simon admits feeling a profound responsibility to present an image residents would recognize. “This city is very sensitive,” he says. “If we get something wrong, they’re going to let us know.”

Another contingent sure to be watching the premiere closely is rabid Wire fans—such as Variety’s longtime TV critic Brian Lowry, who called The Wire “one of the most demanding and thought-provoking series ever to grace television.” Nonetheless, Simon is wary of viewers’ elevated expectations. “This isn’t a story about crime or drugs,” he says. “This one’s about lives. We’re interested in the interaction between people and culture—music, art, dance and, yes, some politics.”

Somehow, we doubt anyone will be disappointed with that.

Senior editor LAYLA SCHLACK is conducting an exhaustive study of Baltimore’s crabcake industry.

AFTER SEVEN YEARS as the lovably loony dad on Malcolm in the Middle, 53-year- old actor Bryan Cranston wanted to try something a little different. Walter White, his character on AMC’s Breaking Bad, is a lot different. A frazzled chemistry teacher who begins selling illegal drugs after a cancer diagnosis, White has allowed Cranston to display his acting chops in ways Malcolm’s dad, Hal, never did—for instance, traipsing naked through a supermarket. Give that man another Emmy!

Breaking Bad’s premise is so strange. What did you think when you first saw the script?
I was knocked out. I thought every actor I knew was going to be dying to play this role.

You didn’t think it was too bizarre?
No, because I knew where it was going from the beginning. Everyone else saw “high school chemistry teach turns into drug dealer” and thought it was ridiculous, but I knew [creator] Vince Gilligan wanted to do something that’s never been done on TV: start a series with a mild-mannered milquetoast lead character and take him on a journey that turns him into a tremendously bad guy.

So Walter is only going to get worse in season three?
Yeah. In season one we explored a choice Walter made in a desperate condition. Season two exposed the ramifications of that choice. And in season three, we find out what happens when his secret is exposed.

Which is?
All hell breaks loose.

Not quite Malcolm in the Middle.
You know, after I finished seven years of Malcolm I rejected a couple roles that would have been carbon copies of Hal.

I don’t know if I can do a goofy dad any differently than I already did.

And you landed a role that won you some serious recognition. Like two Emmys.
Yeah, that part has been wonderful. But you can’t anticipate that. You just have to find work that brings you joy and hope success comes your way.

Cable seems to have a fondness for shows about suburban folks with a secret dark side, like The Sopranos, Weeds, Dexter, Hung. What’s the appeal?
Networks realize that there are a lot of distractions out there, and in order to get someone’s attention you need a dynamic, compelling story that grabs people and doesn’t let them go. People relate to the imperfection of the regular guy. I think it’s what makes the show human.

Have you ever been forced to make decisions like Walter?
Fortunately, no.

I can’t imagine living with that kind of pressure. In some ways I do because I play the guy, but I have a whole ritual where I go into my trailer, wash him off and turn back into Bryan Cranston.

Associate editor ADAM K. RAYMOND always wears clothes to the supermarket.

AFTER FIVE INCREASINGLY convoluted seasons of time travel, Egyptian mythology and sweaty jungle hikes, ABC’s Lost is finally set to resolve its tangled web this winter. But despite hours of Zapruderesque freeze-framing, our total understanding of the knotty narrative amounts to the following: Kate Austen is played by Evangeline Lilly. Fortunately, we were able to ask Entertainment Weekly’s resident Lost expert, Jeff Jensen, and popular Lost blogger “Doctor Arzt” to lay odds on a few of the most likely scenarios.

THEORY 1: THE GARDEN OF EDEN

The Idea: When Jack and Kate discover a pair of skeletons on the island and christen them “Adam and Eve,” they may be on to something. Maybe the island is actually the biblical Garden of Eden, with the diabolical Smoke Monster representing the angel meant to keep us mortals out. Perhaps this is why the Godlike Jacob has a nice biblical name?

