Francesco Munzi's The Rest of the Night (2008)

Portraits from Francesco Munzi's The Rest of the Night (2008) of unheard voices:

Maria

Maria is Romanian and a maid. She's accused by her mistress, not directly, of stealing her pair of pearl earrings. While serving dinner, the master asks Maria has she seen them. A look of guilt or fear from the accusation appears on Maria's soft face. She is terminated. Maria later reveals in the palm of her hand the pearl earrings, and she freely admits to have taken them. Whether she took them after the accusation or before is entirely unknown. Unable to find work, she goes back home into the arms of a old lover, where she is met with both contempt and warmth. Maria hurt the one she might have or might have not loved before, but he welcomes her again. Maria will not have a stable home.

Silvana

To the best of my knowledge, her name is never spoken or acknowledged within the film. Silvana is wealthy. And alone. She attends a self-help lecture at the beginning where the lecturer asks his audience to abandon the Western world's fixation on material wealth and surrender. Silvana is accosted by gypsy children on the way home. Her husband acknowledges her when she is speaking by responding with speaking of his own. He doesn't listen. Her husband has someone else. Her teenage daughter has someone else. Silvana has no one. The people who she loves around her hurt her, and Silvana hurts the ones around her who she does not love.

Marco

To the best of my knowledge, his name is never spoken or acknowledged within the film. Marco is an addict at the height of his addiction and near the lowest part of his life. He lives with his mother and is resentful that he is under judicial supervision. Marco has a very young son, Luca, who lives with his mother and her new man, Ahmed. Marco is angry that his son has taking a liking to his mother's new man, so Marco takes Luca. Marco could have Luca without taking him but he feels as if he needs Luca to get out from under the eye of the court. Marco is a thief and doesn't think that anyone cares about him. Marco has long abandoned any love that he once might have had for himself.

Ionut

Ionut is Romanian and a thief. He lives in squalor with his younger brother with hopes that his earnings will allow them a better place. His mother recently died. His heart was recently broken. Ionut is tired. A woman that he once loved comes back into his life, and the day-to-day sadness is lifted. Ionut is energized, but his new energy makes him move hastily. The patience for a better life diminishes, as he is willing to risk everything for a heist. The risk will be highly successful if Ionut is successful or shattering if Ionut fails. Ionut has the biggest and most trusting heart.

Victor

Victor is Romanian and alone. He alternates between feeling a burden, ignored, and an outsider. He's quiet and loves his brother more than anyone in the world. If he has to sleep on the couch, then he will sleep on the couch. If his brother asks him to go out into the cold for an hour, then Victor will go out into the cold for an hour. Victor will follow his brother into a better life or a worse one as long as he is with his brother. In the end, Victor is a Romanian and he might not be alone.

David Gregory's Plague Town (2008)

A dysfunctional family that is very normal in its familiarity. They're on vacation, which is really nowadays a job, and it becomes more stressful than a job. The father, Jerry, has brought along his new girlfriend, Annette, and Jerry's daughters, Molly and Jessica, aren't really taking a liking to her. These Americans are in Europe, where Jessica, three days previously, has met a new British beau, Robin, and has decided to bring him along. As the five disembark the local bus unto a lush, expansive, and green field, shining brightly on a beautiful day, the circumstances are going to become more stressful than any could ever imagine. A family that needs to unite, unable to do so because they've literally been too close to each other, is going to be torn apart by another desperate family, hiding in the outskirts, amongst the woods, waiting for nighttime.

