The White Ribbon

WORTH-IT: (Michael Haneke) Nominated for best Foreign Film and Cinematography this year at the Oscars and winner of The Palm D'Or at Cannes, The White Ribbon is clearly something to see. It's the story of a small German town, a community seemingly simple and serene, filled with homely and vanilla people. No one has more than they need. Everyone knows each other. For the most part, life is a routine. From our perspective, it seems like the routine has been the same for hundreds of years, until an ill-intended practical joke sets off a series of horrific and unexplained acts violence. The unexplained hatred hints at its origins throughout the movie (a vengeful farmer, a jealous father, joking children, etc.) revealing that even in the simplest of societies, human nature remains the same and, above all, emotions rule. Haneke marks his forte with the unexplained crimes and pointing fingers, persuading the audience to believe one thing over another before showing them that they're wrong. As he does in all his film, he piles up pounds of evidence, all pointing in different directions, leaving you to solve the mystery for yourself. Or, not to solve it at all. Haneke's unique stories never seem to have an clear ending, or even a clear morale. He simply illustrates humanity, bringing unspoken circumstances to the surface. Haneke's work isn't for everyone. His black-hole endings will surely frustrate some viewers, and in this particular film, the simplistic characters and monochromatic canvas will leave some feeling slighted. But, I encourage those who appreciate a spooky and timeless tale of unsolved mystery and murder to settle into this black and white and have fun trying to put his pieces together.

Coco avant Chanel

MUST-SEE: (Anne Fontaine) I'm a sucker for a period piece. I also adore vintage fashion and French films. In Coco Before Chanel, all my favorite things are rolled into one romantic fashion-forward fairytale. The story begins in a nightclub where Coco and her sister perform cheesy song and dance for pocket change, living in cramped quarters and dreaming of stardom amidst sweaty suitors and dirty dresses. But plans change when her sister meets a gentleman and moves away, halting the dynamic duo's dreams and forcing Coco to pursue her a future on her own. She ends up as a hidden muse on the estate of the wealthy Etienne Balsan - an infamous host of wild parties, tremendous imbibing and fabulous (in his opinion) material things. Coco, ridden to the shadows, spends her time perfecting her hat-making hobby and sewing new clothes, grabbing attention despite Balsan's attempts to keep her a secret. With her androgynous outfits and trendy chapeaus, she lights a fire under the staple trends, building a reputation for herself with each stitch. Squeeze in a long journey of love and heartbreak and you end up with Coco Chanel - the only woman ever to own a professional powerhouse in her own name.

Audrey Tautou plays Coco as a spunky, independent and sardonic woman. Serious about her own interests and eager to impress, but unwilling to compromise, Tautou rounds out Coco as a woman to envy - both professionally and spiritually. The film plays through lightly and genuinely - remaining entertaining and visually stimulating. You'll enjoy it if you're into the aforementioned things I love. It's whimsy and stylish, and a story woven together as easily as Chanel's hats. It'll inspire you to stick to your dreams and polish your talents, proving that you can never underestimate what you are capable of accomplishing. Enjoy this one!!

Slumdog Millionaire

PHENOMENAL: (Danny Boyle) Slumdog Millionaire is a movie for the masses illustrating a vibrancy of culture existing among the darkest of standards, proving that human life is foremost lived. Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) brings to the screen the story of Jamal Malik, an orphaned Mumbai boy growing up on the streets. He candidly reveals a country and its people immune to devastation and caught up in extortion. He hides nothing from the harsh reality, simply because there is nowhere to hide in India. There is no freedom, only constant fear, and only the powerful ones survive. With the Jamal character (Dev Patel), we are given passage into the heart that exists underneath the grime, and the innocence beneath the corruption. Meshing energetic music with warm sights and street sounds creates a backdrop for Malik's quintessential journey through time, through the ups and downs of street life, one moment jumping in feces to get an autograph of his favorite movie star and the next watching his mother violently murdered in the street. Slumdog shows us what it looks like to have that innocence stolen and your life threatened over and over. This motif is carried out farther with Malik's participation on game show, the Indian version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? He relives moments in time from wherein his brain holds the answers to each question. The amazing power of this story comes as, through all of it, living in trash, swimming in poop, and dodging gunfire to play in your backyard, there are real lives being lived there. These people experience the same things we do; love, family, friendship, pick-up games, skipping class, reading the 3 Musketeers... all normal things. Real things that don't wait on clean hands or fresh water. They live in the here and now, executing a totally different kind of innocence than we're used to, and Boyle does a stand-out job of proving it's both devastating and beautiful to watch. I am 100%behind this film for this year's Best Picture. Don't miss seeing it.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long)

