By LESTER GRAY
Arts Editor

Grey Gardens
Directed by The Mayles Brothers

The Beales of Grey Gardens
Directed by the Mayles Brothers

Somewhere between the disciplined, fly-on-the-wall genre of cinéma vérité and the current assembly-line style of verisimilitude, reality TV, falls Grey Gardens. Like the latter approach, a brand of poking our nose into people’s misfortune and, to varying degrees, affecting the scenario, this production relies on minor celebrity and extravagant behavior to create its theater.

Edith Bouvier Beale, 77, and her daughter, Edie, 56, inhabit a 28-room house in the Hamptons, the storied enclave of New York gentry. Formerly a part of the moneyed locals and now impecunious through circumstances somewhat unclear, the two have seen both their home and social standing fall into disrepair. Their roommates, numerous cats and raccoons, contribute to a squalor that Suffolk County found worthy of an official inspection, a spotlighted humiliation due to the duo’s relationship, as aunt and cousin, to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. What makes this chronicle compelling is the two women’s charm, the incongruent remnant of an upbringing that prepared them to put the best face on difficult situations — poverty not being one that was ever anticipated. Over the years Grey Gardens, made in the ’70s, has become a cult classic. Criterion Collection has just released a second film, The Beales of Grey Gardens, essentially the outtakes from the first film, largely redundant, that only a truly aficionado (of which there are more than a few) of the original could love. The two offerings are packaged as a set.

The Weeping Meadow
Directed by Theo Angelopoulos

All the biblical elements — Diaspora, father against son, brother against brother, and of course a love affair in breach of tribal norms — are just the underpinnings of Theo Angelopoulos’ authentic offering of grandeur.

Forced by the Russian Revolution to flee Odessa on the Black Sea, a Greek community marches back to their homeland, where they eventually find more political unrest.

In Angelopoulos’ broadly brushed three-hour epic, the screen is a canvas, every shot painstakingly crafted. The colors are pallid — everywhere there are shades of what once was; the images — windswept rain, political upheaval, crumbling dwellings — speak of providential inclemency.

And yet in the muted hues of walls, characters’ complexions, and the silted river, there’s a fluent, lyrical, unimpeded narrative. It is a patient piece that rewards a reciprocal attitude from the viewer.

The Gridiron Gang
Directed by Phil Joanou

The Gridiron Gang’s most significant accomplishment is the seamless integration of two prosaic, but crowd-pleasing genres, both of which the popcorn crowd just can’t get enough. First is the sports team with less than prime talent that overcomes insurmountable odds. The second is the you-can-make-it-out-of-the-hood if you really try saga.

Coaching the detention center football team is Sean Porter. Played by former WWW wrestler turned actor Dwayne “The Roc” Johnson, he deserves the utmost credit for delivering each clichéd line with an aura of originality.

Throw a bit of racial conflict, gang rivalry, and filial devotion into the mix and you’ve got a fair to middling drama. It’s the kind of movie that people tell you to “wait until it comes out on DVD,” which it now has.