150 From Around The World: My Fave Foreign Films

To be quite honest, this movie may not really be good enough to recommend to anyone or even to include on this list.
But I do have it on this list simply because I think it's a great way to start off a list, whether it be about favorite films from other parts of the globe or just about any other subject matter.
Plus, any film that can take a tried and true horror genre like vampirism and imbue it with the sexual allure of girl-on-girl action, particularly during the cinematically stiff period of the early 70's, deserves some kind of credit.
So, strap-on a wooden stake or a massive black donkey-sized dong, and let's get going on a super-long journey through many of my preferred choices when it comes to foreign language celluloid escapism.
Or, if the mention of Vampyros Lesbos makes you feel the inclination, go watch some internet porn. Either way is a good way to "kill off" some time.



BTW, if you think that putting this movie in the last spot is kind of cheating and not true to the nature of a list that's supposed to be about my "favorite foreign films" then just pretend that VL is not on this list and replace it with Murmur of the Heart. It's a French coming-of-age story that also "came out" in 1971, about a boy who's dad is a gynocologist and who has a habit of engaging in some of the more innocent taboos of the day. Like masturbation. Which means he probably would mind that Vampy Lez is on this list.

The Earth's populace must come to grips with its tendency of abundantly accumulating and disposing it's garbage as The King of All Monsters takes on a giant shambling mountain of red-eyed sludge that terrorizes the island of Japan by transforming itself into a flying smog-billowing force of pollution incarnate.
Kinda makes you want to start recycling, huh?

Guilty pleasure alert! Guilty pleasure alert!!!

For those of you may like your festive foreign films to have a bit of an edge (like the kind of edge you might find at the end of a large bladed scythe-like object) to 'em,
well then,
y'all may want ta check out "Saint" ("Sint" in it's original Dutch title.....don't know why Listal has it listed as "Saint Nick" in it's english translation, but whatever.......).
Not only does star a "Bad Santa" of the darkest nature, it even features a few Black Petes, although why they're called Black has nothin' to do with their skin color. It's more about what these guys and their jolly ol' leader do on when they're out on their slayrides than anything to do with the controvesy of their tradition.

Lady Snowblood is an asian butt-kicking femme with whom I fell in love with instantly after her first foray in film the year previous.
In Love Song of Vengeance she returns, but with her primary goal of vengeance already satiated from the original movie, she then sets her mind and her katana (although through circumstances not of her choosing) towards the political realm of espionage.
And as we all know, there's more than enough blood in that arena to quench the thirst of anyone's (man or woman) sword.

Back in 2007, a film from Spain hit the horror genre with the force of a zombie apocalypse. It was called REC and following the found footage craze that was still going on at the time, it took the shaky cam and focused it onto the trapped by zombies formula. It was a combo that they made work very effectively and the film left an indelible mark on the walking dead fandom.
However, success always comes with a price, and the unexpected reaction to REC meant that sequels were soon to follow. And as is always the case in these situations, with each subsequent sequel, the quality of the franchise kept dropping a couple of notches.
So by the time that this fourth installment came out, I walked into it expecting to see the final nail in the coffin of a series that really should of been left alone after the first one. Now Apocalypse still didn't do anything to redeem REC as a collective whole, but, if you watch it as a stand alone film, it's pretty damn good. Gone is the shaky cam along with the shock ending that helped to provide the first one with the kind of chills that made someone want to soil themselves, but here, the elements of the franchise are converted into an action-type thriller with the kind of suspense that can keep you on the edge of your seat.
For the Halloween season, when you're in the mood to be scared, watch REC 1. However, at any other time of the year, when you wanna watch just a decent roller coaster (albeit a bit water-logged) thrill-ride, filled with suspense and of course, rotted rabid zombies, then REC 4 is worth standing behind in line behind the Redbox.

Six years into the future, gangs have taken over a ghetto just outside of Paris France (I know what you're thinking..."Wait... France has ghettos?!). One gang in particular has stolen a very powerful bomb and have unwittingly activated its countdown sequence.
Now one cop must go undercover and team up with a criminal to get passed the ghetto walls and passed the gangs in order to deactivate the bomb before it goes off and takes the ghetto with it.



