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This film has been playing the festival circuit since last year and won the Grand Prix from the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. Based on a Korean manga, the story begins with Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choi, PAINTED FIRE) at a police station after getting into a drunken fight, which makes him miss his 3-year-old’s birthday. Then suddenly, Dae-su Oh finds himself in a one-room prison with no reason for being there. His only company is a television set, where he learns that he has been accused of killing his wife. Through the TV, he also falls in love with a TV chef named Mido (Hye-jeong Kang, THE BUTTERFLY).

After 15 years of imprisonment, Dae-su Oh is days away from tunneling himself to freedom, when his captors let him go. He has a long list of more than 200 people he thinks could have done this to him and he sets out to find answers. The film serves as a revenge flick as well as a mystery.

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This is a film for anyone who has ever listened to a tape of loons or any other nature sounds. Even if you haven’t, it’s still for you too. The innovation that sets this film apart from other nature docs is its revolutionary cinematography. With super light cameras and planes, we are able to fly alongside birds like I’ve never seen before.

The film chronicles the migration of an array of various types of birds from all over the world. It creates a real awe for the journeys the birds take just to survive. The film is a perfect mix of straight nature shots, subtitled information and narration. The film even used some wonderful editing to establish emotional mini-stories around issues that birds have to face along their travels like hunters, predators and just getting stuck in the mud.

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Director Milos Forman had already started this film when it was announced that Stephen Frears would be doing DANGEROUS LIASONS based on the same novel by Choderlos de Laclos. Frears’ film had a smaller budget and more stars and was eventually released before Forman’s film, going on to garner several Oscar nominations and wins. A year later few people were interested in seeing the same story again. Subjecting VALMONT to a dismal box office gross of barely over a million dollars. And for a film that cost $35 million that’s not good. These facts are not a comment on the quality of the two films, only an explanation of why you may have never heard of VALMONT.

The main difference between the two films is that VALMONT is based more on the original book while DANGEROUS LIASONS is based more on the stage play that was popular on Broadway at the time. As well, DANGEROUS LIASONS takes a more American view of love and sex where VALMONT is more European.

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This is the best film I’ve seen all year thus far. This film shows cinema at its most inventive, smart and beautiful. A friend of mine told me that if there were ever a “beautiful film” this would be it. I couldn’t agree more.

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey, MAN ON THE MOON) is a shy man who has been dating outgoing, flashy and impulsive Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet, IRIS). After a big fight, Joel discovers that Clementine has gone to Lacuna Inc. to have a procedure done that erases the memories of Joel from her mind. Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson, IN THE BEDROOM) revolutionized the processes of ridding bad memories and his office consists of receptionist Mary (Kirsten Dunst, SPIDER-MAN), technician Stan (Mark Ruffalo, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME) and slacker assistant Patrick (Elijah Wood, LORD OF THE RINGS). So Joel decides to rid himself of his memories of Clementine. As Joel goes through the process, we get a better understanding of both Joel and Clementine as well as their relationship.

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Based on a stage play titled FRONT PAGE that had been filmed before this and then after, HIS GIRL FRIDAY changes the sex of the news reporter trying to get married to great success. I’ve seen parts of the later FRONT PAGE that starred Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, and surprisingly, this film doesn’t even change the character’s name, leaving it Hildegaard “Hildy” Johnson.

In this film, the character is played by Rosalind Russell (PICNIC), but the other twist is that she was once married to her publisher Walter Burns (Cary Grant, NORTH BY NORTHWEST). Hildy comes to the paper to tell Walter that she is getting married to straight-laced insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy, TRADING PLACES). Walter doesn’t like the idea and does everything to persuade her to stay on as a reporter and not marry Bruce.

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Two guys named Gerry walk into the desert… Sounds like the start of a bad joke, but it’s the start of Gus Van Sant’s haunting film about two friends who set out for a day hike in the desert and end up hopelessly lost.

There have been other films about people getting lost, but none of them have been this natural. The film strips all artificial drama from the story and presents the tale in a poetic straightforward way. Some may find the style infuriating, much like Van Sant’s wonderful ELEPHANT. I found it fascinating.

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Westerns, as well as sci-fi, often serve as iconic genres that allow filmmakers to make social comments they would be unable to make in a straight-forward fashion. HIGH NOON was about the Red Scare and THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS was about communism.

ULZANA’S RAID tells the story of a renegade Apache named Ulzana (Joaquin Martinez, DIE ANOTHER DAY) and the military party, led by Lt. Harry Garnett DeBuin (Bruce Davison, X-MEN), that are set out to capture or kill him. Aiding DeBuin on his first mission are white Indian expert McIntosh (Burt Lancaster, ATLANTIC CITY) and Indian tracker Ke-Ni-Tay (Jorge Luke, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER).

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The conclusion of the epic STAR WARS series is a mixed bag. It’s successful in bringing the story to a satisfying emotional conclusion. It’s bumpy parts lie in the “too cute,” often Muppet-like character designs of the alien races and poor direction from Richard Marquand, whose only other directing job that any one really knows is the thriller JAGGED EDGE starring Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges.

JEDI picks up soon after the place where EMPIRE STRIKES BACK left off. Han (Harrison Ford, REGARDING HENRY) is a prisoner of the gangster Jabba the Hut and Luke (Mark Hamill, JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK), Leia (Carrie Fisher, THE BLUES BROTHERS), Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew, TERROR) and Lando (Billy Dee Williams, MAHOGANY) set out to rescue their friend.

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It’s surprising that this film is so defined as a comedy, because it’s the dramatic moments that work best. Cameron Crowe, director of ALMOST FAMOUS and SAY ANYTHING…, started his career in film as the screenwriter of this film, which was based on his book.

Directed by Amy Heckerling (CLUELESS), the film follows several groups of characters. The main character would be Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh, HUDSUCKER PROXY), a 15-year-old girl who is desperate to have sex and have a boyfriend… specifically in that order. Encouraging Stacy’s plans is her beautiful best friend Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates, GREMLINS), who constantly talks about her older boyfriend who lives in Chicago.

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Oh, the sequel. Too many great films have been tainted by poor sequels. STAR WARS did not suffer this fate. Like THE GODFATHER and THE TERMINATOR, things only got better with part two. STAR WARS established the main characters and EMPIRE explored their emotions.

All good sequels build off of where the first film left off. With parallel stories, the plotting of EMPIRE is more complex than A NEW HOPE. After the wonderful initial battle on the ice planet Hoth, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill, BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker, MONA LISA) venture off to find the Jedi master Yoda (Frank Oz, THE MUPPET MOVIE) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK), Leia (Carrie Fisher, THE ‘BURBS), C-3PO (Anthony Daniels, 1978’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew, TERROR) escape Hoth in the Millennium Falcon fleeing from the Empire.

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