Expert Opinion: Doctor Arzt is “totally behind this possibility, in a purely agnostic kind of way.” Jensen is skeptical, saying bluntly, “I’m not a believer.”

The Odds: 108–1

THEORY 2: PANDORA’S BOX

The Idea: Maybe those bumbling dogooders in the Dharma Initiative, the shadowy organization that built the island’s bunkers, accidentally released a slew of spirits when attempting to tap a pocket of electromagnetic energy. The Others—another shadowy group—have either been battling said ghosts or doing their ghostly bidding ever since.

Expert Opinion: “Not implausible, but I wish this theory explained the Others’ connection to the seemingly supernatural Jacob,” Jensen muses.

The Odds: 23–1

THEORY 3: THE BIG GAME

The Idea: At the start of the Season 5 finale, the Others’ big boss, Jacob, shares a beach with another mysterious immortal. Though it’s assumed that the two are archnemeses, what if the entire conflict of the series is merely a grand social experiment conducted by bored gods?

Expert Opinion: Doctor Arzt is intrigued but unconvinced. “There was definitely a certain friendliness about their conversation,” he says.

The Odds: 15–1

THEORY 4: THE BLANK SLATE

The Idea: All of that time-traveling may have been for naught. When Juliet set off the nuclear device at the bottom of the mine shaft, she may have created a totally new future, one in which the entire story never unfolds! Perhaps the final season will consist of the characters going about their normal lives as time attempts to course-correct to their old reality.

Expert Opinion: “I love this idea,” Doctor Arzt gushes. “Lost fans would be completely disarmed.” Jensen echoes the sentiment but adds a caveat: “Many fans are worried that the ‘reboot’ theory negates five years’ worth of drama.”

The Odds: 4–1

Contributing writer MATT THOMPSON knows the real answer…he’s just not telling.

“PUBLISH OR PERISH,” went the old admonition about success in academia. These days, “upload or downsize” might be more to the point. Although YouTube—with its clips of piano-playing cats and break-dancing babies—isn’t the most intellectual online destination, the site took a step toward changing that last March with the launch of YouTube EDU, a channel that organizes videos of educators and other heady content in one brainiac-friendly hub. The clips may not look like much—a professor, a blackboard, a laser pointer—but they’ve become wildly popular—and not just with class-skipping students. Thanks to YouTube EDU and similar sites (iTunes U, Academic Earth and Fora.tv among them), anyone able to click a mouse can now devour a Yale literature course without spending a dime on tuition.

“It’s quality stuff on the cheap,” says Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, who has dozens of talks on history and the economy floating around the net. His lectures, along with others from top-flight universities like UC Berkeley, Stanford, MIT and Yale, routinely rack up tens of thousands of views, along with some pretty eff usive comments. “Wow! I love her!” one viewer gushed of Berkeley prof Marian Diamond’s talk on functional anatomy.

“After watching a video of dog tricks, it’s nice to actually learn something,” notes Swarthmore College psychology professor Barry Schwartz, a veritable star of the genre, whose lectures have more in common with George Carlin’s biting social satire than the dry talks more typically heard in university classrooms.

“Ideas that challenge the way we commonly think” get viewers excited, says Peter Hopkins, president of Big Think, which produces videos with professors and other experts. Like TED.com, which posts clips of addresses given at the annual Technology, Entertainment and Design conference, Big Think is part of a new wave of slick sites working the lecture circuit.

The most popular online talks—like Berkeley professor Richard Muller’s series on “Physics for Future Presidents,” which has had around a half-million views on YouTube—have certain common traits: uncanny comedic timing, social relevance and clever visual aids. Now if Muller can just teach a cat to play piano, he’ll really be on to something.

NOKWARE KNIGHT was educated the old-fashioned way: with books.

