This week’s film comes from director Ole Bornedal (Nightwatch, Nightwatch), and it shows us that white people are violent and racist bastards no matter the language. An educated man named Johannes moves his family back to his small hometown and finds trouble when a local immigrant is targeted by townspeople out for revenge. The dark-skinned, Bosnian refugee is falsely accused of killing a kindly old woman, and when the angry, Danish citizens come looking for justice Johannes puts the lives of his family and himself at risk by taking the man into his home for protection. Bornedal’s film is part thriller and part social commentary as it explores the motivations of people both good and bad. And the razor thin line between the two…

There are few genre character-types as tired and overdone as the vampire. They’re rarely scary, usually uninteresting, and often terribly predictable. They’ve become so mundane and commonplace that any attempt to shake up the norm automatically raises a film’s value and may help offset other issues. 30 Days Of Night for example trades the sexy, vampiric allure for some truly effective and horrific monsters. Daybreakers adds a unique, sci-fi twist that made vamps the normal citizens and humans the ones hiding in the dark. Let the Right One In is a coming of age tale that happens to feature a vampire. We Are the Night isn’t quite up to the standards of that Swedish chiller, but it’s definitely as good or better than the other two. The film opens on a passenger jet high in the night sky as the camera tracks from the blood-soaked cockpit back through an equally messy passenger cabin before coming to rest on three well-dressed, smiling women. Engorged on their energy drink of choice they knock out the fuselage door and leap from the plane… They cross paths with a street thief named Lena (Karoline Herfurth) and take her under their wing when the trio’s de facto leader, Louise (Nina Hoss), falls for her hard and bites her even harder. Lena’s indoctrination into the family brings her on a wild ride through a world of wealthy excess, emotional conflict, and the thirst for human blood, but with Berlin’s finest hot on their trail can these [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

A staple of comic book superhero movies is the origin story, and even though Hollywood is convinced audiences like seeing the same damn ones over and over (cough Spider Man Superman cough) it’s always refreshing to see new and original creations onscreen. One of the best (and most under-appreciated) is M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable. The film is a methodically paced exploration of both the hero and villain roles and features some powerful yet quiet scenes of the two men coming to terms with who and what they are. (The scene with Bruce Willis at the breakfast table silently acknowledging to his son his new found heroic nature remains one of Shyamalan’s greatest achievements.) Now imagine that same kind of fresh and creative take on the subject but infused with brutality, hope, and some stellar action and suspense scenes… A little boy with a prosthetic leg and a bandage over his eyes stumbles through the rain. He falls and tries to remove the fabric, but his mom abruptly grabs his hand and tells him he has to wear it at all times. The boy’s father arrives and begins to berate them both, taunting them that “Wrapping him up won’t make him human.” And then he begins to physically beat the woman. The boy’s tiny hands begin to clench and shake, he lifts one up to his face, and he removes the blindfold. The man stands, exits the house, and walks backwards through the rain until he’s in the middle of the [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives proved to be a divisive film in its commercial release following its surprise Palme d’Or win at last year’s Cannes. On the one hand, the strange film’s recognition exhibited a triumphant glimmer of hope for international art cinema in a world economy that hasn’t exactly been making room for ‘difficult’ art. On the other, for many the film has itself proved to be an alienating experience and was written off as a pretentious exercise that exemplifies the worst tendencies of art cinema.

Gimmick movies come in all shapes and sizes, and one of the newest types is the single-take feature. This used to be impossible due to camera and film limitations, but digital video has opened a whole new world to filmmakers looking to challenge themselves and reward audiences. Single-take films are exactly that, films shot entirely in one, continuous, uninterrupted take, and some recent examples include Russian Ark and PVC-1. (The British horror film Cut uses a single-take for all but its first five minutes.) The latest film to earn as much attention for the technique as it does for the art is the Uruguayan horror movie The Silent House. It’s about a father and his teen daughter tasked with spending the night in a rural house that they’re cleaning up and repairing for rental. They settle in for the night, but when she hears noises upstairs he heads up to investigate, screams, and then falls silent. She goes in search of her father and soon discovers there are worse things than being an orphan…

The personalities of runners always seem to run the gamut. On the one hand, regular exercise and fitness is a sign of stability, a display of having chosen the “right” priorities to care for one’s own body. On the other hand, running can become an obsession and a compulsion for a variety of reasons, and can become the vice of somebody with the personality of an addict. The strange relationship between compulsive personalities and physical fitness is at the heart of Benjamin Heisenberg’s Austrian thriller The Robber, an engrossing and complex yet economically straightforward character-driven thriller about a marathon runner who has an addiction to robbing banks. We first meet Johann Rettenberger (Andreus Lust) jogging in a tight square around a small yard, and quickly realize that he’s in prison. As soon as he’s called back inside and is directed to his cell, he continues running on the small treadmill right next to his bed. It’s one of those simple openings that says so much through doing so little, and this characterizes much of The Robber, a film with a deceiving simplicity that makes it all the more compelling.

