Contents Critics Choice: Ten top film commentators rate the current movie scene, from masterpieces to bombs.


Distributor Wanted: A new Film Comment feature spotlighting worthy movies that haven't been acquired for U.S. theatrical distribution yet. In this issue: Robert Horton on trans, Harlan Kennedy on Ratcatcher, and Mark Olsen on Claire Dolan.


Jim Carrey: Dave Kehr finds the surrealistic comic's Man on the Moon performance as Andy Kaufman "Oscarworthy," and analyzes this along with his previous roles.


Werner Herzog: The peripatetic wildman of international cinema, from the arthouse grandeur of Aguirre, the Wrath of God to the Zen documentaries (Fata Morgana, La Soufriere) to the portrait-in-complicity of Klaus Kinski in My Best Fiend - an appreciation by Michael Atkinson.


Best of '99: Moments out of Time, Ten Best Movies, New Faces et al.


The Avant-Garde in 1999: Kristin M. Jones surveys the alternative universe.


Jane Campion: Kathleen Murphy talks about various orders of rapture with the great director, on the occasion of her new film with Kate Winslet, Holy Smoke.


Magnolia: Kent Jones eyeballs Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, all-stops-out epic of Valley life.


Oliver Twist: Half a century ago David Lean made, just maybe, his best movie, and brought scandal and controvery down on his head. How it happened, and why, examined by Al McKee.


Kevin Bacon: ''It's a smile!'' The star of Footloose, Diner, River Wild, Murder in the First, et al. becomes the first Gala honoree of Young Friends Of Film.


"The Players: Film Comment's 90s poll": 114 critics, filmmakers, archivists, programmers, authors, editors, and other committed film professionals choose The Film of the Decade, The Person of the Decade, and much more.


Clara Bow: The Twenties' sauciest star, saluted by Peter Hogue.


Cornell Woolrich and Black Angel: Donald Phelps writes inimitably of the pulp fiction maestro whose penny-dreadful tales supplied the basis for such classics as Rear Window, Phantom Lady, Mississippi Mermaid, and this neglected but memorable 1946 film noir gem.


InterZone: Another new column, on the overlapping of cinema and Internet. In this installment Jim Emerson guides you to notable auteur websites.


Quickies: David J. Sterritt on The End of the Affair, Chuck Stephens on Ghost Dog, J. Hoberman on RKO 281 and Dave Kehr on The Green Mile.


Vidi Vidi Vidi: Gavin Smith and Nicole Armour scope out what's new on VHS and DVD.

Contents Silvia Prieto: A deliciously pixilated comedy from Argentina.


The Decalogue: Masterpieces are never out of date, though sometimes they take far too long to reach us. Krzysztof Kieslowski's dauntingly ambitious, dazzlingly well-achieved 1988 series inspired by the Ten Commandments gets a U.S. video release at last.


Manny Farber: He used to argue movies with James Agee, can still go toe to toe with Pauline Kael, and has influenced every American film critic with a pulse in the past half-century. His landmark collection Negative Space was reissued last year in an expanded edition. And when he made a rare trip to Gotham recently to accept an award from the New York Film Critics Circle, the guy he most wanted to talk with was our own Kent Jones.


Al Pacino: Sidney Lumet, who directed him to two of his eight Oscar nominations in Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, recalls that 'if the day's work demanded a lunatic, he was a lunatic all day long.' For its 27th annual Gala, the Film Society of Lincoln Center honors Michael Corleone and Richard III, Lowell Bergman and Ricky Roma, Carlito Brigante and Tony Montana, Lion and Sonny and Lefty Ruggiero, and by all means Al Pacino.


John Ford and black Americans: Judge Priest, The Sun Shines Bright, Sergeant Rutledge: John Ford held America's feet to the fire in matters of race consciousness. Plus: the DGA vs. D.W.G. (Griffith, that is).


'Grosses Gloss': The inside story on the '99 box office.


Sundance: The altitude is high, the air thinner than a flack's rhetoric, but there were solid discoveries to be made at this year's premier U.S. indie festival.


Fearless: Remember Peter Weir's great 1993 movie with Jeff Bridges as the survivor of an air crash? You should.


Monte Hellman has been the stuff of cinematic legend since 1966 when, under the aegis of schlockmeister-general Roger Corman, he and Jack Nicholson collaborated on a pair of utterly unprecedented absurdist Westerns, The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind, completing both in a matter of days and forever changing the genre, not to mention the artistic parameters of no-budget, on-location filmmaking. Alas, legends don't necessarily show up even as a blip on the Hollywood radar, so such subsequent, enigmatic, often brilliant, always inimitable films as Two Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter, China 9/Liberty 37, and Iguana have emerged sporadically, with limited-to-nonexistent theatrical release. Here's what some of them are like.


Updated Oscar predix: Kevin Spacey or Denzel? Brandon Teena or Teena Brandon? American Beauty on an enchanted wind, or Mike Leigh turning everything Topsy-Turvy? Our fearless forecasters scope out what will (not necessarily should) bring home the gold come March 26.


Ian Hart: The End of the Affair boasts an unimprovable cast, yet even in that exalted company many consider Hart, in the supporting role of the ineffably tender and haplessly diligent private detective, to be the standout. A remarkable, still-young career, submitted for your approval.


Reviews: American Psycho, The Wind Will Carry Us, The Virgin Suicides, The Idiots, Orphans.


Vidi Vidi Vidi: Perfect Blue anime and the latest from Master P.

Contents Beau travail.


Burt Lancaster.


Alain Resnais.


Michael Almereyda.


reviews of new films.

Contents the Farrelly Brothers.


Abbas Kiarostami.


Videomakers Chris Petit, Miranda July and Anne McGuire.


The MTV Video Awards.


Cannes coverage.


Time Regained, directed by Raul Ruiz.

Contents interview with Lars von Trier.


Dogma 95.


Get Carter.


Takeshi Kitano's Brother.


Edward Yang.


interview with Cameron Crowe.


reviews of new films.

Contents the Coen Brothers' O Brother Where Art Thou?


Nagisa Oshima's Gohatto.


The Soviet New Wave of the 1960s.


movie writers.


Washington versus Hollywood.


Shadow of the Vampire.


Christopher Munch's Sleepy Time Gal.


Elisabeth Subrin.


festivals in Venice, Toronto and New York.


reviews of new films.