Remember the good old days of art-house cinema, when people lined up around the block to see the restoration of “Touch of Evil” and new films from Woody Allen, Barry Levinson and Neil Labute were highly anticipated, rather than awaited with a vague sense of dread?

You know, 1998?

Whoops, got distracted by the opportunity for a cheap movie-geek joke. Sorry.

Anyway, starting tonight, the Royal Cinema is hosting a week-long bill of two very excellent new films from two very important and interesting directors, and that bill is the subject of this week’s feature movie review in NOW.

If you live in Toronto, and you have any interest in really good movies that exist entirely out of the mainstream, you really should get down to the Royal and catch at least one of these with an audience. They’re very different experiences on DVD.

Also, we can sadly add the estimable actor Paul Scofield to this week’s list of famous dead people. Leukemia. I guess it never really stops, does it?