WORTH-IT: (Philippe Claudel) An delightfully stereotypical French film (limited dialogue... colorless and unassuming), I've Loved You So Long begins as the story of two sisters, separated at a young age by the eldest's incarceration for the murder of her own six-year-old son. Apart for 15 years, the girls, now women, must start again, a journey that illustrates unconditional love at its underestimated best. That sounds wordy, but the only way to accurately describe this movie is through its intense emotional pull. Kristin Scott Thomas plays the newly liberated Juliette Fontaine, sullen, silent, and unsure the world will ever offer happiness again. Elsa Zylberstein plays the younger sister, Lea, optimistically ignorant to anything but the chance to get to know the woman she spent 15 years trying to not forget. Juliette's return brings an instant friend, a needed Auntie and a missing sister to her picture-perfect world, two adopted kids and all. But the road doesn't prove as frilly. Juliette's silence creates threatening tension between Lea and her husband and a brick wall of doubt against a possible acceptance or normality. But, like a great French film, we are forced to rely on our senses to figure out this impossible problem; using facial expression, color scheme and music to replace the dialogue that would have otherwise spelled out this woman's lonely spirit due to a good portion of life behind bars and her constant battle with the memory of her dead son. I am feeling wordy again, but can't bring myself to clean it up; Instead, I simply ask you to see the film. There are no special effects, erotic love scenes or rolling French countryside. Instead, in the monochromatic backdrop and the awkward attempts at conversation, there is realism. And that realism allows your mind to uncover vibrant emotion, poignant morale and one immensely touching story of unconditional love and its promise for a backbone in tragedy. Never before has there been such little dialogue for such tremendous heartache. Claudel's story captures you with the exact amount of explanation and mystery to let this film shape your own heart and color its own story. Bravo to Claudel and to his starring soeurs.

Rendition

WORTH-IT: (Gavin Hood) CIA Analyst Douglas Freeman, played by a wimpy Jake Gyllenhal questions his newest assignment after witnessing an unorthodox interrogation by secret detention officers, outside the US. When Egyptian-native, now-US resident, Anwar El-Ibrahimi, played by Omar Metwally, goes missing seemingly in the air on a flight to America from South Africa, his wife, Reese Witherspoon searches for answers to his suspicious disappearance. What she discovers is not only a brick wall surrounding the CIA's covert operations for terrorist control, but an icy Meryl Streep who refuses to budge in favor of her American counterparts. Rendition is the story of an uncovering of hard and ugly truth of a counter-terrorist plan taking extreme measures to hold its reputation. There are too many turns to give you a bare-boned plot in this review, but I can say that the film moves through them easily. Hood seamlessly entraps his audience into a whats wrong and right and who is in the wrong and right. Until the end, no one knows the truth and that keeps this film on its feet. he might have played up the darkness too much, as well as the silence, no doubt trying to overlay the film with El-Ibrahimi's torture, but all in all the film comes across as it should: sad, hopeless, but good and truthful. No Oscar-worthiness here, but a good story, a jolt of reality, and a pleasing film.

