Best Foreign Film (AA)

This samurai epic has some breathtaking cinematography, that alone elevating it a class above the average Japanese film, deservedly got an Oscar for Foreign Film... the director Hiroshi Inagaki is the star here, the actors, including the famous Tishiro Mifune, are truly just pieces of his vision which includes the poetic, yet overwhelming landscape. The only drawback, other than slowish pacing, is that the film (from Criterion) is in fullscreen, not wide. The first part of a trilogy by Inagaki, it comes as a set also.

This crime and romance film is probably the best example of the sometimes flashy cinematic style of Wong Kar-Wai. Much of the film is shot with a shaky, hand held camera, and the process works great for city crowd shots, such as a blurred mob at a bus stop, and works best of all during street crimes, where the images and fast action seem exactly what the crime must be like for both victims and witnesses. This is a film in two parts (don't look for a novelish story plot either), with a third intended but due to length, Wong released the third part as another film, Fallen Angels. The Japanese actress, Faye Wang, who works at the express noodle stand is one of their pop music stars, this was her first film and she's a natural. Well-known Asian actor Tony Leung (In the Mood for Love, Hero, 2046, Lust Caution) is also in the noodle stand half.

This is one of the slower Yimou films, but still worth seeing, as are they all. The story involves a 13-yr old girl who must substitute in a rural mountain school when the teacher has to go on personal leave for one month. He offers her an extra 50 yuan if there is "not one less student" when he returns (due to kids dropping out), so it becomes the girls guiding principle in running the school, full of students not much younger than her. When one student goes to a nearby city to work to pay his family's debt, the girl, brilliantly portrayed by Wei Minzhi, is determined to bring him back. This is a more touching story for the fact that Yimou used not professional actors but actual real life people to portray their own "fictional" roles in the movie; that is, the head of a tv station was played by a real tv station manager, the teacher was a real elementary school teacher. The performances he elicits from children and the message of this almost propogandist statement make this film a must-see.

This offbeat film is about a young, bumbling apprentice train dispatcher in a small Czech town during the Nazi occupation. It's an odd time frame for a romantic comedy about losing one's virginity, while being surrounded by others also more interested in amorous activities than some silly world war. It's almost as if the war inside everyone's pants takes precedence, one hardly notices the real war, just some occasional German train officials who come around to talk about "watching the trains closely". There's not a lot of substance here, but some tasteful comedy about virginity and lust, and mildly erotic scenes done in good taste, especially a famous one involving rubber-stamping a flirtatious teenage girl inside the dispatcher's station. One Oscar

Another beautifully shot love story from Ang Lee (Eat Drink Man Woman, Crouching Tiger, Ice Storm, Sense and Sensibility, Brokeback Mountain), this one taking place during World War II, in occupied Shanghai. Tony Leung (Hero, In the Mood for Love, 2046) is a Chinese collaborator, a government official for the Japanese occupation government. Wei Tang is a beautiful young student, whose acting troup at the university becomes political, and starts doing work for the resistance. Eventually their paths cross, and they become involved on two levels at once. This is a slowly unfolding erotic romance wrapped inside an espionage tale during a brutal period of Asian history. Beautiful cinematography, dark rich colors, it has the look of Vittorio Storaro who shot the best films of Bertolucci and Coppola. Received Golden Globe and BAFTA (British academy) nominations for Foreign Language Film.

Almodovar's cinematic homage to women reaches new heights in this Oscar winner, he even dedicates it to: "All women who play actresses, all women, and all those who want to be women", so aside from real women, the cast also includes some gender-benders. The film begins with people watching Bette Davis in "All About Eve", so the connection to 50's dramas about women is made immediately by Almodovar.

It's a fictionalized account of the mother of a teenager who wants to be a screenwriter, a mother who once was an actress apparently, but nothing big. Her life connects with some real stage actresses (doing Tennessee Williams' "Streecar Named Desire"), and the stories of each individual is really what Almodovar's films are all about: the unique, creative people all around who inspire his films, especially women. The Argentinian actress, Cecelia Roth, who plays the mother, was riveting - soapy, yet sincere and believable. The music, I believe by Antonio Inglesias, is very good in all Almodovar's films, and it never intrudes on the scene. One Oscar