Oscar nominations have you jittery with anticipation and joy. Super Bowl commercials have convinced you to stock up on Bud Light and Doritos. And with Valentine’s Day on the horizon, hot love is in the air. For all of these reasons, it’s a beautiful time at Wesleyan – a time that warrants a reflective pause. So look around and take it all in.

Okay, good. Now snap out of that foolish February fever, loverboy; it’s time to face the harsh reality. “Dear John” is the number one movie in America. Your first wave of second semester papers and exams is about to smack that smile right off of your face. That white blanket of snow outside is soon to turn into soggy-sock sludge. And for you seniors, the torment of second semester thesis work is a constant dagger in your side.

Relax, relax. Perhaps I’m being too harsh. As always, there’s the one great equalizer that makes everything better again – the incredible antidote for your illness, the outstretched hand to your slipping fingers, the Scooby Doo to your unsolvable mystery. That’s right! Your old pal, The Wesleyan Film Series is here for you. With an amazing lineup of movies (MALKOVICH, FOX, AGNÈS, etc.) in the coming weeks, and a revolutionary fourth-quarter calendar making its way into your WesBox very soon, there is no reason to let the season get under your skin. Bundle up, swing open that door, and follow the indented footsteps in the snow all the way to the film center, where your wintry troubles will melt away faster than the ice on your boots.

THIS IS IT
2009. USA. Dir: Kenny Ortega. With Michael Jackson. Doc. 111 min.
After viewing an early screening of “This Is It,” legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor (one of Jackson’s closest friends) posted on her Twitter, “It is the single most brilliant piece of filmmaking I have ever seen. It cements forever Michael’s genius in every aspect of creativity.” Quite the accolade, coming from the star of “A Place in the Sun” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” and I must admit Ms. Taylor is on to something. This is MJ’s great swansong, a concert film with no concert, compiled from endless hours of footage of the performer rehearsing for his London comeback-tour that would have launched last July. Featuring performances of Jackson classics such as “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” “Black and White” and many others, the film shows us Jackson at 50-years-old, trying endlessly to prove to himself that he’s still got it. Ortega’s film immortalizes the musician with dignity, by putting remarkable stagecraft of this great American artist on full display. It hurts to watch, but “This Is It” is proof to the world that MJ did, in fact, still have it.

CALIFORNIA SPLIT
1974. USA. Dir: Robert Altman. With Elliot Gould, George Segal. 108 min.
Robert Altman is, indisputably, the best director of the 1970s. Every Film Board generation has shared in this unabashed love affair. This calendar, we opted against testing the limits of your feeble attention spans with “Nashville” and instead chose to show a lesser seen Altman pic that—we promise—is truly unlike anything you’ve ever seen. The movie isn’t really about anything—just the lives of Charlie (Gould) and Bill (Segal), two compulsive gamblers, depicted through a string of colorful episodes that take place in the bizarre twilight of casinos, racetracks, poker-tables, and used-car lots. Like all the very best filmmakers, Altman uses the camera to show his love of people, and in “California Split,” he fully indulges in his love for these two desperate, grown-up boys and places them in a palpable world that feels entirely whole. As Roger Ebert put it in his review of the film, “This movie has a taste in its mouth like stale air-conditioning, and no matter what time it seems to be, it’s always five in the morning in a second-rate casino.”

THE BEACHES OF AGNES
2009. France. Dir: Anges Varda. Doc. 110 min.
When we think of the French New Wave, we tend to remember the films of those iconoclastic protégées of Andre Bazin: Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Eric Rohmer. But even before these guys got their hands on a camera, there was a visionary female artist by the name of Agnes Varda who’d already begun developing an experimental style of her own. In “The Beaches of Agnes,” Varda creates a whimsical cinematic self-portrait, foraging together memories from her 82 years of life—as a child, a photographer, a filmmaker, a wife, and a mother. When I saw this film this summer, I was brought to tears, not by sadness, but by Varda’s undiminished creative vigor, by her tenderness and serenity—her love of film is matched only by her love of life. If you haven’t seen a Varda film, I really believe this is the one to see first.

MY FATHER, MY LORD
2009. Israel. Dir: David Volach. With Assi Dayan. 72 min.
Volach’s superb debut feature is a somber, poetic retelling of the well-known Jewish parable in which Abraham makes the ultimate sacrifice – his son Isaac. Set in an ultra-Orthodox community in Israel, the elder Rabbi Eidelman, his wife Esther, and their young son Menahem live a life of quiet joy and harmony. We quickly realize, however, that underlying the Eidelmans’ happiness is an irresolvable conflict between faith and humanity. Gradually, the Rabbi’s obsessive devotion to the Torah (and his literalist interpretation of its teachings) does violence to his son in ways that become increasingly tragic. This brave film is not a critique of the Jewish faith, but of the destructive force of fundamentalism. Whether it be Jewish, Christian, or Islamic, Volach suggests that a letter-of-the-law devotion to religious belief destroys humanity’s capacity for curiosity, wonder, and authentic human connection.