City of God

MUST-SEE: (Fernando Meirelles) From the director who brought us 2005's Constant Gardener and this month's thriller, Blindess, it's one of his earlier works, City of God, that gives him a reputation among movie-watchers for a unique beauty within tragic darkness. Here, he illustrates Paolo Lins' novel of the same name, based on actual events among gangs in the forgotten Brazilian city. Young boys growing up in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, a city starved of electricity, running water, or the chance for a better existence, the children are left with hood life to keep their attention. Narrator Rocket is one of few who avoided a life of crime and instead focuses on photography, running his life aside members of the most dangerous gangs, eventually serving as an involuntary embedded journalist for the big city's paper. The film is heartbreaking, filled with nauseating suspense and merciless violence; but at the very least, it grasps the beauty and potential within the hearts of a lost innocence. Lins highlights details of the troubled boys and the morals that are constantly questioned a world with no rules. He solidifies that fact that you're allegiance constantly shifts, introducing good people who kill and bad people who rule. He paints fear through the eyes of a young hood getting his foot shot off and then killed by a member of his own gang, or another young boy joining the gang to kill his own father's murderer. The sadness exists in the innocence of children lost completely at no fault of their own. But with director Meirelles vision to match Lins story-telling, the tone simmers with triumph, humor rounds out an intolerable lifestyle, and the moral doesn't even get a turn on the totem pole. The motif reflects the negligence the boys have for a future. It reveals their ignorance to the possibility of a life without guns, without killing your enemies as the answer to problems, and living completely in the present. As young as 7, the thought of justice, respect and of morality are lost, erased to make room for vengeance and superiority. Rocket serves as the one unbiased voice to recount the details of his troubled town. As one who grew up with the hood for friends, but now serves as the photographer to document their progress, Rocket recounts as though it were a bedtime story. City of God, based on actual events of the real-life Rocket, journalist Wilson Rodriguez, is a film not to be overlooked. It is a wake-up call to what happens in the slums, a slap in the face for what happens on the other side of the tracks, the mindset that intrinsically exists within a hard-knock. Take your strong stomach and a expect to leave with a heavy heart, but rest assured the magic that happens onscreen, between a unique kind of innocence and raw emotion will leave you hugely impacted, eerily content in your own reality, and genuinely enthused for the survivors, how few they may be.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

PHENOMENAL: (Julian Schnabel) A truly emotional masterpiece, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is one of the few films to encase a realistic tone throughout beautiful and creative cinematography. From the beginning, as seen through the half paralyzed eyes of Elle editor, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the film is raw, candid and heartbreaking. Bauby, the former editor of Elle magazine in France, suffered a massive stroke while out for a drive with his son. After months in a coma, he awakes to complete paralysis, and only the use of his left eye. Through months of intense occupational therapy, he learns to communicate through a series of alphabetic blinks. With this string of communication, he lives his last year writing a novel blink for blink about the cage he lives in. He says, "I decided to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren't paralyzed, my imagination and my memory." This attitude carries throughout the film, riding a roller coaster of emotion as he watches through tunnel vision as his children play on the beach, as friends come to visit, and as his father delivers a heartbreaking birthday goodbye via telephone. What exists as the most heartbreaking and unimaginable story to date for me is at the same time one of the most powerful films I have ever seen. Inspired by Bauby's determination to finish his life's novel and the absolutely spectacular filming, this true-story drew me in immediately and will be in my heart forever. Phenomenal performances credit Schanbel's direction, and extremely detailed writing brings an otherwise silent story to life. As a viewer, you get to see (and arguably feel) what Bauby does, and with his words to narrate us along the way, we are spared no frustration, no pain, and no remorse alongside him. Don't miss out on this film. It will forever remain in the top tier of my most memorable films.

2 Days in Paris

WORTH-IT: (Julie Delpy) 2 Days in Paris, also starring Delpy, is the predictable and endearing tale of two lovers meant for each other but who can't commit to a future together. Jack, played by the hairy Adam Goldberg, a paranoid, jealous and hypochondriac man is thrown into the French culture of his half-blind but not half as naive girlfriend, Marion. The couple spends two days with Delpy's family as an ending to their trip in Italy. Marion's family's raw acceptance of sexuality and love puts Jack on his toes and in suspicion of his girlfriend's questionable past. The film is a snapshot of the couple's most precious moments throughout the uneasy setting of culture clash and awkward encounters with Marion's numerous exes. Expect to laugh at the absurdity of these characters, how they poke fun to draw laughter out of discomfort, and how romance is easily forgotten with concerns for hygeine and politics. The anti-glamour that Delpy reveals in the relationship of these two not only serves as a wake-up for those brainwashed by typical love stories, but places them in a realistic state, refreshing the stereotype of true love. It isn't always a happy ending, even in Paris for these two, but it is always a test to stand the hard times when you realize missing another moment with this person would break you forever. This film surpirsed me with its ability to draw the audience into the characters almost immeidately. The secret is the dialogue. It watches like a good book reads: quick and natural, never skipping a beat of reality or personality. 2 Days in Paris places you in the action and in the emotion from the beginning, so expect it to fly by, expect to laugh more than anything, but mostly brace yourself for the heartfelt moral of learning to love for good.

