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George Bernard Shaw’s classic play has been remade or outright stolen since the dawn of cinema. Every teen makeover movie owes its origins to PYGMALION. Most people are introduced to the story via the musical MY FAIR LADY. Though versions came before and many have come after, Leslie Howard’s version is universally considered the best.

Truly the adaptation is quick, smart and never stagy. If you have lived in Paris Hilton land your whole life and don’t know the story I’ll briefly outline it. Prof. Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard, GONE WITH THE WIND) is a top linguist who takes a bet with Col. George Pickering (Scott Sunderland, 1939’s GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS) that he can pass a cockney “guttersnipe” off as a princess by transforming her speech and manner. His test subject is the flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS), who meets him on the street one night and visits his house the next day asking to have speech lessons so that she can get a proper job at a flower shop.

Based on the German play, THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF JEAN-PAUL MARAT AS PERFORMED BY THE INMATES OF THE ASYLUM OF CHARENTON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE MARQUIS DE SADE, director Peter Brook (1963’s LORD OF THE FLIES) took it from the London stage to the screen using actors of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The story is set in one room where as the full title states the inmates of the Charenton asylum perform a play directed by the Marquis De Sade.

It is true that De Sade wrote and performed his own plays while in the asylum, which was under the direction of Monsieur Coulmier, who believed that art had a healing effect on the insane. For the film, the actors play inmates playing the roles in the play while a silhouetted audience watch the production from the other side of a set of bars.

Released in Britain in 1943, this film was banned by Prime Minister Winston Churchill for foreign distribution until 1945. Unlike many of the war films of WWII, the picture isn’t blatantly patriotic, centering its attention on a bloated, walrus-mustached “Colonel Blimp” character, who some feel Churchill felt was a satire of himself.

The title may seem like an enigma for those not familiar with who Colonel Blimp was. He was cartoon character created by David Low, who was a fat, pompous, irascible, jingoistic and stereotypically English soldier. The directing, writing and producing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (THE RED SHOES, BLACK NARCICUSS) take this archetypical character and use it as a launching point to tell the story of a career soldier who desperately tries to hold on to his usefulness as he grows older. The 40-year time frame and the “downfall” of the main character in many ways reminded me of CITIZEN KANE. In quality, it deserves to be mentioned in the ranks of KANE as well. Yep, it’s that good.

Starting in the 1950s, Roger Corman began his long and notorious career of directing and mainly producing low-budget horror and actions films. He helped launch the careers of such directors as Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme and Ron Howard as well as actors like Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. His 1960 version of Edgar Allan Poe’s THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER is a Technicolor gothic, starring Vincent Price. Fans of the film have lifted it up so high that it has been included in the U.S. Library of Congress’ National Film Registry.

The story begins with Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon, THE LONGEST DAY) riding to the Usher estate to see his fiancée Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey, TV’s ZORRO [1958]), who he meet while she was visiting Boston. However, the butler Bristol (Harry Ellerbe, TV’s RAWHIDE) tells Philip that Madeline is sick and that her brother Roderick (Price) is refusing guests. After Philip insists, Roderick meets with Philip and tells him that the Usher family is cursed. As Philip tries to take his beloved away, her brother does everything to keep her confined in the crumbling house. The family’s past haunts Roderick to a morbid degree.

Romantic comedy-wise this is the best there has ever been. Billy Wilder (SABRINA) wrote and directed this Oscar winner, which tells the tale of two people who get took and in the process find love.

C.C. “Bud” Baxter (Jack Lemmon, SOME LIKE IT HOT) is a low-ranking automaton at a huge insurance company in New York City. Through happenstance, his apartment has become the secret rendezvous for execs at his firm to take their mistresses, which often leaves him at work late or worse, sleeping in the park. He puts up with it, because these are powerful men, who can get him out of his little desk in a sea of little desks.

Like most of the men at the firm, he wishes he could take out the pretty elevator girl named Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT). Turns out she is having an affair with personnel director Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray, DOUBLE INDEMNITY), who finds out about “the apartment” and wants in on the action. With a promotion in sight, Baxter agrees not knowing that it’s Miss Kubelik that Mr. Sheldrake will be taking back to his abode. Sly wit seeps into every moment. With all the adulterous men coming in and out of the apartment, Baxter’s neighbor Dr. Dreyfuss (Jack Kruschen, MCLINTOCK!) asks if the iron man would like to donate his body to science.