Fourteen years prior in a flashback sequence in David Gregory's Plague Town(2008), a priest enters as an unlikely visitor to a birthing. Not to deliver a blessing, the priest arrives for a killing, but the young mother, in a powerful image, wraps a sash around her legs to prevent the child birth. The children of this village are unwelcome visitors, because they are akin to a plague. The child is born, but the new father kills the priest. The child lives. During the present time, amongst the fields where the American family is walking, the sounds of a child whispering come from the camera's p.o.v., as young Molly is sneaking a smoke. She spies an old man digging a hole. The five approach the stranger, who says they must stay the night and also inappropriately touches the cheek of young Molly. The five stop for lunch in a barn where they fail to discover the rotting corpse behind a haystack. Night falls. Having found not a lick of civilization, the five stumble upon a car, unlocked and abandoned. They take shelter, and Robin, in a bit of chivalry, decides to brave the cold night with his flashlight and go look for better lodging. Jessica defies her old man's wishes and follows. The two encounter a freakish-looking older chap standing by a tractor. The freaky dude offers shelter: "better come with me, sweetheart," he says to Jessica, "I hate to see you go to waste." He pulls a rifle and shoots Robin in the neck. Jessica runs. Perhaps, the whispering child and her friends have found the remaining three at the car? Who's David Gregory? An essential person to the current DVD world, to say the least, and Plague Town, with its story of Americans in Europe, is a mix of American storytelling combined with European atmosphere. Plague Town adopts the tried-and-true (and maybe tired) formula of "whoops, we should've stayed at home": the outsider encounter with the violent locals. The locals of Plague Town are children, and the rendering of these antagonists is where Gregory delivers. The children are demonic-looking and savage; their behavior is playful like children but imbued, even the most innocuous movements, with a chilling, sinister intensity; and they're cold-blooded killers. For example, during one scene, a character happens upon a small house with a dim light visible through the window. Inside, two girls are spied by the viewer through the window. A young girl is brushing the hair of another whose mirror image looks like Linda Blair at the height of her possession in William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973). The two scatter when the character enters the house. Donning theatre masks with hooked noses, the two children dance in and out of the dim light into the shadows. Each appears from the shadows holding separate ends of a large sharp wire and each continues dancing around their victim. They stop abruptly after the wire is encircled around the victim's head, and with a quick pull, off goes to the top. The European atmosphere of Plague Town overshadows the tired American formulaic storytelling. Gregory channels some of the more poetic imagery evocative of its masters, such as Jean Rollin and Jess Franco. The character of Rosemary is an older child, pale and blind, whose eye sockets are filled with glass ones. They are literally soulless eyes and she moves not at the direction of her hands feeling her way or at the direction of anyone's voice but some other unknown sense. She is simultaneously sickening and compelling at first glance. Her appearance in the film is a highlight.Finally, the first third of Plague Town adeptly sets up the action of the second and third acts, taking time to introduce the characters and build up the suspense with foreshadowing and menace. This family is extremely familiar and likable in their familiarity. When night falls, Plague Town shines, and I was entertained and engaged for its running time. A hybrid of old-school American horror combined with European atmospheric dread, Plague Town should appeal to fans of both styles.

Thanakorn Pongsuwan's Fireball (2009)