After honing his skills behind the camera as a cinematographer, Pierre Moral is still behind the camera, but this time he's sitting in the director's chair. Teaming up with writer and producer Luc Besson (also known for his director skills on such films as Le Femme Nikita and Leon: The Professional). The end result of their collaboration is District B13, a frenzied French film in which parkour is the main driving force of the action scenes.
For those of you who don't know what parkour is, it's the act of moving forward by running, jumping, or climbing over whatever obstacles are in your path. Even if it's something as big as a building, the object is get through it by leaping stairwells, climbing through windows, flipping over walls and fences, etc (you can probably get a better description or definition of parkour if you look it up on wikipedia or just google it.... or better yet, look up a video of it in the ol' youtube).
Now while the act of parkour is utilized as a plot device in this story and helps to give the film a distinctive nature, the truth is, in future films, it might be good it was used sparingly.
After watching District B13, it's easy to see that this is a style of action that easily become tired pretty quickly (and not just as a plot device, but even more-so for the actors).

Fred, a small time safecracker, stumbles through life down in the subterrestrial passages of the Paris Metro, along with a "secret society" of fellow eccentrics who share his "passion" for petty crimes, stylistic clothes & avante garde music.
Starring the Highlander guy and with a look that has
been described as "visually vibrant", Subway is an artistically French underground movie about the French who like to live artistically underground.

Here is a movie about World War II that goes against everything that most WW2 movies go for.
Instead depicting the conflict and tragedy that other films of the same subject matter usually try to portray, Mediterraneo goes the opposite route and tells a tale of peace and serenity that comes from being abandoned by the worldwide war machine.
A band of soldiers who range from average to below average are assigned to a remote Greek isle to stand as a lookout for the enemy. After realizing that they have been forgotten, the small group soon find themselves integrating with their new surroundings and it's picayune community of people into a life more satisfying and fulfilling than even before the war began.

Back during my college days, the whole time that I was enrolled, I probably consumed enough beer so as to qualify me as some sort of a drunken master.
But through my lack of training and discipline, I was never enough of a master to be able to fight in any kind of a kung fu battle whilst in this alleviated state of inebriation. Particularly in any manner that allowed me to use every piece of furniture, silverware &/or knick-knacks that was in my immediate disposal in a cool offensive style like Jackie Chan does in this movie.
But, I was always drunk enough to at least think I could.

A woman goes to the Doctor, worried about her husband's temper.
The Doctor asks: "What's the problem?"
The woman says: "Doctor, I don't know what to do. Every day my husband seems to lose his temper for no reason. It scares me."
The Doctor says: "I have a cure for that. When it seems that your husband is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish but don't swallow it until he either leaves the room or calms down."
Two weeks later the woman comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn.
The woman says: "Doctor that was a brilliant idea! Every time my husband started losing it, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and he calmed right down! How does a glass of water do that?"
The Doctor says: "The water itself does nothing. It's keeping your mouth shut that does the trick."
I know that joke has nothing to do with this movie, but it's one that always come to mind whenever I think about the idea of women playing with fire. :P



The second chapter of the Millenium Trilogy, a series which despite it's fiery debut, seemed to burn out with most other connoiseurs of cinema. But for me, I found it to be quite a satisfactory series, overall.

I don't how to describe this movie other than to say
it's something along the lines about adopting a baby outside the conventional means....
Or maybe,
the way this story pans out,
the best I can say is that it's pretty f#cked up.

Inside is part of the New Movement of French horror movies in which the stories are presented with a visceral, no holds barred type of attitude. Therefore, this is just one of the very few that movies of that type that can be found on any of my "favorite films lists".

Actually, this is really an entry for the entire Millennium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and this one).
A trio of tales that follows the tale of a social misfit with an exceptional talent as a computer hacker and the relationship that she forms with an investigative journalist.
And while the quality may slip a little as the series progresses, in the end, each chapter in this trilogy is still a quality, provocative story and IMO, each one stands well out on it's own as a feature film.

In this massive missive of martial arts mayhem, Bruce Lee stars as Cheng, a common workingman who earns his living as a foreman in an ice factory. He and his fellow laborers soon discovered that manufacturing ice is just a cover for distributing "snow". After the Big Boss learns that his secret is out, he orders Cheng's family to be disposed of. And thus are the conditions set for fists to fly with the kind of fury that only the one true Master can dish out.