ALSO THIS MONTH

What else to watch on the go in January

Prom Night in Mississippi

Prom at Mississippi’s Charleston High was a racially segregated affair until Morgan Freeman showed up with a proposal: Integrate and he’d foot the bill. A revealing documentary looks at what happened next. On DVD January 26

Jaroo.com

Like Hulu for kids, Jaroo.com offers hundreds of episodes of hard-to-find cartoons—think “Inspector Gadget,” “The Legend of Zelda” and “Madeline”—in a kid-friendly, kid-safe environment. And yes, adults can watch too.

The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special — In 3-D! On Ice!

It’s been two decades since The Simpsons hit airwaves, and Fox celebrates with this Morgan Spurlock documentary, which goes behind the scenes with America’s most lovably dysfunctional four-fingered family. Airs January 10

AT MIDNIGHT ON December 18, the opening credits of James Cameron’s sci-fiepic Avatar will flicker onto movie screens, and cinema as we know it will change forever. At least that’s the idea.

The fervent anticipation of Avatar (tickets went on sale fourth months ago) has less to do with the plot— humans battling blue aliens—than the presentation: motion-capture animation mixed with live action displayed in a revolutionary type of 3-D that’s been called the biggest innovation in filmmaking since sound and color.

This isn’t Vincent Price’s 3-D, mind you. Known as RealD, the digital stereoscopic projection technology used for Avatar has been around only since 2005, when Chicken Little introduced it to six-year-olds. Since then, RealD has mainly been used for animation (Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) and movies that might not be especially appealing without the added novelty (The Final Destination, G-Force). That’s why Michael V. Lewis, CEO of RealD, is so excited to have the director behind the most successful movie ever (it was about a boat) utilizing the technology.

“James Cameron has spent the last decade learning how to effectively tell stories in 3-D,” Lewis says. “Avatar could be the Citizen Kane of 3-D films.” It may sound as if he’s looking through 3-D colored glasses, but Lewis is not alone. DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg thinks “Avatar will be to 3-D what The Wizard of Oz was to color.” And Sony Pictures Entertainment cochair Amy Pascal believes “it could change the world.” Meanwhile Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg and Zack Snyder have 3-D films in development.

If all goes as planned, Avatar will open the door for 3-D romcoms, 3-D musicals and 3-D documentaries, and Hollywood will reap the rewards. Ticket prices for 3-D movies can be as much as twice those of their 2-D counterparts, and moviegoers appear willing to pay.

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Roger Ebert has called 3-D “a marketing gimmick,” and other detractors point to a lack of screens around the country capable of showing 3-D movies. Shooting in 3-D also adds an estimated $15 million in production costs, an impossible luxury for many small films. Perhaps most important, no one knows how the 3-D experience will translate to the living room. But they better figure it out soon. Sony and Panasonic are releasing 3-D flat screens next year.

Associate editor ADAM K. RAYMOND wears his 3-D glasses at night.

ALSO THIS MONTH

What else to watch on the go in December

Robin Williams: Weapons of Self-Destruction

Thirty years after first appearing on HBO, furry funnyman Robin Williams returns with his full repertoire of goofy voices and bizarre antics for his first stand-up special in seven years. Na-Nu Na-Nu.

On HBO December 6

Herb & Dorothy

This charming documentary tells how a working-class couple amassed one of the world’s top modern art collections by snatching up works by unknowns such as Chuck Close and Sol LeWitt.

On DVD December 15

AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa directed 31 films in his masterful career. Criterion celebrates his 100th birthday with this collection of the 25 best, from Sanshiro Sugata, his first, to Madadayo, his last.

On DVD December 8; www.criterion.com

WHEN A FAMILY FILM IS GOOD, it’s very, very good. When it’s bad, it’s Tom and Jerry: The Movie. For years, these pictures have mostly been the province of workaday directors-plodding types who know how to amuse a kindergartner, if not his parents. But a new generation of filmmakers -never-grow-up Gen-Xers, mostly-are embracing the G-rated genre. In the wake of Where the Wild Things Are, by Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich), our nation’s youth will be lining up- Hollywood hopes-for Fantastic Mr. Fox by Wes Anderson, the dandyish director behind The Royal Tenenbaums.

