Agnes Varda

The movies of 1986 were on a roller-coaster curve, which swooped upward in the early months with films like "Hannah and Her Sisters," "F/X," "My Beautiful Laundrette," "Lucas" or "Turtle Diary"; leveled off into the blahs--or worse: "JoJo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling," "Sweet Liberty," "Cobra," then climbed again sharply in the last third of the year with "Stand By Me," "Malcolm," "Peggy Sue Got Married," "Blue Velvet," "Down by Law," "The Color of Money," "True Stories" and many more.

Never before have so many women directors been successful within France and exportable to America. This has been the year of Coline Serreau's "Three Men and a Cradle," Agnes Varda's "Vagabond," Caroline Huppert's "Sincerely, Charlotte" and Nadine Trintignant's "Next Summer," to name a few. And "Rouge Baiser" (Red Kiss), at the Los Feliz, marks the auspicious directing debut of veteran producer Vera Belmont.

The American Cinematheque's third annual Contemporary Mexican Film Series, which will present seven features and 10 shorts today through Sunday at the Egyptian, opens tonight with Jose Luis Garcia Agraz's "El Misterio del Trinidad" (The Mystery of Trinidad), an original and richly satisfying family drama.

There are no new stories, goes the Hollywood adage. Joseph Campbell laid out a finite series of archetypes; Shakespeare stole from his predecessors and contemporaries. But this month, the studios have counted on audiences to become complete amnesiacs with six movie remakes. While some critics carped, moviegoers haven't seemed to mind that "Red Dragon," the prequel to "The Silence of the Lambs" by Thomas Harris, had been filmed previously (by Michael Mann as "Manhunter" in 1986).

The truth about "The Truth About Charlie" is that it is easier to sympathize with the reasons director Jonathan Demme decided to make it than to actually enjoy the film that resulted. After a series of features ("The Silence of the Lambs," "Philadelphia," "Beloved") that were everything but lighthearted, Demme was clearly ready for something different.

After a few stagnant years, DVD sales have started to slip, and Blu-ray discs, despite the plummeting price of players, have yet to pick up the slack. But the crop of box sets is, if anything, more sumptuous than ever, in both content and presentation. With archivists at studios and indie distributors continuing to dig deeply and inventively, the year's best collections afford ample opportunities for both nostalgia and discovery, for lovers of old Hollywood, art film and classic TV alike.

The 15 feature documentaries on this year's Oscar shortlist -- a semifinal round from which the final five are picked -- fall into several distinct categories, such as celebrating storied careers and fighting injustice. Here and on the following page is a brief rundown of the films that made it this far. -- Lisa Rosen Career celebrations First, there are the artists and athletes, known and unsung, whose efforts have made our pulses beat faster. With "Every Little Step," directors James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo trace the origins of the classic musical " A Chorus Line."

Some classics are getting a face lift this month, and several oldies--but not necessarily all goodies--are making their home video debuts. In celebration of its 35th anniversary, the classic "To Kill a Mockingbird" will be released Tuesday by Universal Home Video in a special limited edition ($20).

Remember those glorious days when movies were based on an actual story rather than on special effects? When it was a thrill to discover the unexpected truth in a character's soul, and when revelation came in the hands of a powerful monologue instead of a deafening explosion?

The notion of junking responsibilities and taking a day off is appealing to just about everyone--particularly students. So young fans went to "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and identified vigorously with Ferris, who plays hooky from school for a day. This was the sleeper hit of the summer, grossing more than $70 million. When Paramount releases it on home video April 8, it should become one of the two big hits of the month. (MCA's "Legal Eagles," out a day later, is the other.