Tai-Tan has seen better days. He's struggling financially in a bad part of town. He's watching a beautiful girl deteriorate emotionally, as they both cry over the recent severe injury to a good friend, who lies comatose with little hope of recovering. So, what's Tai-Tan to do? Go and play some hoop and seriously f*ck some people up. We're talking Thanakorn Pongsuwan's Fireball (2009), where the Muay Thai hits the hard court. No one has yet seen elbows thrown on the court like these, in addition to knees, fists, and fast kicks. Tai-Tan joins an underworld boss's illegal basketball team of which each syndicate boss has one. Simple rules: first basket wins, no substitutions, or last man standing. Some plot and backstory is provided between matches. One of Tai-Tan's team members is dealing with racism and a pregnant wife. Another is the team's stellar shooter whose hopeful winnings will allow his brother to go to school and put a roof over his mother's head. Another is playing for his integrity--rumor has it that he threw last year's matches. Tai-Tan's final team member is a phenomenal fighter, and Tai-Tan is just angry. Their boss is an up-and-coming member of the underworld, and he wants to impress the head. New teams just don't make it, not just to the finals, but team members just don't survive. Pongsuwan's Fireball is total punk rock. It belongs in that rare class of films--loud, violent, nasty, and nihilistic. Its sisters are Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's Crank (2006) and Pou-soi Cheang's Shamo (2007). There is something heart-racingly exciting about watching a guy go up for a lay-up only to watch Tai-Tan swipe the ball out of his hands mid-air and throw an elbow to his jaw before either's feet hit the ground. The locale of the actual matches in the film look very similar to Snake Plissken's court in John Carpenter's mediocre Escape from L.A. (1996), except there is a real energy to the crowd behind the chain-link fence, like the crowd present in John Carpenter's excellent Escape From New York (1981) during Snake's wrestling match. Fireball's players look authentic as well: t-shirts and jeans, here, and no one-hundred dollar sneakers and loud shorts with corporate logos. Clothes aren't going to matter, anyway, because in the end they would all be covered in blood. Thailand is producing today's best martial arts films. Tony Jaa became a household name amongst genre fans with his high-flying elbows and knees and acrobatics with Prachya Pinkaew's Ong Bak (2003) and continuing in Pinkaew's Tom yum goong (2005). Jaa better look out, however, for Thailand's next rising star, JeeJa Yanin, who lit up the screen with her fighting skills in Pinkaew's Chocolate (2008). The martial arts of these recent films is without CGI and wirework. There might be some camera speed-ups and quick cuts, but these moves are genuine. Often, it looks like the participants in the action are actually hitting each other. These hits look sweet, too: fluid kicks and spins and choreography, never coming off as staged or fake. Thailand's recent martial arts cinema is about realism; and this realism gives the films a lot of credibility in film fans' eyes. The fighting is more akin to the bouts in a mixed martial arts competition, than an old Shaw Brothers flick (which I would watch with glee on any day). Fireball is on par with its country's current streak. The martial arts scenes are intense, fast, and incredibly exciting. Quite brutal, as well, so be forewarned. Not only do these punches look unforgiving but they sound unforgiving. Nasty. Fireball has some light fun, as well. There's a parkour-like scene where the boss offers his team members some extra cash for the first one to make it from the rooftop of a high, crowded building down to the very bottom on the court and make a basket. Over balconies, through apartments, and back over fences, the scene is kinetic and a highlight. The team members all bond through their circumstances, and although this is not a rich and deep film emotionally, I really got the sense of fraternal love here, especially during a couple tragic scenes. The basketball brawls are the appeal and the standout of Fireball, and these sequences alone merit a viewing. The finale? Let's just say the old cliche: Pongsuwan and his actors saved the best for last. So, pop this one in, turn it up, and watch basketball--it's life or death.

Takashi Miike's Detective Story (2007)

I am a Takashi Miike fanboy, and to some, that means that I currently reside in Miike-san's anus, perineum, and scrotum. Having lived in that dark place for quite a while now by having viewed approximately fifty of his approximately eighty films, I cannot dispute that I am a geeky Miike fanboy. I'm so geeky that I own Tom Mes's excellent and aptly-titled Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike. If I were a good writer, then Mes's writing would still far exceed my own (I recommend his book to all); however, as another introduction, I would like to quote fully Agitator's afterword by transgressive and experimental fellow-film maker Shinya Tsukamoto:

Many actors hope to one day participate in a Takashi Miike film. Especially guys. They want to go back to being naughty boys and go wild. Miike lets them indulge themselves in this fantasy freely and knows exactly how to provoke them. And once provoked, the actors--bombard each other with their energy, lifting the film up and spinning it off into higher orbit.

I was also one of those guys who were allowed to indulge themselves. It was a very joyful experience.

Fierce. Nonsensical. Vulgar. Powerful. These are words that could be used to describe Takashi Miike. But without doubt the most essential words are self-assured and clever.