Such pairings may seem chancy, but there’s some recent precedent: Indiefilm renegade Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) managed to create his own familyfriendly franchise, the Spy Kids trilogy, outside of the Hollywood system. And Tim Burton, who’s carried his penchant for dark whimsy from the gothic corridors of Edward Scissorhands into such family-friendly territory as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, is prepping Alice in Wonderland for a March release.

Jonze has said that in recreating the antic nightmares of a moody child, he wanted to “capture the feeling of what it is to be nine,” but the approach has generated some controversy. “Making a movie from the point of view of a child is not the same as making a childfriendly movie,” Variety reporter Anne Thompson notes pointedly.

Fantastic Mr. Fox may be just as risky in choosing to jettison digital animation for an old-time stop-motion process. Still, given Anderson’s penchant for stories about self-obsessed control freaks (we’re looking at you, Steve Zissou), Roald Dahl’s suavely domineering furry beast seems tailormade for the director’s sensibilities.

Meanwhile, similar projects are in the pipeline: David Fincher (Fight Club) is at work on a big-screen version of the comic book The Goon. And Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) is set to direct an animated remake of Dahl’s The Witches, scripted by Alfonso Cuarón, who himself went from a sexy indie breakthrough (Y Tu Mamá También) to Harry Potter-ville.

If Fox is a hit, look for auteur kiddie flicks to become a bona fide trend. Who’s up for Quentin Tarantino’s Harriet the Spy?

Film critic GENE SEYMOUR thought Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 adaptation of The Witches was just fine, thank you.

ALSO THIS MONTH

What else to watch on the go in November

By the People

Back in the spring of 2006, two filmmakers began following a dynamic first-term senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. The result is a compelling and frank behind-the-scenes look at the making of the 44th president. On HBO November 3

Throw Down Your Heart

This uplifting documentary follows banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck as he traces the African roots of his instrument (so often associated with Appalachian front porches) and joins local musicians for epic jam sessions. On DVD November 3

Gone with the Wind: Ultimate Collector’s Edition

On its 70th anniversary, Gone with the Wind gets the box-set treatment with this five-disc collection comprising newsreels, documentaries, biographies and the film itself. Frankly, my dear, you must buy it. On DVD November 17

WHEN SHE WAS JUST THREE years old, Julia Louis-Dreyfus strategically placed several raisins in her nose and made two startling discoveries. One: She liked making people laugh. Two: Raisins don’t go in noses. “I sucked them in too hard after making my mom laugh, and we had to go to the emergency room,” she says.

More than 40 years later, Louis-Dreyfus’ comedic technique has matured considerably. Though she’s still a master of slapstick, she’s better known for her indelible portrayals of highly neurotic women—from Elaine Benes, her frantic Upper West Side editor on Seinfeld, to Christine Campbell, the frazzled suburban divorcée she plays on The New Adventures of Old Christine. But this fall, when the cast of Seinfeld reunites on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, she’ll play a more challenging character: herself. She spoke with Hemispheres about her latest adventure.

How is it you’re so good at playing a hapless divorcée when your own life (22-year marriage, two sons, two successful sitcoms) is so perfect?

Well, first of all, nothing’s perfect. In fact, I’m miserable.… I’m kidding! Actually, I’m the product of a divorced family, so I know the world of divorce well.

Do you draw on that to play Christine?

Yes. And the show’s not just about divorce; it’s about being a working mother, which I am. I’m a working mom who’s trying to do the right things and failing very frequently. The anxiety about failing is ever-present, so that’s an easy thing to tap into.

On the show you run into failure quite often.

If things worked out for Christine, we would be in the drama category.

So how will Christine embarrass herself this season?

Well, Barb, played by the sublime Wanda Sykes, is going to be deported to the Bahamas. I try to retrieve her and it turns into a whole mess with lost passports, etc. We also have Eric McCormack guest-starring for a few episodes as my psychiatrist and potential romantic interest. So it’s very conflicted and ugly. Those are just a couple little snippets.

