new films out...

[almaty 19]

The Host" is a monster movie in much the same way that "The Godfather" is a gangster flick: It at once defines and transcends its genre. South Korean director Bong Joon-ho has come up with a film that works brilliantly as an edge-of-your-seat entertainment — and serious drama.

The premise is simple: An enormous mutant tadpole is on a killing spree in Seoul. But the government can't handle the crisis. It's up to the Park family — convenience-store proprietor Hee-bong (Byun Hee-bong), his daughter Nam-joo (Bae Doo-na), and his sons Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) and Nam-il (Park Hae-il) — to take action.

For them, it's personal: The mutant has abducted Gang-du's young daughter Hyun-seo (Ko A-sung).

Not since "Raiders of the Lost Ark" has a film been so playfully inventive. Bong masterfully balances humor with suspense, horror with science fiction, satire with slapstick. This film is about as far from the safe, formulaic approaches of American mainstream cinema as a director can get. Yet, there's nothing artsy about Bong's ability to engage your emotions while raising your blood pressure. Advertisement

If "The Host" is a hit, let's hope Hollywood passes on remaking it. No Americanization could possibly improve on the original — a film that upholds the highest standards of cinema while going extremely well with popcorn.

(In Korean and English with English subtitles.)

Opal Dream | B (PG; 1:26): The only things that seem to grow in the Australian Outback are dreamers and crazies. In the Williamson family, it's hard to tell them apart. The father, Rex (Vince Colosimo), has moved his wife and two kids to a dusty outpost called Coober Pedy so he can dig for opals. His lonesome 9-year-old daughter, Kellyanne (Sapphire Boyce), has taken his wishful thinking to an extreme: She spends her days playing in a rusty jalopy with two imaginary friends: Pobby and Dingan.

The mother, Annie (Jacqueline McKenzie), humors Kellyanne by setting two extra places at the dinner table. But after Kellyanne claims that Pobby and Dingan are missing, Rex is sent to search the mining site, where he's branded a claim jumper by a rival miner.

While Rex tries to defend himself in court, the grieving Kellyanne withers like a dying Tinkerbell. So her no-longer-skeptical brother Ashmol (Christian Byers) hatches a plan to rally the other dreamers in the community.

While the movie sentimentalizes Kellyanne's batty behavior, director Peter Cattaneo ("The Full Monty") has such an infectious sympathy for working-class aspirations that "Opal Dream" strikes us as a little gem.

namesake...

What's in a name? Sometimes, much more than one might imagine. In "The Namesake," the latest film from director Mira Nair, what the protagonist chooses to call himself is intimately connected to his cultural identity — and his destiny.

Gogol Ganguli (Kal Penn) has trouble understanding why his father, Ashoke (Irfan Khan), named him for an important but obscure Russian author. To Gogol, the name is an embarrassment. To Ashoke, it's a reminder of a fateful day that might have been his last.

The tension between them is perhaps inevitable. Ashoke is a Bengali who settled in America in the 1970s. His arranged marriage to the unassuming Ashima (Tabu) proved to be a blessing, and they've long since adjusted to life in New York. But their hearts are never far away from Calcutta.

In contrast, American-born Gogol maintains only a tenuous connection to Bengali tradition. His well-to-do girlfriend, Maxine (Jacinda Barrett), even indulges in inappropriate kissing and hugging in his parents' presence. Advertisement

But an unforeseen tragedy prompts Gogol's spiritual awakening.

The film is based on a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her short-story collection, "Interpreter of Maladies." Working from a screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala, with whom she collaborated on "Salaam Bombay!" and "Mississippi Masala," Nair explores a theme that has long engaged her: the daunting challenge of the immigrant experience.

"The Namesake" isn't quite as satisfying as "Monsoon Wedding" (2001), her richly observed portrait of a Punjabi family. But it's far superior to Nair's previous effort, the misguided Reese Witherspoon vehicle "Vanity Fair" (2004).

Penn, best known for the comedy "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle," is a revelation, and Tabu lends her character an endearing soulfulness. But the standout performance belongs to Khan, who gets to the essence of the quietly philosophical Ashoke.

the italian

the emotionally gripping, superbly acted Russian film "The Italian," 6-year-old Vanya lives in a drab, crowded, provincial Russian orphanage. The alcoholic director long ago gave up whatever ideals and zeal he once had, and the Dickensian institution is more or less run by a gang of older boys, petty criminals who provide sad, sometimes harsh parodies of father figures for younger inmates like Vanya.

Then a cheerful Italian couple come to the orphanage and decide to adopt Vanya. Because they are willing to pay a considerable sum of money for the boy, an adoption broker known simply as Madam (Maria Kuznetsova), the only well-dressed Russian in the movie, has a big financial stake in making sure Vanya leaves with the Italian couple when the adoption papers have been approved.

In the meantime, the other boys, in envious mockery, call him "The Italian." The film, the very promising directorial debut of Andrei Kravchuk, is based on a real situation in Russia today: Babies and children are being sold to foreigners from more affluent nations. Often, it would seem, the children are better off in their new homes, although there is ominous discussion in the film of some adoptees being used by their parents as living organ banks.

The movie takes a hard but humanistic look at the former Soviet Union, where capitalist greed and communist regimentation seem to fold together into a sour ideological stew.

The callousness of some of the characters, the drab settings and the rotten weather — it always seems to be drizzling cold rain — add dramatic credibility to the feelings of most of the boys that they would be better off almost anywhere but Russia.