In 1990, French actor Gérard Depardieu brings his hefty presence as a romantic leading man to it's full weight as he stars in not just one, but two major rom-coms. Each utilizing a different language and in a year already over flowing with light-hearted love themed movies. The first one, filmed in his home country of France, is the Academy Award nominated Cyrano de Bergerac. Based on the famous French play which, in turn, is based on a real life dramatist of the same name.
This film version of the tale of a large nosed Casanova not only dutifully follows one of the most famous stories to come out of the Land of romance, but also, does a successful job of traversing over the Atlantic, into the cinematic shores of the American Rom-Com.

Anyone familiar with the history of space exploration knows that Sputnik was the very first man made object that was placed in Earth's orbit. Built and set off to space by the Russians, and , it was symbol of mankind's lofty aspirations to fly outside of the planet's atmosphere and beyond, despite the Cold War rivalry of the great space race. Sputnik's only function was to circle the globe and send continual beeping transmissions down to Earth. It was a harmless piece of machinery that in the end, demonstrated that when it came to ingenuity of humankind, the sky was truly the limit.
Sputnik the movie, was also created by the Russians, in 2020, long after the thaw of the Cold War. But in this film, the "Sputnik" in question is an alien with parasitic tendencies and a taste for human flesh. And with it's ability to control it's host to meet it's appetital demands in a rather macbre version of "how to serve mankind", this Anti-Sputnik shows that it when it comes to human race acting as an "all-you-can-eat" buffet, this orbital nasty is much more of a symbolpc statemants that says that what's down here on the ground is what truly is the limit.

Here's a movie that comes from France and that is made up a series of short stories, and while each one is in animated form, it is a form rarely seen on film, called silhouette animation. It's a method in which all the characters are shown in silhouette by having a back light shining against articulated cut-outs. This was a European style of storytelling that was popular back in the late 1880's/ early 1900's and had partially evolved from an even older form of storytelling called "shadow play" (look it up). Combined with modern animation techniques and technology, the final product is one that is unique and stylish and allows the silhouette animation style used here to add a sense of mystique that enhances the ethereal themes that are the foundations of each short story.
Now while Tales Of The Night may initially come off as sounding like a horror film, in actuality, it's not. Presented more as moral fables of old, each one is like a tale filled with a "nightish" like sensibility that helps to effectively get across the point and danger of each lesson learned.

Before there was Beatrice Kiddo, the Bride, waking up after her supposed death and staining the snow with blood in Kill Bill vol. 1*,
there was Yuki Kashima, aka Lady Snowblood, doing the exact same thing. But unlike the Bride, who did it as a homage to the Pinky Violence genre, Lady S did it as the originator of these kinds of story themes and was an early entry into the field of female film bad-assery.



* (For any fans of the Kill Bill films, the battle scene where Kiddo goes Hanzo sword to Hanzo sword with O-Ren Isgii was inspired by this movie.)

The Three Colours Trilogy was an emotional and ambitious project for famed Polish director Krzystof Kielowski in which he aimed to create three stories based on the three political ideals in the motto of the French Republic: liberty, equality, fraternity. Which is why each film is titled on the colors of the French flag (Blue, White and Red).
Taking on the subject of equality as it's theme, White tells the tale of a man named Karol Karol, who after losing literally everything in his life, embarks on a series of acts with hopeful result of setting his life aright.



Despite some of it's darker plot elements and unlike it's movie brothers, White takes a lighter approach in it's unfolding of it's machinations (which may be due to it's color scheme). Considered as the "weakest" of the three Colours, it is nevertheless still regarded as one of the best films to come out of the year 1994.

As I mentioned in the entry for the movie Kung Fu Hustle, Chop Socky, a subgenre of the martial arts films from Asia, is a spawn of the comedic style combat that Jackie Chan brought to the forefront a decade earlier. Once the New Millenium began, the door was kicked wide open for other wacky wunderkind warriors like Stephen Chow, who directed and starred in both Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, two films that have since become staples in the burgeoning genre. After taking the absurdity of both the humor and the high kicks from this new style of Asian cinema and cranking 'em up a notch, he and his fellow directors of Socky then placed the stories and situations of these movies in unlikely settings. For example, like that of a soccer field. And when it came to finding an audience for such out-of-the-ordinary chop 'em and sock 'em kick-flicks, Chow and Co. quickly discovered that they had scored a goal.

