25- 48 cool movies of the past 8 months (2009.08.14 / 2009.08.25)
A friend recently asked me to recommend some films... Given that i have seen an insane number of films so far in 2009 (almost 600 since Jan 1st and now, mid-Aug), i thought it would be a perfect time for a mid-year check up. So here are the films that have marked me in 2009 so far, with links to reviews for many of them.
Foreign
12 (2007), Russia. Superb remake of 12 Angry Men (1957) that is deeper, more layered, and richer than the original.
Tokyo! (2008), France, US, Korea. Three funny, quirky shorts on Tokyo.
Princesa (2001), Italy. A Brazilian transexual's search for a legitimate life in Italy.
Storm (2005), Sweden. Action, horror, and pshychological thriller.
Summer Time Machine Blues (2005), Japan. A romp of a comedy with teenagers inadvertently messing up the space time continuum and trying to fix it.
Chocolate (2008), Thailand. One of the best martial arts films of the past couple of years.
Right Now (2004), France. A coming of age story for a young parisian girl on the run with her bank-robbing boyfriend.
JCVD (2008), France. A surprisingly really good film with, and about Belgian b-movie martial arts star Jean-Claude Van Damme stuck in a bank heist.
Lila Says (2004), France. Erotic awakening of a French-Arab teenager with a beautiful provocative young blond girl.
Battle Of Algiers, The (1966), France. A classic film about the escallations to the war in Algeria. A lesson in terrorism, and counter terrorism gone wrong.
Epitaph (2007), Korea. A gorgeous horror film with 3 stories about love.
Ip Man (2008), China. One of the best martial arts film of the past few years with the underrated and phenomenal Donnie Yen.
I'Ve Loved You So Long (2008), France. A great french drama about a woman who murdered her son and comes back home to her sister after prison.
In My Skin (2002), France. A stunning portrayal of a woman on a slow path to self destruction and autosarcophagy.
Tipping The Velvet (2002), UK. A BBC mini-series about the coming of age of a young lesbian artist in Victorian London.
American studio
Watchmen (2009), big visuals, and cool story and characters.
Australia (2008), lots of people hated it. I loved it. It's gorgeous.
WALL-E (2008), one of the best animated film ever made.
Mist, The (2007), a great Stephen King adaptation about monsters from another dimension invading us. Great writing, memorable characters, great mood and visuals.
Singing Revolution, The (2006), how the Estonians lead themselves to independence from the Soviets during the late 80's through a song festival.
Lucio Fulci, an Italian shock and exploitation master from the 60's, 70's and 80's whom i re-discovered recently by watching/re-watching 30 of his films spanning his whole career. Here are some of his best ones ihmo.
Contraband (1980), a great mafia movie, with as much blood as there are twists and turns.
New York Ripper, The (1982), scandalous, misogynistic, graphic, controversial exploitation horror about a serial killer in NY who likes to cut women.
Cannibals. OK, this section is perhaps just for me, but i have been watching lots of Cannibal movies of the late 70's and early 80's recently and came up with a few gems that i either saw before but didn't quite connect with, or never knew even existed. These movies come with a huge warning of graphic violence and nihilism purity that will turn off most viewers.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980), the Cannibal movie that all others are measured to. This is sick, disturbing, and so eerily nihilistically beautiful. Initially an accusation of all the Mondo documentaries, it ended up sinning with the same sword by escalating violence on screen.
Jungle Holocaust (1978), a fascinating look at the cultural clash of a captured westerner and a Cannibal tribe. Not as graphic as others, but still disturbing.