I read that the show’s writers have challenged themselves to cook up something so humiliating that you refuse to do it. Have they succeeded?

Not yet. But we’re about to start shooting the new season, so it’s still possible. They might succeed, but I’m always willing to give something a shot if it gets a laugh.

The idea of the Seinfeld reunion is that it’s actually taking place within the context of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the series based around the life of Seinfeld cocreator Larry David. It’s all a little bit mind-boggling. What else can you tell us about doing that show?

Not much. Larry said he will shoot me, and I take him very seriously. But I can tell you that it was a surreal experience and an enormous amount of fun.

Did you ever think you guys would get back together?

Never. But when Larry called I said, “Oh, well, that makes sense.” The show within the show idea is a cool way of doing it. Any other way, it’s not cool.

Reuniting in the old format would have…

…It would have been depressing! But this, well, I hope it’s not depressing.

Is shooting Curb different from what you’re used to?

Well, it’s improvised. So you go into a scene knowing the beats you have to hit, but beyond that you’re kind of riding bareback.

Is that any easier or harder?

Just different. You have to exercise different muscles in the brain. But I do adore it.

You’re said to be notoriously foulmouthed. Since Curb is on HBO, you can finally let loose, right?

Heck yes, every other word is [a swear word].

Not something CBS is very keen on?

They’re not keen on it, and I’m guessing Hemispheres isn’t very keen on it either.

Let’s abruptly change the subject. What are the biggest differences between Old Christine and Seinfeld.

There’s a lot more work for me to do because it’s my show. Because of that, it’s also more female-oriented. Our executive producer is a woman too, so the point of view and the sensibility are very different from Seinfeld. And having done TV for many, many years, I certainly know more now than I did way back in nineteen-ninetywhatever-it-was.

Long ago.

Yeah! God almighty. When did we start that show? Eighty-nine to ninety-eight, I think that’s what is was.

That would make it 20 years this year.

Ugggggh.

Even after all that time, do people still call you Elaine?

It’s like sixty-forty Elaine. Christine is catching up, though.

Does it bother you?

Not at all. The truth is, either one is fine because it’s a great gift to be connected to a character that people recognize. It means they’re watching, and I dig that.

That’s a problem you ran into with your last show, Watching Ellie. No one seemed to be watching.

Yeah, but I remain very, very proud of Watching Ellie. Frankly, I think it was ahead of its time. It was a single-camera show before singlecamera shows were popular, and it had a great premise. The idea of doing a show in real time was really a challenge to the writers and actors. It was obviously a big disappointment when it got canceled, but now I’m making Old Christine, which I love totally and completely.

Why do you think this show has been such a success?

A couple reasons. First of all, it’s very well written. When it comes to comedy you can’t fake funny. It’s also a fresh take on the American family—a divorced couple that’s trying to remain civil and raise a child in two different households. People can relate to that.

The New Adventures of Old Christine premiered September 23 on CBS and Curb Your Enthusiasm September 20 on HBO.
ADAM K. RAYMOND will be watching, if he can find the remote.

ALSO THIS MONTH

What else to watch on the go in October

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

This strangely compelling documentary follows the hard-luck life of Anvil, an obscure Canadian heavy metal band that’s shredded in obscurity since the ’70s. Anvil’s members may be balder and pudgier, but that doesn’t stop the headbanging.
On DVD October 6

Astro Boy: The Beginning

When the computeranimated Astro Boy movie comes out this month, we’ll be watching the original Japanese anime instead. With its heartfelt stories of human and robot interaction, it’s easy to see why Astro Boy became the Mickey Mouse of Japan.
On DVD October 6

This Is It

As he moonwalked his way through his final rehearsals, Michael Jackson still danced like it was 1985. Footage of those moves and interviews with his family and friends are given the documentary treatment in this touching eulogy to M.J.
In theaters October 28

Joel McHale fans, it’s your lucky day. This fall, the longtime host of E!’s The Soup, the smart and scathing weekly dissection of reality TV, is taking on a new gig: leading man in NBC’s big-hearted single-camera comedy Community, about Jeff Winger, a fast-talking lawyer forced to return to community college. (“I thought you had a bachelor’s degree from Columbia,” an old client says. “And now I need to get one from America,” Jeff replies.) Needless to say, McHale’s days of being mistaken for Ryan Seacrest are over.