Tsukamoto was a pivotal participant in Miike's excellent and representative Ichi the Killer (2003). While I cannot claim to be a literal participant, like Tsukamoto, in Miike's madness, I can say I do in spirit. No other film maker truly represents more what I most admire in art: a court-jester-like playfulness with one eye that winks with a smile and a closed eye, hiding an inherent darkness, which occasionally, and often also playfully, reveals itself. Miike is the true agitator: most cinefiles find his cinema boring, excruciating, and inconsistent. He doesn't fit neatly into any auteur theory (of his nearly eighty films, he has contributed/written only two), and for this quality, Miike gets all of my love. As he continues to piss people off, I will continue to watch his films. I had the opportunity recently to view Detective Story (2007). "What's up with the wig?" asks my baby brother, while sitting next to me. "I have no idea, bro," says I. The wig belongs to private detective Raita Kazama and it is his sole disguise to offset his flamboyant, vintage- clothing outfit. He's on the trail of a serial killer, one who is stealing vital organs from his victims. One of those victims was a pretty lady, who visited Kazama one evening, very late. Kazama was getting drunk at his new next-door neighbor's, also named Raita, and Kazama couldn't be bothered. She's killed walking home. The police are suspicious of Kazama, because of the victim's final visit was at his home and near the next victim, Kazama's ballpoint pen is found. Kazama has no choice but to solve the mystery. Maybe the Gothic artist with a spiritual bent, named Yuki Aoyama, has something to do with the killings. That's a bare-bones preview to Miike's Detective Story, and the mystery does conclude, predictably and unexpectedly. Along the way, however, Miike is going to play a bit. In a couple of subtle scenes (I picked them out during a second viewing), a female figure is seen in the background, seemingly following Kazama during his investigation. Ghost of Kazama's visiting victim? I don't know: the motif is never fully developed or explained. Late in the investigation, Kazama goes to visit a serial killer, one whom Kazama arrested from his police-officer past. "You're here to gain knowledge about the current serial killer?" Sound familiar? Although his hands are bound and his mouth is obstructed, can you tell that he still loves his McDonald's Extra Value Meal?Miike also litters Detective Story with images from a peeping tom, looking at photos on his computer. The peeping tom is a textbook collateral character and standout red herring; and he has no other link to story but maybe to provide nudity in the film. Raita, meanwhile, meets pretty and leggy Mika at Kazama's office. Raita takes her to an art showing of Yuki Aoyama's recent work. Scared that she's running out on him, Raita asks, "Where are you going?" "To the bathroom," says Mika. Short pause to close-up on Mika's feet, where a stream of urine is running down her leg. She smiles and says she couldn't wait. While she is washing her skirt and her panties in the bathroom, she discovers one of the killer's victims. How fortuitous. Detective Story is a mystery with a linear storyline, a narrative arc, and a satisfying climax. Very traditional. Traditional, however, is just not Miike's way. All of the ridiculous flourishes are distractions from the main narrative, but the distractions are what this film is all about. It's what Miike's cinema is all about. Is it fantastic? Is it boring? Is it ground-breaking? Is it a retread? Buy it here. In fact, buy a bunch of Miike's movies. I imagine if Takashi Miike were able to witness your purchase, then he would have a smile on his face. Whether the smile comes from his happiness that you bought his movies or he just played a big joke on you is entirely unknown.

Filipp Yankovsky's The Sword Bearer (2006)

Artyom Tkachenko

opening w/two gents looking off of bridge with section of side missing, divers, boaters and dragging the river--cops? Military? no police

logging truck and wood cut in two scared nervous driver who must have picked up guy who has disappeared. pretty good opening with foreshadowing etx Filipp Yankovsky

cut to sailing vessel on the sea w/in young man wrapping white bandages around palmsflashback to children and dead older man with cut open stomach, old man was stabbed flashback of young boy lying in bed with mother and talking about other children being scared of himshot of boy and palms while sleeping

present day and man is ringing doorbell young man Sasha goes to see mother not there

port community hometown, possibly, sasha goes and sees a girl and gets beat up by a couple of dudes and they drive away--ice cold rich dudes nice threads mercedes

he goes and kicks the shit, maybe killing, the two dudes much to the girl's horror, sasha splits

minimal dialogue in beginning didnt kill the guy girl is a doctor and identifies Sasha as assailant

