Movie Guide

Director: Kim Ki-duk. With Jo Jae-Hyeon, Seo Won, Choi Duek-mun, Kim Yun-tae. (100 min.)

Sterritt ** Bizarre affection blooms between a South Korean thug and a woman forced into prostitution. Certainly offbeat, but not on a level with director Kim's previous work about marginalized people. In Korean with subtitles.

Director: Darren Grant. With Tyler Perry, Kimberly Elise, Steve Harris, Cicely Tyson. (117 min.)

Sterritt * Angry, vengeful emotions arise when an abused African-American wife is unceremoniously dumped by her awful husband. The movie seesaws between crude comedy and sudsy melodrama, and it's hard to decide which aspect is more ineptly handled. Plenty of mad moviegoers will put this in their diaries as one of the worst pictures in ages.

Director: Marcos Bernstein. With Fernanda Montenegro, Raul Cortez, Laura Cardoso, Luiz Carlos Persy. (98 min.)

Sterritt *** Participating in a neighborhood-watch program for senior citizens, a lonely Brazilian woman spies a murder in an apartment across the street and starts dating the retired judge who she thinks committed it. An absorbing new spin on the ingenious "Rear Window" concept, with poignant comments on aging in modern society. Superbly acted, especially by Montenegro, who recalls Giulietta Masina in Italian classics of old. In Portuguese with subtitles.

Director: Rodrigo Bellott. With Alexandra Aponte, Jorge Antonio Saavedra, Ronica V. Reddick, Roberto Urbina. (105 min.)

Sterritt ** The mostly separate stories of several young people trying to find themselves in a socially and sexually confusing world. The pace of this Bolivia/US coproduction is slower than that of a snail, but it gathers some interest as the themes of the vignettes dovetail near the end. In Spanish and English, with subtitles.

Director: Laura Gabbert. With Irja Lloyd, Lucille Alpert, other residents of the Sunset Hall home. (73 min.)

Sterritt **** Documentary about two residents of a Los Angeles nursing home for aging political leftists. Utterly unsentimental, deeply moving.

Director: Jan Hrebejk. With Jiri Machacek, Natasa Burger, Petr Forman, Emilia Vasaryova. (108 min.)

Sterritt **** A soccer hooligan, a wife longing for a child, an ailing professor, and an émigré to Australia are among the diverse characters of this ingeniously woven Czech comedy-drama, which recalls the early brilliance of filmmaker Milos Forman, whose son is in the cast. Always hard-hitting and often grimly, revealingly satirical. In Czech with subtitles.

Director: Brian Levant. With Ice Cube, Nia Long, Jay Mohr, Aleisha Allen. (95 min.)

Sterritt ** You may ask yourself that question as you watch a kid-phobic man take a road trip with the kids of a single mom he wants to woo. Cube is cute and Long is lovely, but the youngsters are too smug to bear. At least there's a heartwarming end to the excursion.

Sex/Nudity: 2 instances of innuendo. Violence: 14 scenes ofcomic violence. Profanity: 4 mild profanities. Drugs: 1 scene with alcohol.

Director: Martin Scorsese. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Kate Beckinsale. (170 min.)

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