Noteworthy films, with mini-reviews by Times...

Noteworthy films, with mini-reviews by Times critics.

Sidewalk Stories

Channel 28 Wednesday at 9 p.m.

In this magical 1989 movie, film maker Charles Lane had the audacity to make a black-and-white silent movie with a brimming heart and an activist’s outraged passion. Lane casts himself as the film Chaplinesque hero, a bashful, ingenious Greenwich Village street portraitist who unexpectedly finds himself in charge of an adorable 2-year-old.