The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)

MUST-SEE: (Henckel von Donnersmarck) Shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Berlin suffocated its citizens with a life void of secret. The secret police trained its members to spy on and interrogate society members believed to support the West. They ran wires through the house walls, listened to the most intimate of moments, and never hesitated at the suggestion of misbehavior. The indulgence was so extreme, that even the secret police's own employees began to question the integrity of the government, manifesting doubt in the mind of those held in highest East Berlin regard. Such is the storyline of HvonD's The Lives of Others. This film is the story behind one case the GDR held in high classification. A popular playwright of the time, George Dreyman (played flawlessly by Sebastian Koch) called into question by a jealous prime minister is secretly tapped for months in hopes of catching his plans for rebellion before they began. Ulrich Muhe plays the cold-hearted agent in charge of Dreyman's case, gisting all dialogue, reporting each suspicion, and helping himself to play a part in Dreyman's life 24 hours a day. The storyline makes its punch with the theme that art will outlast government control. The audience witnesses a dramatic change, not only in the government, but also in the men who work for the GDR. Realizing they've gone too far, the men find they are trapped in the horror that is communism. And as the officials promote communist socialism, more and more people are interrogated, tortured, and even killed along the way to eradication of Western tendency. A powerful performance by Martina Gedeck, playing East Berlin's "it" girl evokes the inner battle many people faced when they were forced to choose their art or their life. The Lives of Others beautifully illustrates the emotions of both sides, contrasting love and obsession with good and evil. Von Donnersmarck excels with The Lives of Others, making great acting, frank storytelling, and phenomenal heart the standard for Best Foreign Films. See this movie, despite the subtitles, and allow yourself the education of both history and the human spirit through the tragedy of East Berlin.

Maria Full of Grace

WORTH-IT: (Joshua Marston) Maria is the story of a gentle hearted 17-year-old trying to make it on her own to escape a pitiful job and an unfair domesticity. After years of de-throning roses proved too much to handle, she quits, only to realize jobs run scarce in her small town in Colombia. After the job is lost, she finds herself buried in despair as she is pregnant, alone, and poor. She decides to take a job as a drug mule, as which she will earn millions in pesos simply for swallowing drugs and carrying them across the border. Pain, both physical and emotional ride Maria for the duration of the film. She knows better, but she can't find better. Catalina Moreno plays this confused young woman. The emotion she drains into the character is refreshing and powerful. The audience sees a woman in peril of her own decisions, empathizing that the way up is too dark to find. Overall, the movie is a little disjointed, as dialogue is slim and the storyline never reaching deeper into anyone except maria. We are never sure who really cares about her or who she really cares for. This was never distracting though, just prevented me from ever truly giving in to the heart of the film. What carries the film is the suspense of the drug transport. How many will she have to swallow, how long can she stand the pain building in her gut, and will she survive, unlike so many before her? Kudos to Moreno's performance and to the spectacular devotion to a story rarely told from such a point of view. Maria Full of Grace is worth it, but as the Oscar ballot proved, don't expect a winner.

Eastern Promises

WORTH-IT: Wow, what a great film. Mix Godfather and History of Violence, and you get Cronenberg's Eastern Promises: a phenomenal account of a Russian mob family desperately trying to cover up tragic family secrets. Naomi Watts blends well into a scene of dirty and tatted Russian crimesters, posing as an innocent nurse fighting for the life of a newborn. As she tries to locate the family to deliver the child, she uncovers the dark secrets of the biggest crime family in the town. She finds herself and her family mixed up in the issues, but with a passionate heart, cannot let go. Viggo Mortensen plays an irreplaceable role as the family's honorary brother/driver/undertaker. As an expert processor and sleazy cohort to the Big Man's son, Viggo plays the icy, unfeeling role of Nikolai flawlessly. Even having his member flop around for an entire fight scene doesn't budge his focus on and dedication to this role. I'm convinced of his threat, mesmerized by his build, and attached to the glimmer of heart he hints at throughout. Prepare yourself for gruesome murder and graphic tragedy, but allow it to reach beyond the eyes, so that it pierces your soul. It's a sad story, suspenseful and twisted, and guaranteed to entertain. My only complaint is the anti-climactic tone playing throughout. Much happens over the 2-hour course, but rarely anything to prepare us for resolution. See this film, but expect blood, drugs and nudity.

