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The Host
 It's becoming more clear every year. While the American movie market takes a dive, Foreign cinema is on a roll. The latest flick to rock South Korea is a Korean-Japanese co-production that wraps horror, comedy and political satire into one cool monster movie that both defies logic and amuses to the max. An American official orders his Korean assistant to dump down the drain a bunch of old formaldehyde bottles, thus poisoning the Han River and creating a squid-like icky beast with (of course) razor-sharp teeth that eventually terrorizes and snacks on the tourist-filled river bank. The Host pays homage to the slew of cold-war films where mutant insects on atomic steroids wreak havoc on humans, but here we also get some poignancy as a dysfunctional family pulls together to save their schoolgirl daughter and defeat the beast. The film makes social and political jabs wherever it can and we Americans deserve it. If you can laugh at yourself, you'll love The Host.
The Secret
 Have you heard The Secret? For $30 bucks you too can learn how to have the world eating out the palm of your hands. Um, sure. Now I'm not saying that this new DVD, book and audio book is bunk but after watching the 90-minute movie, I'm not quite ready to say, "Oh my God, this changed my life!" The Secret has been touted on Oprah and in The New York Times, becoming the hottest thing to trample America since Bikram yoga and Starbucks. It's basically a glorified infomercial that drolls on and on about the Law of Attraction - like attracts like; believe that good things will happen to you, picture good things happening to you, and they will come; wealth, love, happiness, you name it. This is really nothing new nor 'revolutionary'. Peter Pan sang in 1953 "Think happy thoughts and up you go!" I'm either absolutely brilliant or totally clueless. I got The Secret's point in the first 15 minutes. Hearing personal growth experts like Joe Vitale, Bill Harris, Bob Doyle hammer home the idea that our minds create our reality was just overkill. But maybe others need to hear the same thing repeated a hundred different ways. Maybe you need examples of how to think positively. If you do, then you'll love this movie and what it just may do to your life- or at least your attitude.
300
 Sin City meets the History of Ancient Greece. In 480 B.C. a Spartan army of 300, led by King Leonidis, held their ground against a massive Persian contingent set to crush and enslave these Greeks. Believing in democracy and freedom, the warriors marched off in their underwear to wield spears and shields in the Battle of Thermopylae and a suicide mission to honor their king and kingdom. Any homophobic man watching this adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel will squirm in his seat and undoubtably find the sweaty, bare-chested he-men outrageously flaming but you gotta think -1) this is Greece - land of homosexuality; 2) this is Greece in B.C. -when this sort of thing was only broken up by the occasional orgy; 3) who the hell cares when you're a woman watching these insanely gorgeous non-CGI'd bodies? Shot almost entirely against a green screen, with settings and effects inserted by computer, the look of 300 is as stunning as the actors' physiques. The movie was dark, unapologetically bloody, preachy and thrilling. Despite its predictability and heavy-handedness, 300 is Saturday matinee material all the way. But keep the kiddies and homophobes away.
Pan's Labyrinth
Ooh boy. This Spanish film is sooo not a kid's movie. The trailers mask the depth, drama and true horror of this tragic tale set during the Spanish Civil War. I honestly thought I was going to see a "happy flick". Instead, I watched a Spanish dictator torture and kill rebels in the woods, heads bashed in with a wine bottle, bodies slashed by stolen knives and a 12-year-old girl (Ofelia) desperately trying to keep it together. Her pregnant mom lies near her death while her stepdad (the fascist Capt. Vidal) cares only for his newborn son-to-be. Ofelia is a darker Alice in Wonderland who lives in the land of make-believe. Who wouldn't when your dad is a killer and your mom can't protect you? She's convinced (by a faun she meets down an Alice in Wonderland like hole) that she is the princess of the underworld with a duty to restore balance to her kingdom. Her three challenges themselves are anti-climactic but the emotion and power behind them captivate. Director/Writer Guillermo del Toro (Blade II, Hellboy) has certainly earned his seven Oscar nominations including best Foreign Film and Best Original Screenplay.
Factory Girl
 Who would have thought that the hot, blond model chick disrespected by Jude Law could act? It's too bad her talent is wasted on a biopic that requires her to shallowly spiral from a happy-go-lucky socialite party girl to a depressed, indigent party girl. In what may be one of the toughest roles given to an actress this year, Sienna Miller dazzles as Edie Sedgwick, muse to Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce) in the turbulent, drug-induced 60s. Edie falls in with the wrong crowd and gets swallowed up. Miller spends the majority of the flick dancing around Warhol and his "Factory" of druggie filmmakers and models. Trouble is, the screenplay doesn't give us much more. The film is a superficial attempt to tell Edie's story and while you wonder what she was really like, you find yourself counting the minutes to her predictable demise so that you can just go home and go to sleep. Wait for the DVD.
Lives of Others
 'Tis the season for foreign films. Another subtitled movie comes down the pipeline to kick butt on anything we Americans could produce this season (except, of course, Dreamgirls, my fave). Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, Lives of Others had me in deep thought from the moment I left the theater. You know it's a good one when the 'ol gerbil can't hop off the wheel. Just prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, East Germany was all about spying on its citizens. So paranoid of subversive, anti-communist behavior, the secret police (Stasi) wiretapped everyone. And it's a good cover when you want to spy on a seemingly loyal playwright to get to his hot girlfriend. And that's just what the Stasi minister orders his lacky Gerd Wiesler to do. But the more Wiesler eavesdrops, the more he realizes how empty and lonely his life is and the more human he becomes. He becomes tangled in his subjects' lives to a tragic end. LOO surpasses the political thriller genre and drives home some universal societal fears. As the "war on terror" escalates how soon before our own freedoms, passions and ideals become silenced in the name of national security? This flick's a must-see.
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