Watch enough foreign language movies and you’re bound to develop some (usually incorrect) perception of that particular country’s citizens. Korean people are more likely to kick you than they are to smile. French folks will cheat on each other at the drop of a pastry. There are no schools for acting in Thailand. You get the idea. Japanese films are no different and in fact offer up more than one assumption about the culture. And no, they don’t all have to do with lactation or the enticing aroma of girls’ underwear. Some are about the overwhelming fear that Japanese society appears to have towards its own children. The youth of the nation are alternately dangerous to others (Battle Royale) or to themselves (Suicide Club), but the one constant is the complete lack of connection or understanding the adults have for their teenage counterparts. It’s an intriguing idea and one writer/director Tetsuya Nakashima (Kamikaze Girls) has decided to embrace with his latest movie, Confessions. His film is far more subtle than those mentioned above, but no less dangerous or dark, and he melds it seamlessly with another popular theme in Asian cinema…

There are few pleasures in life as great as walking into a film completely unaware as to its plot or purpose and walking out thrilled with the results. Okay, that’s clearly an exaggeration, but there are very few that don’t involve knee pads, whip cream, and tongue depressors. But I digress. Somewhere in the Spanish desert sits Uncanca, a casino filled with sweat, alcohol, and desperation. An old man on a Roulette winning streak triggers a call to the casino’s cooler, Federico (Eusebio Poncela). With a simple touch of his hand, the gambler’s luck runs out and he loses his final bet to the house. Federico leaves the casino floor and ventures into the basement where he meets a man wearing a black velvet bag over his head. If you predicted Max von Sydow was the man beneath the hood you would be correct and incredibly lucky… unlike Federico, who tries to leave Samuel’s employ and in return is given a brief hug and even briefer parting words. “Your gift I discovered, and your gift I take away.”

They say if you’ve seen one Italian horror film set in an old Louisiana mansion you’ve seen them all, but is that because there’s only one? No one knows, and if they do they’re not talking, but whatever the case it would probably be difficult to top Lucio Fulci’s late career entry into the sub-genre, The Beyond. Louisiana, the late 1920s, a man works silently before a canvas as an angry mob approaches outside. They burst through the door, drag him down to the hotel’s basement, and crucify him to the wall. He’s accused of being a warlock and quickly punished for his presumably wicked ways. Decades later a young woman named Liza (Catriona MacColl) inherits the old hotel and begins renovations, but not even multiple viewings of Tom Hanks’ The Money Pit could have prepared her for the hell this remodel is about to put her through.

Note: As Rob Hunter has been busy covering SXSW and watching Love Exposure on repeat, Landon Palmer is trying his best to fill his globe-trotting cinematic shoes. Rob will be back next week with another object from a foreign land. To make the observation that some really great films have been coming from South Korea in the last few years is to say nothing new. To say that there have been a lot of violent revenge movies from that country is also to say nothing new. But between Lee Chang-dong’s wonderful Poetry and Bong Joon-ho’s equally great Mother from last year, another revisited theme has emerged in South Korean exports: maternal figures that must care for and live with children who may or may not have committed a heinous crime to a young woman.

Movies and television have a long history of strong, likable anti-heroes who bend and break the law, cross morally questionable boundaries, and generally behave in a highly inappropriate manner. Falling Down‘s D-Fens, Escape From NY‘s Snake Plissken, Taxi Driver‘s Travis Bickle, Dirty Harry‘s Harry Callahan… these are characters at odds with the world around them who take matters into their own hands and do terrible things, and yet we love them until the very end. But can an anti-hero go too far? Can an otherwise likable, sympathetic, and cheer-worthy character cross an irreversible line? Cheng Lai Sheung (Josie Ho) has had a singular dream since she was a young girl living in Hong Kong. One day she’s going to buy a condo overlooking the harbor, and it will be big enough to share with her family without anyone having to share a room. As an adult she’s inching closer to achieving the dream with a healthy savings account and an apartment already picked out at the luxurious Victoria Bay high-rise. But then her father gets sick, and the insurance won’t cover his medical bills, and prices in the real estate market continue to blossom, and she can’t quite get a mortgage loan even from the bank where she works… and soon Sheung’s dream is slipping further and further away from reality. So she takes matters into her own hands in an effort to reduce the cost of her dream home. And if that means reducing the number of neighbors in [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Asian action movies set in modern day usually fall into one of two categories. They’re either loaded with bone breaking, skin slapping, fist pumping fight scenes, or they’re chock full of bullet ballets, armed standoffs, and gun fights. Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen fit in the former category while the latter is home to the work of Johnnie To and others. There’s some crossover here and there, but for the most part the films seem content to focus on one action style or the other. Vietnamese director Le Thanh Son chose to ignore that memo for his debut and has instead filled Clash (aka Bay Rong) with an equal amount of blisteringly fast fist fights and flesh shredding gunfights. This is a good thing. He also chose to let his characters talk a bit too much. This is a bad thing.