On an Italian island so small that there are no automobiles, a local and dissatisfied fisherman looks for other, more "exciting" forms of employment. So he becomes the island's sole postman. With only one customer: a famous poet from Chile exiled to the island for political reasons. A friendship soon developes between the two, and the postman soon finds out the power that poetry has to change one's life.
A small piece of cinema about quiet people in remote circumstances who yearn for more expansion, not so much in their physical surroundings, but in their hearts, minds and souls.

Man,
forget all those stupid Chuck Norris internet memes that you see running ridiculously rampant all over the world wide web. The reality is, his so-called brass balls could never hope to stand a chance against Bruce Lee's raging fists of fury. Let's face it, Chuck's milquetoast martial arts style is nothing but a mockery of a not so mortal combat. The truth is, there is only one true path to the style of the original oriental street fighting technique. And that way is through the path of the man known simply as The Dragon.

A family is found dead in their house out in the country and the only evidence that authorities have to work on is a video cassette found at the site. On it is a recording of the family's last five days and the strange occurrences that built up to tell the story of what (or may have) happened, and led up to the "end".



Following the runaway success of The Blair Witch Project, a slew of low-budget films took on the formula of the found footage genre in order to cash in the popular and easily accessible process of making a movie. And just like most overnight fads, the majority of the end results of these efforts fall short of the movies that originally made the trend so trendy.
However, within the vast sea of these film failures, one or two of 'em, just out of the odds of the numbers, stand out as an above average effort. For me, Atrocious is one of those few.

Véronique is a teacher of music who lives in France. Weronika is a soprano singer in a Polish choir. Two women who have never met yet in the same manner that they share the same name just in different translations, they also appear to share the same "soul", thus causing them to share the same empathetically reactions to each other's individual experiences.
A unique story idea for a film, The Double Life of Véronique is "poetically" directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, famed director of the highly acclaimed Three Colors Trilogy.

Even though Enter The Dragon & Fist Of Fury often interchange with this movie as far as my being my favorite Bruce Lee film, Game Of Death is the one that I find myself watching the most.
Maybe it's cuz, with since it actually remains unfinished (in my eyes, the post-Lee parts don't count... ) it leaves plenty of room for interpretation on what could have been.
After Lee's death, martial arts genre took a real nose dive as far as the kind of quality & especially the kind of integrity that Bruce seemed to be striving for.
And while lately, the genre has taken many strides forward as far as being taken more seriously as a cinematic art-form, watching the ideas that Bruce set upon this early "kung fu flick" always make me wonder about the potential that the original Dragon must have dreamed, strived & hoped for.

Back during the tail end of the 80's, the Berlin Wall and all that it represented was crumblin'. Well, actually, the wall itself was still holding up pretty good, but the politics behind it was starting to come apart. Germany, after it's decades long history of turbulence and social strife which resulted in it's country being literally divided (by the wall) was ready to be unified and made whole again.
Goodbye Lenin! is the story of a young east German citizen who's mother, after suffering from a serious stroke, holds on to her fragile sanity with the delusional belief that East Germany is still separated from it's evil capitalistic western twin. And in order to spare her from any more emotional grief, her son, along with the daughter, finds himself performing daily acts of deceptions to keep her believing that.
A 2003 "tragicomedy" set in late 1989/early 1990 that skillfully dances twixt the tragedy and the comedy that gives the rarely used cinematic term it's name.

   Y'know, in their earliest appearances in the cinema, vampires were made to be undead monters that dwelled within the genre of horror. After a while however, particularly through the sixties and 70's, the idea of a fanged neck-biter became aligned more on the campiness of creature features. Nowadays, we tend to divide 'em into the two categories: that of the comic-book crowd (as in Blade) or worse, in the rallying side of the younger-minded female romantics (as in a famous franchise that I won't mention here but that you know what I'm talking about).
  In this film, we get to see the concept of vampirism in manner that was probably the original intention of those whose first spawned the folklore:
As a soul-craving thirst to unleash our deepest desires and darkest urges with an immortality that flies above those of pitiful human morals.