“I figure that at any moment I’m going to be struck by lightning while choking on a chicken bone, and it’ll all stop,” McHale says of the good fortune that now has him starring in two television shows simultaneously (he is also appearing in October’s Steven Soderbergh farce The Informant!). Certainly, the schedule will be punishing: The comedian works on jokes for The Soup while on set for Community and tapes his E! show late on Thursday night. The worst part of that hectic schedule may be the way it’s cut into his TV-watching time. “That’s sad,” he says. “But then again, some people don’t consider missing The Bachelor tragic. They see it as liberating and cause for celebration.”

Community, an ensemble show about a diverse group of back-to-schoolers who meet, bicker and bond in an adult-ed Spanish class, has NBC’s plum Thursday night comedy spot, right after The Office. The show costars Chevy Chase as a politically incorrect student (sample line: “Sexually harassing you? That makes no sense to me. Why would I harass someone who turns me on?”).

“If you had told me ten years ago that I would be doing a television show with Chevy Chase I would have been like, alright, what kind of drug are you on?” McHale says, “because that seems very unlikely.” To cope with the strangeness, McHale likes to pepper his costar with lines from Fletch, to which Chase happily replies in character.

Asked what he would study if he wound up going back to college, McHale, a husband and father of two, ponders for second before suggesting gymnastics. “I should probably have skipped college,” confesses the actor, who holds an MFA in acting from the University of Washington. “I kind of dillydallied around when I was there.” Somehow, we don’t doubt it. But he seems to have made something of himself after all.

Willa Paskin is the features editor for BlackBook magazine.

ALSO THIS MONTH

What else to watch on the go in September

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea
Ken Burns partners with PBS for an epic six-parter exploring National Parks from Death Valley to the Grand Canyon. With tales of tree-huggers and wily opportunists, Burns pulls off a 
coup—he makes 
parks exciting.
Debuts September 27.

Valentino: The Last Emperor
Decadent and incisive, this documentary showcases the orange-tinted fashion god’s lavish lifestyle—
jet-setting around with his posse of pugs—
and the attention to detail that’s made 
him a legend.

On DVD this month. 
valentinomovie.com

Melrose Place
The best primetime soap in the history of drama (sorry, Aeschylus) is back, with some spawn of the old cast mingling with Hollywood vixens and twentysomethings. We’d really like to resist it, but then we said that about 
the original, too.

Premieres September 8.

IT NEVER SEEMED all that promising, really—a prime-time drama about a handful of baby boomers trying to cope with their blessed lives. The series, arriving on DVD this month, revolved around two married couples—one happily, the other less so—and three single friends. It won an Emmy for best drama in its first season, was canceled after its fourth and gave birth to a new word (check the dictionary).

Admittedly, some viewers found the series a mite whiny—after all, what do all these good looking, well-off Philadelphians have to complain about? But thirtysomething set itself apart by taking relationships and feelings as seriously as CSI takes blood spatters. Two decades later, it remains more intense, insightful, and brutally honest about the difficulties, compromises and pleasures of marriage and friendship than anything currently on the air (watch the episode “Therapy,” about a troubled couple in counseling, and try not to squirm—or sob like a baby).

To hear the show’s creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, tell it, when they began working on the series, they were thirtysomething themselves and every bit as wishy-washy as their stand-ins, Michael and Elliot. They were also so snobby about TV as a medium that “in some perverse way, we hoped to be canceled so we could go back to making films,” Herskovitz explains. “We tried to make a show that was so specific to our experiences that no one else would want to watch it.”

“We just did what we wanted to do,” Zwick adds. “We put it all out there.”

