Tuesdays I know there will be at least one smart movie-related article to read: Dave Kehr’s DVD column in the New York Times, which tends to focus on recent releases of historical films rather than recent films rushed to DVD before they lose whatever slight cache they have. Here’s Kehr a few weeks ago comparing two screen goddesses:

Where Ms. Loren is a pagan goddess, all bosom and hips, with almond eyes and pillowy lips, Ms. Deneuve is a perfectly proportioned Renaissance angel, thin-lipped, wide-eyed and enveloped in a nimbus of golden hair. Ms. Loren has the imposing physical presence of a monumental statue; Ms. Deneuve the exquisite, pocket-size beauty of a cameo brooch. Ms. Loren invites us to live more intensely in our world; Ms. Deneuve exists in another space entirely, one surrounded by velvet ropes, and she’s not sure she wants to share it at all.

Kehr’s column today is about two horror films from 1933: Universal’s original Mummy and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s avant-garde follow-up to The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Vampyr.

Most of the Internet feels noisy to me — a zillion opinions shouting at each other without reason— but Kehr’s column feels quiet and dignified. I don’t feel anxious there. It’s as much as reflection on culture as it is on film. It is, as my friend Steve says, a history lesson every Tuesday.

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