Klim Aleksey Gorbunov dude and blonde older woman Bella Tatyana Lyutaeva want to find him son was beat up before cops find him really effed him up bad

sashas moms doesnt say anthing to anybody and writes a note and is crying and gets some money

sasha gets off ferry in the rain a guy identifies sasha another guy offers to sell sasha a dagger and sasha beats him up and takes dagger--dagger might be poor translation--sasha rides bus and has moms note no translation

flashback drunk man beating sashas moms and sashas stabs him? unknown. mom flips. must be the reason she cant have sasha around gets off bus in the middle of nowhere the guy who identified him follows hims and tells klim

dude cooking a pot of stew or something and sasha arrives at dudes house beautiful yellow house old dude is very happy to see sasha but sasha kills him now whats up with that-- film is setting up this character as quite violent and mysterious old dude acted as if he knew him sasha gets rid of body his biological father flashback shows sasha and moms dumping body in river

flashback sashas moms gets in trouble in school again for messing things up and fighting

kid even tries to cut off his hands on a railway track great scene and trolley not train stops before it can happen

sashas still at his biological dads house but splits and starts to hitchhike and gets picked up by Klim who immediately hits hims and knocks him out tie him up and calls bella gets out of ropes sasha knocks guy out and leaves cops find dads corpse at house on the trail now whats up with that

sasha at post office mailing package first thirty minutes over moms gets sashas package lady from dads house identifies sasha to police by a sketch his package to moms cant read note someintg important musta told her that he killed pops and sent her the money he found at dads house

great scene of sasha lying on roof--sasha seen cutting his own hand off with axebellas pissed at klim that sasha got away

sasha either tried and effed up or didnt cut hand off

meets beautiful woman in the hall way of apartment house she tells him to het out of hallthe two immediately start fucking

both of them are getting along pretty well loks like they've both fallen hard go to freaky deaky party ladys artistic type some guy hits on her and shaha gets mad jealous and beings talking to him whats up with that dont know whats up
virtually no dialogue thats a plus forty five minutes in

some dude shows up blonde dude and everyone is cool so far dudes old lover and super pissed and gets gun sasha takes care of him and the two tie him up must be dudes apartment they take his car and get away

blonde dude gets masssive guy to free him and sasha and chick start fucking in car

sasha goes and gets her a drink and blonde dude and thug show up to fuck up girl

sasha throws blonde dude up in the air and violently bangs his head against windsheild

and kills him with sword in his hand chick freaks out a little but killed thug too sasha looks as if he is in pain when he puts sword back in hand

first real reveal of sword in hand halfway thru film chick faints


cops find dead dude still on the trail of sasha

chick wakes up and is freaking out about sashas superhuman abiliites

police know chick and come toher house and the two flee police and get on the road out to the coutnry

katya Chulpan Khamatova reveals her name only halfway thru in fact thats when they make introductions first real substantive dilagoue happens then

klim still on the trail

priest gave couple a ride and sasha confesses but not really confesses he just opens up that he cannot endanger katya becuase she is with him on the road klim shoots the car off the road but another car comes by to help before klim can kill them

sashas in jail cops got him and are interrogating him specifically about what weapon that he used to kill the blonde dude

klim visits a convict in jail and tells the guy to beat up sasha but not kill him in prision
sasha kills everyone in his cellkatya is in hospital so is priest
cops interrogate about cell killings but sasha evades questions bloody scenes shown in cut scenes of aftermath
katya is in a mental institution and looks as if shes crazy
sasha holds up his hand to reveal what he stabbed his cell mates with fairly powerful scenethis movie is like a poem some very beautiful music and cinematography
sasha is taken in truck out to the middle of remote field and when it stops blood pours out of it really no graphic violence is shown but sasha killed the truck folks and is able to escape

film is a love story and a tragedy

Kenta Fukasaku's X-Cross (2007)

