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Comments: Address Unknown is about the occupants of a small town situated next to an American military base in the Korean countryside. Writer/Director Kim goes beyond a mere indictment of American presence. He displays brother against brother (North vs. South) and calls into question the responses to it.

This one is probably for Kim Ki-Duk completists only. It is a remarkable film in its relentless presentation of pain. Every single scene in this 2 hour film involves pain, emotional or physical.

An American soldier pays for the surgery so a young Korean girl can regain the sight in her impotent, freaky-looking right eye and then wants her to be his sweetheart in return, wink-wink. When she shows a little interest in the Korean boy who liked her just the way she was before the surgery, the American becomes incredulous and tries to hurt her, but before he can she pokes her own eye out to erase her debt to the soldier. Meanwhile, the Korean boy who liked her just the way she was schemes to kill the two Korean boys who have been stealing his money and beating him up. When the girl looks freaky again and goes to express her love to the Korean boy, she finds him in jail for shooting the American soldier in the genitals with a bow and arrow.

That's only one of the subplots. I've seen a lot of films about pain and despair but none that have been so oppressively constant in their execution. This is a great film by one of the great contemorary directors. But you need to be ready for it or you may be repulsed. It's not slasher film gross at all. The really dirty stuff, like hanging dogs from a tree and beating them to death with a baseball bat, is done off camera. Thank God.
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Summary: Romances end in blood and the frail hopes of individuals are torn apart in a vile karmic continuity of colonialism, civil war and occupation. After surviving Japanese colonization, Korea became the first war zone of the Cold War. The legacy of war remains today in this divided country. Three forlorn teenagers, Chank-guk, Jihum and Eunok are figures in the landscape of this story, which highlights the global implications of a very Korean reality. None of them is able to escape the withering pull of tragedy. All desperate pleas for love and redemption are returned stamped in red with blood.

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Comments: The equation of life on the Serengeti is simple. Herbivores eat plants. Carnivores eat herbivores.

This feature is not specifically focused on big cats but it sets the stage where many big cat documentaries take place.

Summary: The Serengeti is a huge area of grassland in Tanzania, Africa. Once a year, in the time of drought, about two million herd animals like antelopes travel north to feed and mate before moving south again, when plants there begin to blossom.

James Earl Jones narrates this award-winning IMAX film that explores the natural beauty and timeless cycles of Africa's Serengeti plains. The highlight is a spectacle that few humans have witnessed--the great migration--during which 2 million wildebeests, zebras and antelope travel over 500 miles across the plains.

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Comments: At times it looked like it might cost them their jobs, their reputations, and maybe even their lives.

Summary: In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defence case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organisers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party, and eventually into the White House itself.

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Comments: No denying it. So much passion went into the making of this film it drips off the screen.

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Summary: Based on Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness, this is a controversial addition to the multitude of Vietnam war movies in existence. Set in 1969 Vietnam, we follow U.S. Special Forces Captain Willard on his mission up a river into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade Green Beret who has set himself up as a God among a local tribe.

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Comments: The infamous needle torture is more conceptually gruesome than it appears in practice at the end of this film, but the foot amputation by wire is kick-ass-sexy-hard-to-watch. I wish Miike would have shot it without those few quick flashbacks, however. They cut into the flow.

This is a pretty normal film about a man who lost his wife to illness and is being encouraged by his colleagues and his son to find another partner. That is, until it goes bonkers at the end ... a nice manipulation technique by the director. Eihi Shiina's range of performance from ideal femininity to psycho-killer is fabulous and accounts for a sizable chunk of the shock we experience at the end of the film. You'll watch the wire part because this woman is so beautiful and the pleasure she takes in her work so adorable.
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Summary: Seven years after the death of his wife, company executive Aoyama is invited to sit in on auditions for an actress. Leafing through the resumés in advance, his eye is caught by Yamazaki Asami, a striking young woman with ballet training. On the day of the audition, she's the last person they see. Aoyama is hooked. He notes her number from her file, calls her and takes her to dinner. He hesitates to call again, worried that he'll seem too eager. When he does, Asami knowingly lets the phone ring for some time before answering. She's alone in her darkened room - alone, that is, apart from the writhing victim she has tied up in a sack on the floor...

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Comments: It's truly sad Fabián Bielinsky died (young) after making this film because Le Aura demonstrates clearly that its director has mastered his domain. There are a few puzzling moments in the script and its characters, but this isn't one of those "Don't go in that room!" thrillers, it's old-school/neo noir; quietly intense and full of suspense.

Ricardo Darín's peculiarly charactered performance is executed with such subtlety and nuance that it's hard to believe he's acting. The sound design and original score are beautiful, and so perfect for the film, they seem to be growing out of it rather than being imposed upon it. There are times when the lack of any soundtrack is deafening. The droning tensions and lilting piano ennui disappear, punctuating the moments of action with a moribund silence.

Sometimes I complain when a film ends with such ambiguity it appears to be a copout. But not here. The ending will make you rethink the journey you were just on but it won't devalue its magnificence. This is one of those rare films where the ride is so engaging that its hard to imagine anything but disappointment merely because it does end.

"Aura" is what doctors use to describe the moment before falling into epileptic seizure. Ricardo Darín's character describes it as a moment of pure freedom. The inevitable is so clear that decisions are impossible, hence ... Freedom. Clarity. Bielinsky's film.
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Summary: A quiet, cynic taxidermist, who suffers epilepsy attacks, is obsessed with committing the perfect crime. He claims that the cops are too stupid to find out about it when it's well executed, and that the robbers are too stupid to execute it the right way; and that he could do it himself relying on his photographic memory and his strategic planning skills. After he is invited on a hunting trip away from his home, an accident gives him the chance of his life: the possibility to commit the perfect crime he has been waiting for.

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