The single words that I could use to describe Kung Fu Hustle are: surreal, funny, weird, neat, cartoonish. At times the films feels like it wants to be this great serious epic, and when that is happening, I sense cultural touchstones with great meaning slipping below my radar faster than a Dennis Miller monologue interpreted in […]

House of Flying Daggers is a lush, beautiful painting of a world you can only barely touch. Director Zhang Yimou has crafted a delicate, beautiful work in two layers. One has spies and unknown identities, bubbling emotions and secret agendas. The other (and this could be the fault of the translation) has […]

With the dozens upon dozens of movies whose plot centers around the Holocaust, one would think that there would be no new ground to cover, no fresh horror or painful personal story unexplored. I admit with some shame that I walked into the theatre with what I recognize now as a kind of mental […]

Oh heavens! I really want Finding Nemo to win Best Animated Feature this year, but the Triplets of Belleville is a worthy opponent. A French film, Belleville’s 82 story-packed minutes happen with almost no dialogue. This sounds as super arty and pretentious as something can sound, I grant you - but this […]

Rental with Snacks
This little German film is an interesting genre splice between romantic comedy and buddy road adventure, across the borders of eastern Europe and into a pot of red herrings. Written and directed by Fatih Aikin (who has a cameo as a Romanian border patrolman), the film is littered with surrealist touches, sweetness, […]

Nominated in France for Best Picture, L’Auberge is the most accessible French film I have seen since The Closet. Granted, I generally avoid French films with their ham-fisted symbolism, icky manners, and snootily drawn-out pacing, but this was an exception I was willing to make for a friend’s birthday celebration.
The title (translated on screen […]

Im Juli
This little German film is an interesting genre splice between romantic comedy and buddy road adventure, across the borders of eastern Europe and into a pot of red herrings. Written and directed by Fatih Aikin (who has a cameo as a Romanian border patrolman), the film is littered with surrealist touches, sweetness, and […]

Some movies are so flagrantly fierce that they render discussion of them impossible. On this point, City of God succeeds as art, i.e. the use of skill and imagination in the production of things of, well, if not beauty, definitely meaning. Kevin “Tom Servo” Murphy wrote about a foreign film that he had […]

Released by Disney, Spirited Away produced by the same company that made Princess Mononoke; in shorthand, you can expect the same quality of artistic work, but this story is far more engaging and memorable. Our heroine, Chihiro, voiced in English dub by Daveigh Chase (Lilo & Stitch, The Ring), finds herself lost in a […]

8 Femmes
For the average filmgoer, there is a lot about 8 Women by which one could be put off. For starters, it’s French. It has a cast comprised entirely of females, which of course would turn off most male movie fans. It feels strongly like a stage play, a criticism of other […]