The first point of comparison often for Cinema's children is with their Cinematic parent. Take, for example, the son of Mario Bava, Lamberto Bava. For well over a decade, I've seen comments on message boards, in blog entries, and during conversations with other film fans that Lamberto ain't Mario and nowhere close. While Mario Bava obviously influenced his son, he also influenced a whole slew of Italian film makers, including Dario Argento, but seemingly, Lamberto gets closely compared to his old man, more for his blood ties than his bloody movies. I find this comparison exceedingly unfair. Whether Lamberto Bava's films are good or bad, I believe criticism should be primarily leveled at the quality of his work. For what it's worth, I quite enjoy the overwhelming majority of Lamberto Bava's films, and to his credit, he made a highly successful transition from the dwindling Italian film industry in the 80s into Italian television of the 90s. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Lamberto Bava can say that he is still working.

On the flip side, there are some Cinematic children who receive no comparison at all with their Cinematic parents, perhaps because of their obscurity. Take, for example, Juan Bunuel, son of Luis, who helmed the effective and pre-Poltergeist (1982) creepy paranormal thriller, Expulsion of the Devil (1973) and numerous other works, mostly television. The most notable Cinematic child alluding comparison is the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola. While her father's work is appropriately revered, Sofia has, in her own way, become one of the finest film makers of her generation. Highly influenced by Wong Kar-wai, Sofia Coppola has made three excellent films: The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost in Translation (2003) (for which her screenplay garnered the Academy Award), and her best film to date, Marie Antoinette (2006). Sofia Coppola has earned more hisses for her performance in the pivotal role of Michael Corelone's daughter in her father's Godfather III (1990). Sofia can take comfort, however, in the fact that she didn't direct it.