 Damn.
 I never realized that I could scribe down something that sounded so.... Freudian.

A porn flick that has to be seen to be believed. This is one of those rare cases where the term "legend" is not used loosely. And neither is the word "fist".



Oh wait....
I think I might be getting this mixed up with another movie......

A horror mockumentary in almost the exact same vein as Blair Witch Project.
To be honest, this story of an ancient curse bought forth to modern times comes off as a bit more complicated than it needs to be, not to mention some of the side paths the plot takes feels like they could've been edited out.
But still, the end does add a bit of freakiness horror that is usually expected in shaky-cam subcategory of the horror genre.
By no means perfect, but still, as someone who has grown restlessly tired of the formulaic so-called scare flick that the American movie market has been cranking out for the past decade or so,
I'm just glad to see any effort that steps out of the today's horror-themed same-ol' same-ol'.

Zombies who speak German. Well, not actually speak.....
growl is more like it. But still, whatever noise you can hear rumbling from outta their rotworm-infested mouths, it's definitely Deutschland.



Actually, to be honest, while I did end up liking this film, I still found to be somewhat underwhelming. However I decided to still include it on this list just because any time anyone makes an honest effort to create a quality zombie flick with it's own unique twist to it, to distinguish it from all the others, it's always a good thing.
Besides, the year that Rammbock "came to life", 2010, also saw other movies that were released like Atrocious, Changi, Rare Exports, Stakeland, and Trollhunter. I wanted to show what an exceptional year that was for scare-fare of a more independent and worldwide nature.

No, no, this isn't that one film that starred Madonna and became infamous as one of the worst in cinema history.
This is the original movie, an Italian produced rough-edged romantic romp on a deserted island that is considered by a film connoisseur or two as one of the best foreign releases of 1974.
Which, when you think about it, only helps to drive the later ravaged Ritchie english version deeper into the pit of pitifully pulverized remakes.

  Being that this movie is about vampirism, I'm not giving away anything when I say that, accordinging to Cronos, the secret to eternal life is human blood. And I'm also not giving anything awat then I say that there comes a very high price to pay for becoming an eternal bloodsucker. A price that kinda gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "get busy living or get busy dying". 
   As  the directorial debut of Guillermo de Toro, Cronos right away sets the stage for his distinctive and unique brand of filmmaking, particularly when it comes horror and or thriller type of films. This is a great looking piece of cinema, it’s beautifully shot, the themes covered within are presented in an interesting, thoughtful manner, all of which highlight the talents that Mr. Del Toro always brings to the table.

Here's a Mexican movie that was remade three years later in the U.S., under the same title, but with some pretty dramatic changes to it's setting. And it's because that these changes were so dramatic (some may even say "drastic"), that this is the version that many feel has more spice in it's menu.



After the father dies unexpectedly, a struggling family must find a way to put food on the table. But which family member will "man up" and fill the role of bringing home the bacon when this is a family that has very "particular" tastes when it comes to what they eat? Or, to put it in another way, one of them must now rise to the challenge of becoming the new breadwinner when getting their kind of food isn't as simple as going to the local grocery store.

Two separate stories about two different police officers, each trying to deal with their situations of heartbreak.
Even though Chungking Express deals with matters of the heart, it's not really a romance movie. It's a film about dealing with the concept of love.
The usual formula of love isn't followed in the premise, and instead, it is left almost ambiguous on what the people involved are feeling towards each other. These are couples that are definitely looking for love, but in the midst of the dense crowds of Hong Kong, they are lonely rangers whose definition on how to couple are as jumbled & stagnant as the jungled buildings of the city in which they reside.
Express is a film that uses the visual imagery of background colors and the kinetic energy of a hand held camera to help charge this story of emotional yearning through the subtle yet tangled search for a "partner in crime".

    Bruce Lee was the modern day warrior who made martial arts movies more mainstream during the late 60's and early 70's. Fellow (and surviving) warrior, Jackie Chan took this brand of action genre into the 90's and made it a force of farce to be reckoned with in the film industry of the Far East. As a result, he had involunteerily started a cinematic movement wherein the kinetics of kung fu fighting would extend past the limits of physical restrictions.
    In the first decade of the new millenium, following the rise of the subgenre now known as Chop Socky, the door was kicked wide open for other wacky wunderkind warriors like Stephen Chow, star and director of both Kung Fu HustTaking the absurdity of both the humor and the high kicks from this new style of Asian filmmaking, and cranking 'em up a notch, movies like these prove that when it comes taking Kung Fu to the next level, ya gotta be willing to do the Hustle.