I see quite a few short films a year — mostly animated ones. However, it’s usually pointless to review them, because for a general audience they cannot be seen. Apple’s iTunes has changed this problem, making all the animated and live-action Oscar-nominated shorts available for download. This is how I was able to see SIX SHOOTER — the winner for best live-action short.

The morbidly dark comedy follows Donnelly (Brendan Gleeson, HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE), a middle-aged man whose wife has just passed away. Right from the start me know that the film has a twisted sense of humor when Donnelly places an unexpected picture in the hands of his departed wife. On the train home, he sits across from a young man (Ruaidhri Conroy, HART’S WAR), who has an offensively loud mouth and has no qualms saying the worst things in the world especially to a clearly distraught couple (David Wilmot, INTERMISSION, & Aisling O’Sullivan, THE BUTCHER BOY).

From the Jim Henson Co. comes this trippy family fantasy where a teenage girl must uncover the secrets of a dream world before her dark side takes her place in the real world.

Helena (Stephanie Leonidas, YES) is a juggler in her family’s circus, but not by choice rather obligation. When her mother (Gina McKee, NOTTING HILL) falls ill, Helena regrets a wish she made that her mother would die. The illness spurs Helena’s father (Rob Brydon, TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY) to make the tough decision to close down the circus. The night before Helena’s mother’s operation, Helena is transported into a dream world made up of her elaborate drawings.

In the dream world, blob-like shadows are devouring the City of Light. The Princess of Darkness, who looks just like Helena, has run away throwing the whole realm into chaos. The Queen of Light, who looks just like Helena’s mother, has fallen into a deep sleep and the Queen of Darkness, who also looks like Helena’s mother, is sending out the shadows in an effort to force the Princess back home. As Helena begins to piece together the puzzle, she learns that only the mysterious Mirror Mask can awaken the Queen of Light, so she sets out to find it with the help of the shifty juggler Valentine (Jason Barry, TITANIC).

The new film from director Steven Soderbergh (SEX, LIES & VIDEOTAPE, ERIN BROCKOVICH) got a lot of press when it was released in theaters in January. However, it wasn’t about its content, but about the way it was released. It debuted in theaters on a Friday, came out on DVD the following Tuesday and was on the HDNet TV network within a week. It was part of an experiment to utilize the press for a theatrical release to support the DVD sales all at the same time. Theater owners were angry, but I think it’s much a do about nothing. Big blockbusters aren’t going to be released this way. But for a small film like this one, the fact that people are seeing it is a triumph. The release model is a wonderful new tool for low-concept films with no star-power to get in front of audiences. Now onto the film.

Remember, remember the 5th of November. That is the call of the vigilante V (Hugo Weaving, THE MATRIX). The film is set in a future where the U.S. has turned into a leper colony and Britain is ruled by a fascist regime, which uses the fear of terrorists to keep its citizens in line with the ruling party.

Evey (Natalie Portman, CLOSER) works at the top British TV network and heads out for a rendezvous with TV celeb Deitrich (Stephen Fry, GOSFORD PARK). It’s past curfew and she is accosted by the secret police, but saved by V, who takes her to his “concert” — the destruction of the Old Bailey. Big Brother-like leader Adam Sutler (John Hurt, 1984) is furious the next day and begins a propaganda campaign to downplay the incident.

This independently produced CG animated feature arrived in theaters in January and finished #1 at the box office the weekend it opened. Released by the Weinstein Co., the low-budget film features low-budget animation and a script that has enough good material for a nice half hour TV special, but not a feature.

Taking a page from SHREK, the film takes an irreverent look at fairy tales, mainly Little Red Riding Hood. Red (Anne Hathaway, PRINCESS DIARIES) longs to be able to leave the forest and see the world, but her Granny (Glenn Close, THE BIG CHILL) keeps a watchful eye on her so that she doesn’t get hurt while delivering goodies, which have made their family famous.

However, someone is stealing the recipes of all the goodie makers, which leads up to the Wolf (Patrick Warburton, TV’s SEINFELD) dressing up like Granny while she’s tied up in the closet and the Woodsman (Jim Belushi, TV’s LIFE WITH JIM) comes crashing through the window. The police show up to make sense of the situation. This includes private eye Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) and Chief Grizzly (Xzbit, DOMINO).

ADV Films, on April 18, 2006, released the 11th and 12th volumes of GATCHAMAN as well as the sixth GATCHAMAN COLLECTION, a box set containing both new volumes and a jam-packed extras disk.