As a result, thirtysomething’s audience was more passionate than plentiful; the show was simply too honest to be a massive hit. Early on, Herskovitz asked a friend what he thought. “That’s my life,” he said. “Why watch it on TV?”

Yet thirtysomething had a longer run than any of the shows Herskovitz and Zwick have made since. Neither My So Called Life (think teensomething) nor Quarterlife (twentysomething) lasted more than a season. Once and Again (fortysomething) lasted three. So how do they feel about being known for critically adored but doomed series? “It’s always been more my sensibility to be the tragic Byronic hero than the romantic lead,” Zwick laughs.

“Although,” Herskovitz chimes in, “I would prefer to be the extremely rich Byronic hero.”

WILLA PASKIN already knows how to kvetch like a thirtysomething despite being just twentysomething.

ALSO THIS MONTH

What else to watch on the go in August

Interview Project

David Lynch, the director of creepy, singular films like Blue Velvet, took to the highways to film short interviews with regular Americans, who offer up tales as, well, Lynchian as anything in his oeuvre. At interviewproject. www.davidlynch.com

Trouble the Water

Carl Deal and Tia Lessin juxtapose the terrifying footage New Orleans native Kimberly Roberts shot as the Katrina floodwaters rose, with her wrenching, if uplifting, experience when she returned to the shattered city. On DVD August 25

Wee See

Eye-candy for 18-month-olds, Wee See is a collection of animated shorts consisting entirely of black-and-white geometric shapes, with a mesmerizing score by Tim DeLaughter of The Polyphonic Spree. Available on DVD from www.weeseeworld.com

IN 2005, NINA PALEY’S HUSBAND dumped her by email from India. Paley, a 40-year-old animator who now lives in New York City, was distraught—but she was not, she soon found, without some recourse. She spent the next three years writing, directing, animating and editing a retort on her computer.

The vividly crafted result, Sita Sings the Blues, is a unique animated feature that combines Paley’s own romantic woes with the Indian tale of the Ramayana— a 3,000-year-old epic Sanskrit poem that’s as familiar to South Asians as Bible stories are to Westerners—and the songs of a mostly forgotten jazz-age vocalist, Annette Hanshaw. Or, as Paley puts it, it’s an “animated, musical, personal interpretation of the Ramayana set to American jazz and blues from the 1920s.” You know, one of those.

To Paley’s mind, the Ramayana, in which Hindu goddess Sita is forsaken by her husband, Rama, but remains eternally faithful, is “the greatest breakup story every told.” And it spoke to her. “When my husband dumped me,” she says, “it was freaky how insightful that story became.” Soon after the dissolution of her marriage, she heard a recording of Hanshaw at a friend’s house. “I was in this state,” Paley explains, “and the songs just felt so true.” Somehow, she realized, the three elements belonged together.

The result defies easy explanation. Sita seamlessly meshes multiple styles of animation and storylines, cutting from jerky, hand-drawn scenes from Paley’s own marriage to Flash-animated sequences of a wide-eyed, Betty Boop–esque Sita singing Hanshaw’s songs and then to shadow-puppet sequences in which Paley’s friends colloquially retell the Ramayana. Coincidentally, Paley grew up in Urbana, Illinois, Roger Ebert’s hometown. That might explain why, when a DVD of Sita showed up in his mail unbidden, he decided to take a look. The powerhouse critic called the film “astonishingly original,” adding, “I am enchanted.”

Despite that enthusiastic thumbs up, after struggling to release the film through the usual channels, Paley has opted to distribute it herself. DVDs of Sita are available for $20, but the entire film is also streaming for free online. The idea, she explains, is for Sita to find the widest possible audience. “This is a story most people can empathize with,” Paley says. “You’re really lucky if you can’t relate to having your heart broken.”

Sita Sings the Blues is available to stream or download at www.sitasingstheblues.com

ALSO THIS MONTH

What else to watch on the go in July

Web Therapy

Former Friend Lisa Kudrow stars in an amusing improvisational comedy series as Dr. Fiona Wallice, a supremely self-involved psychotherapist who sees her patients for three-minute sessions, via webcam.