To be honest,
I completely agree with the title of this film.
We truly need to simply just let sleeping corpses lie.
Cuz if we did,
we wouldn't have to worry about all this zombie apocalypse craziness.
And there would be no need to have to publish any handbooks depicting how to handle the situation.
Not to mention that our delectable edible brains (a cornerstone of any zombie's nutritious breakfast) would be able to sleep alot easier at night.

Now while I agree with most people that (Legend Of The) Drunken Master II was technically a better and more masterful movie, this film is the beginning, and my favorite one featuring Jackie Chan's comedic style of "combat". There are still times when I watch the action scenes of DM and they still seem as energetic, cool and creatively crazy today as back when this first came out.
And to this day, there are many times when those alcoholic induced martial arts moves inspire me to think "I bet I could fight like that too."
If I was drunk.
Really drunk.

Over at a dynastically run hotel, a high ranking family is holding a celebration for their father's 60th year.
And one of the patriarch's major surprise gifts, by his only son, is the unveiling news that he is responsible for the suicide death of his daughter as a result of a family history of sexual abuse.
Although, coupled with the other troubled revelations that reveal themselves as the party chugs along, "Big Daddy" probably would have preferred on just getting a tie.

Y'know how when you try to wake up your foot after it's fallen asleep and it then feels like there are a hundred thin needles piercing thru the flesh? Raise the level of that feeling from uncomfortable to horrific,
add a little razor-wire and an angelic smile, and there you go. You've got this movie.
Rarely does the face of horror look so beautiful and hurt so torturously bad at the same time.

Considered by many film critics as a spanish version of Grapes Of Wrath, this film tells the story of Enrique and Rosa, a brother and sister pair who are forced to flee the civil war torn country of Guatemala after the rest of their family have been either killed or captured by soldiers. Deciding that the only place where a couple of Mayan Indians may stand a chance of a fruitful future is the U.S. they begin a trek that takes them through the equally troubled land of Mexico. But as they transpire north, they find that as harrowing as the journey "up" was, their struggles don't end when they finally reach the "promised land".
Just as people of peasant stock were looked upon only as "strong arms" for cheap labor in their native land, they quickly realize that this a view that is still the same in "el Norte".

Every Sunday evening, the grown girls of a chef's family convene at the dinner table for a feast of food, beverage and conversation of the latest news in each of the sibling's lives. Which, for the aged cook, usually translates to how the modern ways are constantly challenging the traditions of the old ways. It's enough to give and old man indigestion. Or at least gas.
The third installment to what is often loosely referred to as the "Father Knows Best" trilogy, Eat Drink Man Woman was one of the seminal films to the international rising star of director Ang Lee

The host of a local TV show starts to feel that his family may be under threat when strange drawings along with stalker type video cassettes start mysterious showing up at his door. When these "messages" also begin arriving to his wife's place of employment and his son's school, he tries reporting it to the police. But since no actual threat had been made, the tension in the situation begins to become more uneasy, in his homelife and his work.
A deepening mystery whose solution requires the intellilect of the viewer, Cache is a well-written and well acted film from France that elegantly builds up it psychological drama with confident strides that walk, but do not run, down the road less traveled.

A quiet and single clockmaker is visited by the local police and is reported that his son has committed a murder.
Now, as he contemplates the why's of his son's actions, he begins to delve into the nature of their relationship and into the nature of the crime.
A road of reflection that eventually leads the clockmaker into an internal confrontation with his own deceptions as a parent and now, must find a way to come to terms with his past.
L'horloger de Saint-Paul is a film that, while it may not live up to the levels of the New French Wave movement that preceded it, still makes a worthy effort into the introspective type of storytelling that put this kind of cinema on the map.