Then, a woman who had given up her little boy for adoption comes to the orphanage looking for him. After she finds he has been sent away with adoptive parents, she commits suicide in a classic Russian manner: She throws herself under a train.

In reaction, Vanya becomes obsessed with finding his birth mother, hoping that she will take him back, fearing that she, too, would kill herself if she came for him and found he was gone.

With the help of a sympathetic young woman, he teaches himself to read, breaks into the director's office, reads his official records and runs away from the orphanage, hoping that he can find his birth mother at her last address. He is pursued by Madam and her browbeaten driver.

Vanya, who is played with remarkable lack of affectation by Kolya Spiridonov, meets with both cruelty and surprising acts of kindness on his long and perilous journey, which is made more poignant by our knowledge that he may well be running away from a chance at a good life in Italy, lured by a dream that is likely to be shattered.

Toward the end, the suspenseful drama slides at times into melodrama, but the denouement, delivered with startling brevity, is compelling.

all non american films

[one...two...tree 2,762]

If "The Host" is a hit, let's hope Hollywood passes on remaking it. No Americanization could possibly improve on the original — a film that upholds the highest standards of cinema while going extremely well with popcorn.

(In Korean and English with English subtitles.)

I have yet to see an American version of a movie that holds up to the original - Magnificent Seven was good but not as good as The Seven Samurai.

[almaty 19]

If "The Host" is a hit, let's hope Hollywood passes on remaking it. No Americanization could possibly improve on the original — a film that upholds the highest standards of cinema while going extremely well with popcorn.

(In Korean and English with English subtitles.)

I have yet to see an American version of a movie that holds up to the original - Magnificent Seven was good but not as good as The Seven Samurai.

brother steven...i like to watch independent and films from other lands...they give a differnet view of the world or at least events...

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

There have been several good Korean films recently – I’ve heard good things about “The Host”, but of course it isn’t playing near me…

Has anyone seen Oldboy? Came out the same time as Kill Bill, but as a revenge story was far superior to Tarantino’s vanity work.

[slim 1,533]

A great Korean war movie is "Taeguki" or it's English title "the Brotherhood of War".

After living in Korea for two years, I'm still impressed with the way they make movies. There's always drama!

And as far as new American Movies...... 300 was AWESOME!!!

Edited March 23, 2007 by slim

[one...two...tree 2,762]

If "The Host" is a hit, let's hope Hollywood passes on remaking it. No Americanization could possibly improve on the original — a film that upholds the highest standards of cinema while going extremely well with popcorn.

(In Korean and English with English subtitles.)

I have yet to see an American version of a movie that holds up to the original - Magnificent Seven was good but not as good as The Seven Samurai.

brother steven...i like to watch independent and films from other lands...they give a differnet view of the world or at least events...

Me too, brother. Even with some of the most memorable Hollywood produced films, the directors were foreigners with an uncommon eye for storytelling.

[almaty 19]

If "The Host" is a hit, let's hope Hollywood passes on remaking it. No Americanization could possibly improve on the original — a film that upholds the highest standards of cinema while going extremely well with popcorn.

(In Korean and English with English subtitles.)

I have yet to see an American version of a movie that holds up to the original - Magnificent Seven was good but not as good as The Seven Samurai.

brother steven...i like to watch independent and films from other lands...they give a differnet view of the world or at least events...

Me too, brother. Even with some of the most memorable Hollywood produced films, the directors were foreigners with an uncommon eye for storytelling.

so true....always like to watch the independent film channel when they have foreign films on....

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

cool

The Host

Opal Dream

The Namesake

The italian

[almaty 19]

cool

The Host

Opal Dream

The Namesake

The italian

thanks brother rich..i should have did it that way, but knowing some of the lazy chopf##ks here ...i thought copying the description was more attention getting...

[Alex+R 0]

I'm excited for "The Namesake." I'm gonna see it today. And "Maxed Out." Luckily I live in walking distance from two art theaters. Keeps me seeing the good stuff.

Host was worthy of all the praise it's getting. That + Oldboy makes me want to check out more Korean films.

[almaty 19]

I'm excited for "The Namesake." I'm gonna see it today. And "Maxed Out." Luckily I live in walking distance from two art theaters. Keeps me seeing the good stuff.

Host was worthy of all the praise it's getting. That + Oldboy makes me want to check out more Korean films.

write a review for us brother..

[Jasman0717 9]

Bill Cosby told of a chicken heart that ate New York City

[Ban Hammer 13,676]

I'm excited for "The Namesake." I'm gonna see it today. And "Maxed Out." Luckily I live in walking distance from two art theaters. Keeps me seeing the good stuff.

Host was worthy of all the praise it's getting. That + Oldboy makes me want to check out more Korean films.

write a review for us brother..

alex is a brother?

[almaty 19]

I'm excited for "The Namesake." I'm gonna see it today. And "Maxed Out." Luckily I live in walking distance from two art theaters. Keeps me seeing the good stuff.

Host was worthy of all the praise it's getting. That + Oldboy makes me want to check out more Korean films.

write a review for us brother..

alex is a brother?

in the biblical terms only

sorry sister alex..i am such a chopf##k

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Host was worthy of all the praise it's getting. That + Oldboy makes me want to check out more Korean films.

Coincidentally enough I bought Oldboy today - the 3-DVD set seems to be going OOP (the set is already being sold for over $50 on Amazon) - luckily Borders had one still in stock. Very good, but very disturbing movie.