Online at www.lstudio.com/web-therapy

Mad Men
Season Two

The third season of Mad Men, AMC’s critically beloved show about hard-drinking, chain-smoking, impeccably groomed advertising men, starts in late summer. Time for a review course in all the office politics, mysterious back stories and skinny ties from last season.

Out on DVD July 14

Harvard Beats Yale
29-29

It may be the most triumphant tie in all of sports: the epic 1968 football match in which Harvard scored 16 points against the undefeated Yale in the game’s final 42 seconds. Four decades later, an enormously entertaining documentary tells the tale.

Out on DVD July 28

IF YOU THINK TINA FEY and Judd Apatow — amusing as they are — represent the cutting edge of comedy, it may be time for a refresher in the work of Norman Lear.

The man responsible for the most provocative television that ever aired turns 87 this year. Lear, the writer, producer and creator of such groundbreaking sitcoms as All in the Family, The Jeffersons and Sanford and Son altered the national conversation in the 1970s and ’80s, exploring race, class and gender with verve and humor — lots of humor. Containing some 50 hours of programming (a fraction of his total output), the 19-disc Norman Lear Collection, out this month, makes the case that Lear’s work remains, some three decades on, more fearless — and hilarious — than any current program this side of South Park (of which Lear is, naturally, a die-hard fan).

Even today it’s hard to imagine how All in the Family, starring Carroll O’Connor as bigoted loading dock foreman Archie Bunker, made it to air, especially back in 1971, when televised eruptions of racism, sexism, antiSemitism and pretty much every other -ism you can name were unheard of. (In fact, ABC taped two pilots and rejected both before CBS signed on to make a third, a trilogy of sorts that is among the collection’s stand-out features.) “Most shows today aren’t dealing with these kind of issues through comedy,” Lear says. “But I can’t imagine that if All in the Family came on the air tomorrow, with that company of actors, that it wouldn’t score.”

He has a point — that is, if the show could even make it past the network suits, who have only become more timid in the ensuing years, leaving edgier stuff to cable. And All in the Family wasn’t the only show in the Lear canon to punch the nation’s hot buttons. Good Times was set among the struggling residents of a Chicago housing project, and Lear created The Jeffersons, about a black couple who were “movin’ on up,” in part to counter criticism of Good Times. Meanwhile, the lead character of Maude, played by Bea Arthur, underwent an abortion two months before Roe v. Wade made the procedure legal nationwide.

Even Lear’s satirical soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman proved controversial, prompting many stations to air it only after 11 p.m. (The first seasons of all four series, along with Family, Sanford and Son and One Day at a Time, are included in the box set.)

These days, Lear, who has devoted much of his time to political activism in recent years, is developing a drama for HBO, Everybody Hurts — set in the ’70s, Lear’s wheelhouse decade — about a father-son wrestling dynasty. As for his pioneering work from that era, he’s just gratified that it’s finally getting a second look. “The characters are undeniable, and they’re funny,” he says. “People should really watch those shows.”

An added benefit? “Laughter adds time to one’s life,” Lear says. Take two sitcoms and call him in the morning.

ALSO THIS MONTH

What else to watch on the go in June

Pilot Season
Nobody plays fatuous, self-involved brats like comedienne Sarah Silverman. The princess of provocation costars in this hilarious, little-seen 2004 mockumentary series, which sends up Hollywood culture. Streaming on www.mydamnchannel.com

Wonderful Town
An architect arrives in a tsunami-devastated Thai resort town and falls for an innkeeper. Though they scarcely mention the horrific event that brought them together, it haunts every perfectly crafted frame. Out on DVD from Kino

Loot
An absorbing documentary following a mellow used car salesman on his quest to help two WWII vets recover a trove of booty they stole during the war offers a fascinating, emotionally charged look at treasure hunting. On HBO2 in June