"Shadows" is an 88-minute valentine to cinema, a reminder of why we continue returning to the multiplex, and an abiding faith in the power of film to transport us to faraway places.

"Shadows'' is a deeply heartfelt, if scattered, effort that plays like an Oscar-night clip show with a mission.

For lovers of American filmmaking, "These Amazing Shadows" may be the ultimate sampler buffet.

Entertaining, but only revealing when the directors visit the Library of Congress film storage vaults in Culpeper, Va., where close to 130,000 rolls of fragile and damaged nitrate motion-picture film are kept in 124 climate-controlled vaults.