Soapbox ranting aside, I am of the complete belief that each artist should be judged against his/her own work and not by the work of of his/her parent. A comparison based solely on genetics and biology, at least to me, is quite irrational and ridiculous. Because of this strongly held belief, I went against my old prejudice and viewed a recent Japanese film by Kenta Fukasaku, X-Cross (2007). Kinji Fukasaku delivered at the dawn of the new millennium, capping off a brilliant career, delivering some of the best Japanese yakuza films this world has ever seen in the 70s, his perverse, stylish, and controversial Battle Royale (2000). In a lot of ways, Battle Royale is a perfect film: both culturally relevant in its contemporary time, beyond Japan, and also amazingly nuts and crazy to be enjoyable and horrifying to the curious genre fan. I hold the film in high regard and its novel by Koushun Takami. Kinji Fukasaku's son, Kenta Fukasaku, is credited with the excellent screenplay. The elder Fukasaku would slough off his mortal coil before finishing Battle Royale II (2003) with Kenta sharing a co-directorial credit and surviving with the final film. Battle Royale II is a phenomenally awful film and a complete disaster. Perhaps unfairly, I believed the elder Fukasaku's contribution could not be the fault of the film, so the majority of the disdain I lumped upon the younger director. I did little research on the film's production and do not know where fault lies in the sequel. I unfairly wrote off Kenta as no Kinji and quickly put Battle Royale II out of my mind and included a small note to ignore any future subsequent film from Kenta Fukasaku. I have since changed my opinion towards Cinematic children and decided when the recent opportunity presented itself to view Kenta Fukasaku's X-Cross. X-Cross is about two women, Shiyori and Aiko, who are taking a trip to a secluded village to bathe in its hot springs. Shiyori needs a break, since she's healing with her recent break up with her boyfriend. Aiko doesn't have a boyfriend nor does she believe in them. Aiko lives life without getting close to anyone, and Shiyori is unsure even of their own friendship. "Am I a 'sort of' friend?" she asks. Before Aiko can even give Shiyori an evasive answer, Shiyori nearly hits a figure in the road. Swerving and missing, the pair get out of the vehicle to encounter a tall lady in a dark overcoat with an eye-patch, who says "snip, snip" with a finger gesture like scissors. Quickly assuming that she's okay and freaking out, the two head to the village and are escorted by a sick-looking, hobbling man. He takes them to the springs. While the two are bathing, Shiyori and Aiko have a small misunderstanding. The film then splits the two characters' storylines: Shiyori has a horrific encounter with the villagers, while the mysterious, one-eyed lady confronts Aiko. Upon returning from her bath, Shiyori finds a white cell phone ringing in her closet at her hotel room. She answers it and a frantic male voice tells her to leave immediately. "They're coming and they're going to cut off your leg." The male caller believes Shiyori is his sister, but Shiyori corrects him. There's no sister, just her phone. The male caller reveals that he's a professor at a university who studies local folklore. The town is full of crazies: a long time ago, there was a shortage of women in the village. In order to keep the females around, the villagers decided to cut off the left leg of each woman. This tradition has survived into present day. Shiyori flips and the lights go out and a bunch of faces can be seen through her window.Aiko has an encounter in the hotel's public bathroom. The eye-patched woman from earlier confronts her, donning an outfit which is a cross between a traditional French Maid's uniform and a China doll. She has two pairs of large scissors in her hand. Why is she attacking Aiko? Apparently, Aiko stole her boyfriend away with a one-night stand. Aiko cannot even remember the guy. Aiko escapes the public bathroom only to get caught in a portable one, and Aiko and the Scissor Lady have a battle: Aiko with a chainsaw and the Scissor Lady with a massive pair of scissors, far larger than any garden shears. X-Cross concludes with the two reuniting, and Shiyori's boyfriend and the mysterious caller make an appearance. The final act is very reminiscent of Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973). I have a very high tolerance for ineptitude combined with a gushing love for genre cinema, so I would certainly say that I am the ideal audience for X-Cross. During the first viewing, I enjoyed the suspense and mystery of Shiyori's tale with its twists and turns, although predictable. Shiyori's mistrust of Aiko is a key element of the film and provides the link to the mystery. Kenta Fukasaku's main visual symbol is the cell phone: a white cell phone for Shiyori and a red one for Aiko. X-Cross adeptly tells both woman's tales, alternatively, using the cell phone calls, texts, and emails as links between the two stories. Shiyori's sick villagers and Aiko's insane Scissor Woman are indulgent flourishes, combined with good pacing and nice atmosphere, which made ninety minutes fly by. Keep in mind, X-Cross is a low-budget horror film, pure and simple. Motifs can become gimmicks; what's effective can be tired; and the intriguing becomes sometimes boring, depending on what kind of mood you're in. I apparently was in a ranty mood for this entry, and Battle Royale II is still an awful film. However, Kenta Fukasaku shows promise with X-Cross and I will certainly see his future films.

Alejandro Amenábar's Thesis (1996)

