Cornell Cinema offers a varied winter lineup that is sure to please

Next week the film "Satin Rouge" kicks off the Cornell Cinema series "Dancing to a Different Beat," which will be shown Jan. 22, 24 and 25. Ithaca's Mirage Belly Dancers will perform live at the Jan. 22 screening. Courtesy of Cornell Cinema

Cornell Cinema's January/February calendar packs a wallop! From a weeklong run (Jan. 24-30) of the breathtakingly beautiful documentary about artist and A.D. White Professor-at-Large Andy Goldsworthy to the Ithaca premiere of the documentary "Derrida," about the great French philosopher; from Godfrey Reggio's "Qatsi Trilogy" (featuring hypnotic scores by Philip Glass) to the "Sing-a-Long Sound of Music"; from the classic Hollywood melodramas of Douglas Sirk to a special sneak preview of "Laurel Canyon," with an in-person presentation by executive producer Scott Ferguson '82; from a Jewish Film Festival to the IthaKid Film Festival to a Human Rights Watch Film & Video Festival, the calendar truly boasts something for everyone. And that's just half of it. For a complete listing, call 255-3522 or visit http://cinema.cornell.edu.

The Willard Straight Theatre's projectors are rolling again with a lineup that includes two Ithaca premieres and four fabulous films you may have missed when they first played on Ithaca screens. The Italian film "The Last Kiss," winner of the Audience Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, is "a pleasantly tart Italian comic drama about love, lies, fidelity and infatuation," said Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times. The film will screen tonight, Jan. 16, at 7:15 p.m. and again Jan. 20. "The Kid Stays in the Picture" tells the story of Robert Evans, the failed actor, fashion executive and Hollywood playboy who ran Paramount Pictures in the 1970s. An innovative and deeply entertaining bio-documentary, it features clips from some of the legendary films Evans produced, including "The Godfather," "Chinatown" and "Love Story." It will screen Jan. 17, 19 and 21.

Next week (Jan. 23 and 25) brings a restored print of "Siddhartha," Conrad Rooks' faithful adaptation of Hermann Hesse's fable about a young Brahmin's search for wisdom and spiritual peace. Shot by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist in paradisiacal locations in India with two of India's greatest actors (Shashi Kapoor and Simi Garewal), the film was re-released in honor of the 125th anniversary of the birthday of Nobel laureate Hesse. On Jan. 22 the first of several thematic film series begins. "Dancing to a Different Beat" kicks off with "Satin Rouge," a celebration of Tunisian belly dancing and real women's bodies. Ithaca's own Mirage Belly Dancers will perform live Jan. 22, and other screenings of "Satin Rouge" will take place Jan. 24 and 25. The series includes everything from foxy French dancing in François Ozon's "8 Women" (Feb. 13-15) to the modern dance of Pilobolus in "Last Dance" (Feb. 15-16) to whirling dervishes in a new print of "Baraka" (Feb. 20-22) to the sweaty restaging of Bizet's opera in Dakar, Senegal, in "Karmen Gei" (Feb. 27 and March 1) to ritual Native American dances in Sherman Alexie's "The Business of Fancydancing" (Feb. 28 and March 1).

At the end of the week, revisit Godfrey Reggio's cult classic, "Koyaanisqatsi" (Jan. 24 and 25). The film began Reggio's recently completed "Qatsi Trilogy," which explores, through amazing imagery, humankind's increasingly problematic relationship to the environment. Philip Glass composed the hypnotic scores for the trilogy of films, with assistance from Yo-Yo Ma on the latest, "Naqoyqatsi" (Feb. 5, 7 and 8). The middle film, "Powaqqatsi," which examines the consequences of Third World oppression, will screen Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. Reggio began his spiritual life in Santa Fe as a monk and found his calling in the communications wing of his fraternal order, eventually striking out on his own to pursue his environmental vision on the big screen. The films are titled with Hopi words, meaning, respectively, "life out of balance," "a magician who lives at the expense of others" and "war as a way of life" (war here referring to man fighting a losing battle against corporations, industry and technology).