Following the formula he started with the first of his famed Three Colours Trilogy, Polish director Krzystof Kielowski concludes the series with the last of the French flag colors, Red. With a theme based on fraternity, this story follows the lives of two primary characters and their different personalities, along with a few secondary characters, and how all of these separate lives are in one way or another, connected, mostly without their awareness. Using different physical levels of the two main actors to emphasize their juxtaposition and the color red dominating the scheme of the visuals, Red masterfully rolls up into a distinctive tale with an ending that brings home the fact that this is part of a trilogy and therefore bringing it's concept of connection to an even higher and creative level of storytelling.
This final story of Colours is widely considered by critics and connoiseurs alike as the best of the bunch (luckily so since this also ended up being the final work of the director who passed away just two years later).

Here's a movie that is remembered not just as probably the best foreign film of the year 1977, but also as a movie where two actresses alternatively play the same female lead character. Her name is Chica, a woman who happens to be a Sevillian flamenco dancer and at the same, an off-and-on temperamental tease. And when you think about it, two ladies making up one woman of that particular make up, it leads to a very profound and philosophical question;
is there any object of desire more obscure than that?

Do you like movies that feature bullets, babies, lots of all-out, gun-toting action and that don't come sunny-side up?
Then this is the film for you.

While in most parts of the world, this South Korean zombie epic is simply called "Peninsula", in a few other areas, it is being marketed as "Train To Busan presents: Peninsula". In other words, movie execs want it to be known that this film is basiclly a loose sequel to 2016's runaway success, Train To Busan.
If there was a way to describe the first Busan movie in theatrical terms, I guess whe say that it's basically Runaway Train meets World War Z. In that regard, we could probaby then describe this fast-fiend follow-up as The Fast and the Furious meets World War Z ... with a nod to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome ....and another nod to the Road Warrior ... and maybe a slight hint towards Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Basically, it's a series whose major premise is to hve different types of fast moving vehicles smash into World War Z types of carcass-accumulated pile-ups. And just like it's predecessor, Peninsula does a good job of delivering it's goods while at the same time, stitching it's undead body count action scenes with the type of talking head scenes that build a story that actually comes to life in the midst of all the macabre and mercurial moving mayhem.

Most of the time, when it comes to remakes, it's usually Hollywood that remakes a film from another country. Here, it's the other way around.
The Beat That My Heart Skipped is a French take on the 1978 "classic", Fingers, starring Harvey Keitel.
Focusing on the daily life of a "land shark" and criminal, Thomas Seyr, his passion for playing the piano is reignited by a chance encounter. Now Trying to balance his love for music and his lifestyle in the mob, Seyr becomes caught in a struggle between his heart for the art and the hearth of his profession.

Special effects, even in a rudimentary form, started almost as quickly as when the idea of actually making pictures move began. And soon after, follows that when an early film encounters a limited budget, then comes creativity in the form of cinematic expressionism.
And in the beginning of the twenties, that creativity came nicely boxed in the form of a cabinet (or, to keep in tune more with this story, an insane asylum. Cabinet, insane asylum, in the realm of artistic expression, they're all the same).
One of the first movies to start using film to the level of potential that the medium allows.
Surreal, distorted, disturbing, and in my opinion, particularly for it's time, it's was pretty cool as hell.

Here's a film that I hesitated before putting on this list because in order to help me decide which titles to put in my favorite foreign films list, I went with those mives from other conutries which also spoke in a foreign language. However, since Pandora's Box is from the silent era, it's "foreigness" might not be as evident. But I came to the conclusion that as a piece of cinema that is widely considered iconic with a cultural movement from the early stages of filmmaking, it's defintely worth mentioning. Not just the movie, but also the country from whence it came.



Initially, I watched P's B mostly because I was curious about what was it that made the flapper girl the embodiment of the female liberation movement from back during the roaring twenties.
Alongside legendary "It" girl, Clara Bow, this was the look and style that made it's star, Louise Brooks not only the biggest female movie actress of the silent era, bit also, the definition of what it meant to be a free-spiriting flapper.

It a post apocalyptic planet Earth, and in France, supposedly like everywhere else, meat is scarce. So when circus clown Louison comes to work at a local butcher shop, his hopes are high on attaining a steady means of living with the delicatessen's delicacies as a benefit of the job.
Only soon to find out that it could be the very opposite of those things that he may "end" up with.



Delicatessen is an "after the big one" small story that comes off a bit more charming that one would expect based on it's subject matter. Especially, if you're a vegetarian.