Lady Chatterly: Slow to Grow

WORTH IT: I try and stick to the belief that going into a movie with any kind of expectation will result in nothing short of a disappointment. And for me, this is usually a problem, because I anticipate movies to the nth degree, building them into drastic hopes to be blown away by a new and creative narrative. Lady Chatterley was a film that I had built up for weeks. Going in, I knew little about it and simply expected to become that much more inspired to read D.H. Lawrence's risque novel. What I found inside that theatre was more so a challenge than an entertaining film: a challenge to delve into French-film symbolism and wait (patiently) for the heart of the film to evolve. What begins a 2.5 hour journey is an hour of shots urging us to become one with nature and understand Constance Chatterley is much more a part of a wild and untamed, yet delicate flower or bird. Very little dialogue and several monotonous almost-still frames had me shifting in my seat, and counting down the time. Fortunately, for my expectations, and for my review, the film picks up with the plot. As soon as Connie and the gamekeeper frolic for the first time, we are invited to watch and enjoy the most awkward, but emotionally frank, love story seen in film. This last hour and a half flew by, keeping me on my toes for something to go wrong, shocking me with new twists in character development, and keeping my heart content and empathizing for the delicate hearts at work on the secret affair. The most intimate scenes grow in honest and raw emotion, completely rocking your former boredom, and leave you questioning the innocence of your own heart. If you go into this movie expecting to be on the edge of your seat, you should have walked into something else, but if you give the slowness of Chatterley's opening a chance right off, you may find yourself swayed by the enjoyment of this quirky and heartfelt story, that I promise will leave you wishing for such an endeavor.

Golden Door: Golden Accomplishment

WORTH-IT: I must say this film was an obvious attempt at the director to exude his talents onscreen, but despite that frankness, his talents proved worth the show, and the film succeeded all of my expectations! It begins like a movie out of the 50s, slow, quiet and solemn. We witness the flight of one Italian family from their barren homeland across the sea to America. A typical storyline, this film stands out as one describing the mindset of the travelling family. It depicts their struggles along the way, never actually making it to their existence in America. Because of this point of view, we delve into the details of seaward travel. Here the movie ascends into a modernistic abstract motif as the hopes of the Italians are illustrated by seas of milk and fields of gigantic vegetables. At times, the film reaches a comedic level, forcing laughs out of a drastic situation. All in all, the movie was enjoyable. Its variety kept me on my toes, and delivered entertainment despite the monotony of the story. Although slightly disconnected between its quarrelling genres (comedy, romance, abstract) it wraps as a unique story of one told umpteen times. Characterization is done well, scenery seems realistic, and the story is relatable. It views like a surprisingly good book reads. Give it a chance, and let its story educate you and open your mind.

After the Wedding

PHENOMENAL: Wow, this movie exceeded my expectation and fed my need for entertaining foreign film to excess. First of all, the writer delivers a powerful story, one that entices the viewer with bits of scandal, celebration, and orphaned children. As the viewer, we're in for a treat, a treat for all senses. The language (Danish) is not one we are tuned to hearing and it delivers as much resonance in its uniqueness. The scenery basks in color as it surrounds a pricy wedding, the canals of Denmark and the streets of India. The cinematography gives us people of all colors, and scenes with as much diversity. The eye never grows tired of the candy set before it, as the ear is fed by the linguistic music. The technological features simply backdrop the story and its grandeur. What a fabulous experience to sit through a film and never want the story to end. Be ready to get deeply involved with the characters, never settling on a side, and continually failing on judging who is right and wrong. The story is beautiful, encapsulating, and most all, touching. It may be a bit out of reach for the average man, but allowing After the Wedding to take you along, you will find yourself whisked away to a place not calling for rationale, but for heart. Here, it is delivered in full, it is broken, mended, and mostly, molded. See this film as soon as you can.

Paris Je t'aime: I Love You!

