“February can be a hard month for movie lovers. The studios continue their annual winter clearance sales, dumping dumbed-down damaged goods into the multiplexes to offset their Oscar contenders. A few interesting films usually straggle into view, but it is easy to become dispirited and to succumb to gloomy grumbling about the sad condition of cinema.

Fortunately the Film Society of Lincoln Center is doing its part to help New York audiences dispel their midwinter malaise. The society’s fourth annual Film Comment Selects program, which starts today and runs for two weeks at the Walter Reade Theater, is an eclectic and intriguing minifestival, a collection of overlooked, underappreciated and sometimes just plain odd movies that should satisfy a wide range of tastes.” — New York Times Synchronicity strikes; see the Ripley post below. One of the films in the series is

Liliana Cavani’s Ripley’s Game, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel with John Malkovich in the title role… Though the film plays well on television (where it has turned up recently on cable, never having received a theatrical release), its unnerving, cold-blooded calm would be better experienced on the Walter Reade’s big screen. Ms. Highsmith’s elegant viciousness is brilliantly captured in Mr. Malkovich’s slithering performance, and Ms. Caviani’s chilly sensibility provides a good antidote to Anthony Minghella’s overwrought and over-costumed version of The Talented Mr. Ripley.