How about this wild-eyed and enthusiastic photo of pretty much the most intelligent film critic in America? Unfortunately, Jonathan Rosenbaum has served notice that he's leaving his staff position at the Chicago Reader after 20 years, in favor of more occasional appearances in print and on the Internet, and the chance to write about other matters besides movies. It's a good time to retire; cinema, once the bravest of the popular arts, is now too often just a part of the entertainment bandwidth, sampling itself relentlessly, following trends like it used to set them.

The 65-year-old critic has been a long-time champion of foreign film, particularly when they're handled poorly by distributors, shelved or re-cut (as Miramax did so many times during the 1990s). His book Movie Wars is essential reading about how studios lead the critics and mislead the public; as he puts it in his 2007 top ten list, the problem is that "each film is supposed to be important when it comes out and is then forgotten soon afterwards." The books Placing Movies and Movies as Politics are two excellent introductions to Rosenbaum's well-informed polemics.

He is, perhaps, at his best when doing a minority report; his essay on Eyes Wide Shut, reprinted in Philip Lopate's collection American Movie Critics, needs to be read by anyone who feels Kubrick's last film is a neglected masterpiece. Rosenbaum dared to fight a lot of the accepted wisdom of his day, such as the suggestion that Woody Allen was better than Jerry Lewis or that Clint Eastwood's Bird is a masterpiece. An exit interview is visible on YouTube, with Rosenbaum describing his plans for the future, elevating the reputation of Ishtar and cutting There Will Be Blood down to size. It's the critic in me that makes me say that this two-part YouTube video goes on for a couple of minutes too long. ...

Wowwy wow wow. I knew there were some new Stanley Kubrick special editions on the way, but I had no idea that Warner was going all out with new features! I don't even know where to begin! (OK, breathe.) According to DVDActive.com, five of the master's films will be hitting the shelves as part of a massive box set. Those films are The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut. All of 'em 2-disc widescreen treat-laden Special Editions! (And yes the DVDs will also be available outside of the box set.)

Each of the 2-disc sets come with documentaries / featurettes both old and new, but what I find most exciting are the all-new audio commentaries. (Yes, I'm a commentary nerd. No apologies.) The new chat-tracks break down like so: On 2001 we get actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood; on Clockwork it's the awesome Malcolm McDowell and film historian Nick Redman; on Eyes Wide Shut we'll hear from actor/director Sydney Pollack and professor Peter J. Loewenberg; The Shining delivers Steadicam creator Garrett Brown and Kubrick biographer John Baxter; and (this should be great) on Full Metal Jacket the participants will be actors Adam Baldwin, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio and film critic-turned-screenwriter Jay Cocks. (What, Matthew Modine was too busy?)

And again I'll reiterate an important factor: All of these DVDs (which have been approved by Mr. Kubrick's estate) will come in digitally remastered widescreen. (The old-school Kubrickians know what I'm talking about.)

The discs will hit the stores on October 23, and if you're not satisfied by these five offerings, you can also pick up the new-but-movie-only releases of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Lolita. And just to quell any confusion, I'll remind you that Dr. Strangelove and Paths of Glory are Sony properties, whereas Spartacus is a Universal title. That's why they're not included here. But hats off to Warner Bros. for this inevitably awesome box set!

Chemistry -- you can be the best filmmaker, writer or actor, but nothing makes up for a lack of that intangible connection between two people. This is probably why so many actors can't keep up long relationships -- they continually get paired up with people they have great chemistry with and are weakened by temptation over and over until they can't help but break the ties that bind and go libidinously nuts. Oh, the devilish temptation! But on the flip-side, there are pairings that are just plain crappy -- painfully free of that interest and attraction that comes from the eyes. The CBC has reported that British cinema advertisers Pearl and Dean recently conducted a survey asking 3,000 movie-goers which duos have the worst on-screen chemistry, and came up with a list of the 10 worst offenders.

The top spots are no big surprise, really -- the 5th went to Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Connery in Entrapment, the 4th to Madonna and Adriano Giannini in Swept Away, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom got the third spot with the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, the runners up were the rockin' Bennifer pair for Gigli and the top spot went to Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen with Episode II: Attack of the Clones. I'd say they're pretty spot on, although my top offender are the two that hold that third spot, and I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks so. Granted, Johnny Depp can whip up some chemistry with almost anyone, which makes it hard to compete, but man, I hated Knightley and Bloom together. This also made many parts of the final film truly annoying, if you get my drift. Also, you've got to question your real-life couple choices when you can't cook up chemistry at work, with your significant other.

Finishing the list, there's Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in the 6-spot with Four Weddings and a Funeral, Ben Affleck appeared again at 7 with Kate Beckinsale for Pearl Harbor, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman got 8 with Eyes Wide Shut, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal followed with Brokeback Mountain and Titanic got the final, 10th spot, with stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Who would you pick?

I just caught Philip Gröning's extraordinary documentary Into Great Silence (2 screens and opening wider), about Carthusian monks living in a charterhouse in the French Alps. It runs just past two hours and 45 minutes and I would wager that no more than two hundred words are spoken throughout. The film merely shows the monks going about their daily business: praying, chanting, caring for gardens, shoveling snow, sawing firewood, cooking, eating, etc. I have to admit part of my enthusiasm for the film stems from the fact that it contains no talking heads or clips; I was just about ready to scream if I saw one more documentary shot in that tired old PBS format. But I was also drawn to the film's meditative rhythm.

Or is it just slow? Already some of the reviews have trudged out the word "boring" to describe the film, and certainly it's a hard sell. But why? It's apparent that Gröning doesn't have any particular viewpoint about the monks; he's not trying to sell us on their dignity or righteousness, nor is he trying to uncover some secret, seamy underbelly. He merely wishes to show them to us. And in his great, quiet stretches, a viewer can easily get lost in his or her own thoughts. Indeed, I believe that Gröning actually prefers us to get lost in our own thoughts.