PHENOMENAL: Yep, there it is... the first of the 'phenomenals' since I enacted the grading system. But it is truly deserved. Paris is a fantastic montage of neighborhood love stories taking place in the 14 arrondissements of Paris. Each of 18 clips emerges out of the creativity of some of own favorite directors, including Craven, the Cohen Brothers, Natali, Van Sant, and so many more. Beloved stars pop up throughout the stories, including Maggie Gyllenhal, Natalie Portman, Willem Dafoe, Gena Rowlands, and Gerard Depardieu. (That is just a few). Each story is smartly told, beautifully portrayed, and adequately sympathetic towards Parisian love stories. It is not, by any means, one's typical love story. You'll see ne'er a stereotype, but plenty of cheating hearts, gushing blood, and even a little narcotics. All of it spells out each director's take on love in Paris, either laughing at the nickname "city of love" or debunking that myth for those who believe it. Don't expect a single plot, but instead, a single motif. It's love. It's truth. It's Paris in the eyes of those who have lived it, experienced it, and love it. Allow this movie to reiterate the infinite definitions of love for you. And enjoy as it reiterates why we all hold Paris high in our romantic spirits. You'll leave uplifted, humored, hopeful, relieved, and of course, in love. As Osacr Wilde says, Without love, you are dying, and death of the heart is the most painful way to go. These 18 directors have brought us reasons to be in love, ways to be in love, and reminders of why we are always looking for and wishing for love, whether it's the city, the story, or the heart you adore.

La Vie en Rose: Edith Piaf Croons

PHENOMENAL: (Subtitled) La Vie en Rose captures the mind through ear and eye, taking its viewers on a tour of France and New York, along the trodden stage of cabaret to music hall star, Edith Piaf. In few words, I loved it! In fewer words, Fantastic! And, for the sake of my readers, in more words... La Vie en Rose is fun, emotional, and sensual. It takes its audience on a scenic tour of despair and hopelessness to freedom and success and back through broken roads of aching hearts and ailing spirits. We get to see a portrait of the chanteuse unique, Edith Piaf, as lived from birth. She suffered immensely, but her genuine talent and spunk wind her up on stage, singing for men and women, making her the picture of envy for all. But the film reveals many more parts to the prodigy's life. It paints the picture inside her head, masked by love, fame, and fortune. We watch her tarnish her own relationships, delude in her own fantasies, and eventually, dig her own grave. It's a bitter story, but one cured to tickle our curiosity and entertain our desires for the same longings we are taught to harness. Piaf is represented as a strong woman, misled, mistreated, and out to work for her own neck. This story of true determination, pride, and passion grips the spirit and educates the soul. Piaf is quoted as saying "I'll die when I can no longer sing." To feel that emotion, to understand that sincerity is to experience Edith Piaf. The movie is entertaining through her voice and her story and the life she forces others to live. It creates a phenomenal 2-hour portrait of a young woman out to prove worth and push limits. Definitely treat yourself to this film. It will be talked about.

Amores Perros (Love's a Bitch)

WORTH-IT (Inarritu): Does the title speak truth or what? Taken from a common understanding that love is worth it, but comes with heartache, this film plays on several kinds of love, fleshing them out to the bare bones of what makes a heart tick. A chain of interlinking stories, Amores Perros carries us through the lives of people in love. Every story includes love for a partner and love for a dog, therefore, appropriately titled in pun. Although I think Babel accomplishes more as far as transcendence goes, Amores Perros uses fewer stories to depict his feeling on the topic. We are taking busily through lives of poverty, parenthood, stardom, and loneliness. Witnessing the fast-paced, streamlined mindsets of each character, we see how one's ignorant selfishness can be the breakdown of another. Also revealed is the assumption that no matter who or what you love, there is someone out there, loving another, that will inevitably screw up your scenario. That might be an extreme take, but what would a movie be without extremity. I believe Inarritu intends to shock people into realizing their own self-indulgence, and uses love, the world's most commonly sought after emotion to portray it. The acting is phenomenal, the characters are believable, and the fast-paced story-switching keeps your attention and keeps you intrigued. It is a long movie, be ready for that, but because it is titillating the whole way through, you'll feel like you just exited a hell of a roller-coaster. Especially if you saw and liked Babel, be sure to see this movie.