A young girl terrorized by a mourning woman in black. A blossoming teen discovering the attention her body attracts from men. A woman stalked by a razor-wielding assailant in her childhood home. Clearly, this is a film about sex. Amer offers three distinct peeks into one woman’s life with minimal dialogue and maximum atmosphere in an exploration of innocence lost and sexual identity gained. Colored light splashes, indirect camera angles, and a heavy emphasis on images and sounds make this more of a sensory experience than a traditional narrative. It’s an ode of sorts to the Italian giallo classics of the past from Dario Argento, Mario Bava, and others, but where those films often triumphed style over a relatively weak story Amer uses style in place of any story at all. Viewers looking for anything resembling a traditional slasher film should look elsewhere, but those interested in a fresh, visually impressive film (albeit one with flaws) may want to seek this one out soon.

As director/writer/producer Luc Besson has been responsible for a seemingly endless number of slick action films filled with gunplay, heroics, and a clear disregard for the laws of physics. He’s made action stars out of children and women (The Professional and La Femme Nikita), street gymnasts (District 13), and cabbies (Taxi). Hell, he even turned comic actor Jason Statham into a convincing action lead with The Transporter. Recently he’s found a new niche with lead actors approaching their sixth decade of life. Taken saw Liam Neeson demonstrating his very specific set of skills against some baddies, and now Jean Reno is shooting his way throughout the beautiful city of Marseilles in a bloody tale of revenge and family business gone awry. Charley Mattei (Reno) is a happily married father of two who once upon a time was also a mobster. He quit the business to focus on the joys of family, but it seems his past family, the ones that carry guns and horse heads in the trunks of their cars, didn’t like the way he said goodbye. They ambush him one morning and leave him for dead with twenty-two bullets lodged in his blood-drenched body. But they made two mistakes… they killed his dog. And they didn’t kill him.

“Shatuo… you still remember Donkey Wang?” It’s 690 AD and the Chinese emperor has died. His widow is awaiting her coronation as the first empress of China, but not everyone in the court supports the idea of a lady on the throne. And then there’s the problem of her loyal subjects suddenly bursting into flames and burning to death. Empress Wu (Carina Lau) needs help figuring out who’s behind the immolation murders threatening to disrupt her impending inauguration and turns to Detective Dee (Andy Lau) for assistance. But first she’ll have to pardon him from prison where he’s spent the last eight years serving a sentence handed down by… Empress Wu. What follows is a visual feast of high-flying action, vibrant colors, mystical underworlds, and CGI wonders. Oh, and maybe a talking stag or two. It’s the Chinese Sherlock Holmes movie you never knew you wanted. It’s Shanghai Holmes! No? Too far? How about this… it’s a fun mix of mystery, magic, and martial arts that wraps an interesting central story in a guise of pure entertainment.

Contemporary Russian cinema is an odd beast in the sense that not a lot of it seems to be reaching our shores. The last director from the region to make a splash in the Western world was Timur Bekmambetov. His modern day fantasies about the Swatch phenomenon, Night Watch and Day Watch, netted him production deals in Hollywood and his successful US debut with Wanted, but since then the iron curtain of creativity has seemingly been dropped back into place. But just because US audiences aren’t seeing them doesn’t mean they’re not out there. Case in point is the new film Alien Girl… a violent crime thriller about bad guys with guns and a badder woman with brains. And a vagina.

Welcome to my list of the best foreign films of the year! In case you’re wondering why certain films appear to be missing there are a few factors to take into account. First, films like Mother, A Prophet, The Good the Bad the Weird, and The Secret In Their Eyes are movies that made previous lists. Second, I haven’t seen everything that was released this year. And third, your favorite foreign release from 2010 may actually have been a piece of shit. I kid. But seriously, these are my picks for the ten best foreign language movies of the year in alphabetical order. As a bonus I’ve added in the five best English language foreign films for you as well. I know. You’re welcome. (Full reviews for all of the titles below can be found via our Reviews database, and my weekly excursions into foreign films can be found here.)

Ah, the romantic comedy. Is there any genre more undone by the generic machinations of heartless hacks and unfunny “stars” in lead roles? The ingredients should be simple… two people fall for each other and face obstacles on the way to hopefully being together. Whether they get there or not is irrelevant. Make the romance heartfelt and believable and the laughs genuine and frequent and you’ll have a solid romantic comedy. Notting Hill, When Harry Met Sally, My Best Friend’s Wedding… when it works they’re more than just great examples of the genre. They’re great movies period. Heartbreaker works.

A Bay Of Blood has been known by several titles over the years from the generic (Carnage) to the nonsensical (The Ecology Of A Crime) to the absolutely goddamn brilliant (Twitch Of the Death Nerve), but while the names have changed the quality of the film itself has remained the same. Mario Bava’s film has long been considered the granddaddy of the slasher, and it’s easy to see why once you’ve watched it. But what may come as a surprise is just how blackly comic the damn movie is too. Especially that killer ending…

Africa, more than any other continent, seems destined to be represented cinematically as a place filled with danger, strife, uncertainty, and upheaval. If the wild life or harsh conditions don’t get you a citizenry motivated by fear, religion, or anger most certainly will. But surely there’s joy to be found somewhere within its borders? Some pockets of happiness and smiles? Some village where something as trivial as a Coke bottle can lead to a tale of humor, warmth, and slapstick? No? Nothing? Fine. Let’s take a look at Claire Denis’ bleak, violent, and challenging film White Material instead.