Butler's Cinema Scene

“PUBLIC SPEAKING” (May 24)

God bless Martin Scorsese. When he’s not making a big Hollywood movie, he’s out there churning out interesting documentaries.

“Public Speaking” is a profile of humorist and essayist Fran Lebowitz. It’s not a conventional biography; anything we learn about her origins and literary history arrives as part of several extended conversations or, more accurately, monologues delivered by the delightfully ascerbic Lebowitz.

I love her because she’s an elitist. She claims that NYC was ruined when city fathers decided to sell it to Middle America as a tourist destination. As a result, she complains, the streets of Manhattan are awash in “hillbillies.”

Lebowitz says the worst thing about the AIDS epidemic was not the loss of a generation of potentially great artists, but the loss of a discerning audience. Today’s entertainment now has to be broader in order to cater to a boneheaded mass audience incapable of grasping subtlety.

More Lebowitticisms:

“Any chance you have for revenge, take it.”

“I’m rarely nasty to people. I believe in talking behind their backs.”

And on it goes.

Scorsese knows he’s got gold here, and often just lets his subject rant. But he when required he does some nifty editing and even follows Lebowitz on her jaunts around town, sometimes driving her massive, 40-year-old cream-colored Checker Cab, which apparently is the intellectual’s answer to a Hummer.

“TRUE GRIT” (June 7) 

What can I say? When it hit theaters back at Christmastime the Coen Brothers’ “True Grit” immediately landed on my list of the Top Ten Westerns of all time. And this DVD/Blu-ray combo pack gives you all the time you need to savor it frame by beautiful frame.

Gotta tell you, though, I sometimes wish siblings Joel and Ethan Coen weren’t quite so shy. I mean, I understand the concept of letting a work of art speak for itself, but one of the very cool things about the modern home video release is the commentary track that allows filmmakers to dish background, on-the-set stories and other amusing foderol.

The Coens aren’t having any of that. Sigh. But why couldn’t we at least have a track narrated by cinematographer Roger Deakins, say? Is that too much to ask?

This package does have a few extras, including a couple of behind-the-scenes documentaries (which always seem too freakin’ self-congratulatory for comfort). But there is one absolutely must-see attraction here.

“Charles Portis: The Greatest Writer You’ve Never Heard of” is a terrific one-hour doc about the man who wrote “True Grit” more than 40 years ago. Of course Portis is a notorious avoider of the spotlight, and here we see him only in old photographs and brief footage of public appearances (accepting an award, etc.).

But a host of critics, fellow writers and friends give us a genuine sense of the man. Very nifty

“MONOGAMY” (June 14)

Dana Adam Shapiro’s psychological thriller is kinda Hitchcock, kinda DePalma…not that it’s as good as anything by those two, but it has its moments.

Chris Messina (“Julie & Julia”) is Theo, a young photographer about to be married to his live-in girlfriend Nat (Rashida Jones of “I Love You Man” and TV’s “Parks & Recreation”).

Theo’s methodology is a bit odd — he picks as his subjects individuals who interest him, and with their OK begins following them surreptitiously, taking from hiding places photos  that, he hopes, reveal the truth of their lives.

When a staph infection lands Nat in the hospital, Theo has way too much time to devote to his latest subject, a gorgeous young woman (Meital Dohan) who, ahem, performs for Theo’s candid camera. Apparently she’s a hooker…she even arranges by email for Theo to eavesdrop on her session with a married client.

Little by little Theo becomes totally obsessed with this woman — without ever actually meeting her face-to-face. That obsession dovetails dangerously with his growing unease over his impending marriage.

“Monogamy” is smart, sexy and creepy, offering an interesting twist on our voyeuristic society.

| Robert W. Butler