Prior to his Foreign Language Academy Award for his genuinely beautiful and moving The Sea Inside (2004), Alejandro Amenábar delivered his quietly creepy (and also quite beautiful) The Others (2001). Prior to that pair, Amenábar made his fantastically trippy and meditative Open Your Eyes (1997) (which Cameron Crowe interestingly reduxxed with Vanilla Sky (2001)). While all of these films have made Alejandro Amenábar a favorite of mine, his earlier mystery, Thesis (1996) ranks as possibly my favorite film of his ("favorites" being a truly arbitrary label for me, however). Thesis is above all a very engrossing and intriguing mystery, richly-packed thematically but in a subtle way, and a tremendous amount of fun. Ángela (Ana Torrent) is sitting on the stopped subway train, because there has been an accident. Everyone has to disembark and take another train, but the conductor is going to make the transition difficult for the passengers: the conductor reveals that the actual "accident" on the tracks is a dead body split in two. The passengers are going to have a more difficult time fighting their curiosity than rush hour foot traffic; and no one is more curious than Ángela, who breaks the queue, to get a peek. "Stop being so morbid," shouts the conductor. Unfortunately for Ángela, she cannot help it. Ángela is a university student working on her thesis about "audiovisual violence." "Why would you pick such a subject," asks Professor Figueroa (Miguel Picazo), also her advisor. In so many words, she says that she is curious about the effect that it has upon viewers and the culture-at-large. In fact, would Figueroa mind going to the archives ("where they keep the more 'extreme' material") and getting Ángela some truly sick stuff to watch. Figueroa, knowing that he is breaking some unspoken rule by performing this task, agrees. In the archive, Figueroa takes a twist and a turn around the neat and categorized stacks of videocassettes into an alcove, almost cave-like, to find an unlabeled shelf littered with videocassettes. He hurriedly takes just one and goes to a viewing classroom. The following day, Figueroa doesn't show up to teach his classes and Ángela finds him, dead in the viewing room. Whatever he was watching was clearly related to his death. Ángela tells no one that she found the dead professor nor that she stole the videocassette which he was viewing. What's so extreme? Film geek and genre fan, who especially loves the hard stuff, Chema (Fele Martínez) shows Ángela, after she affirmatively seeks out his geeky expertise in the matter for her thesis, a Faces of Death-like film with apparent "real-life" violence. While she's appropriately disgusted by Chema's collection, Figueroa's archival videocassette is a little more genuine and a lot more disturbing: a snuff tape, made also seemingly by someone in at the university and its victim is a young woman student.Truth be told, Ángela is more obsessively curious about the dark side of life than anything else. She has an abnormally yet sweet stable home life: married and happy parents, a cute and bubbly sister, and a nice home (for which she gets extra kudos for having a My Own Private Idaho poster on her wall). Ángela is also quite smart and resourceful but extremely fearful. When she gets the first opportunity to view Figueroa's death-causing cassette, she chickens out on watching the images and just hears the sickening audio. Above all, Ángela is quite lonely: just as her curious side does with real life, she's looking for more interesting people who engage her in the most unusual and unexpected way. Chema becomes her most reluctant investigative partner in the mystery. Chema's an uber-geek (as it takes one to know one), and their relationship provides some of Thesis's comedic moments and dialogue. Watching these two together is like an old-time romantic comedy, although a romance never blossoms. Ángela is smitten with mysterious and quite handsome Bosco (Eduardo Noriega). After Chema discovers the camera source of the video in the snuff tape, Ángela spies Bosco using one in the break area at the university. Like a shark, Bosco comes on quite strong to Ángela, even showing up at her house and completely charming her family. Like most of her encounters, she's quite afraid of Bosco but develops a very obsessive attraction to him.Amenábar drafts and executes quite the mystery with Thesis. Although there are only a handful of suspects to the mystery, Amenábar provides enough twists and turns to make it interesting, and the conclusion is pretty satisfying. Along the way, throughout Thesis, Amenábar drops in the background his cultural criticism towards the media and our obsession with media violence (in all its forms, news, films, etc.). None of the criticism is trite or preachy. One professor expounds to his film students about why the American film industry is so far ahead of the Spanish industry: it's because it gives the audience, above all, what it wants. Is that what cinema, from anywhere, supposed to provide? Amenábar poses the question without a fixed answer. Appropriately, Amenábar shoots Thesis at its modern university in present-day Spain in clinical white light (as did Dario Argento in Tenebre (1982)) with the visual flares and atmospherics saved for the suspenseful moments. Later fanciful films would come from Amenábar, but Thesis shows a real flair for the classical. While I am eagerly awaiting Agora (2009), Thesis really should be viewed by fans of Alejandro Amenábar and those who like a good mystery.