There are only a few ways to tell a story. A book tells a story with words and, occasionally, pictures. Operas and stageplays do so with dialog and sets as well as action, costuming, lighting, and music. Films go beyond by providing scenery, but they can also provide voiceovers, that is, lengthy narratives accompanying documentaries […]

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Boksuneun naui geot), directed by Chan-Wook Park, portrays revenge. Deaf-mute Ryu (played by Ha-Kyun Shin) seeks a kidney for his sister (played by Ji-Eun Lim), but his own kidney is not a match. She is weakening daily. From his life savings of 10,000 won, he decides to buy a kidney on

The Three Burials of Melquiádes Estrada, directed by Tommy Lee Jones, proves that the director’s knowledge of Spanish is quite adequate, and his accent is what one would expect from someone who associates with working class Mexicans and hails from West Texas. The titles “First Burial,” “Second Burial,” and “Third Burial” summarize the most the

Sueño, directed by Renée Chabría, attempts to present a wide range of Latino music with a plot consisting of personal stories of several recent immigrants to Los Angeles from México, though the cinematography is grainy, and the sound quality does not do justice to the music. When the movie begins, twentysomething Antonio (played by John

Jeffrey Kramer, the director of Smile, was so impressed by his teenage daughter’s experiences as a volunteer with an overseas medical charity, Operation Smile, that he decided to make a film to publicize opportunities available to enterprising teenagers of Generation X.  The film initially focuses on two dysfunctional families, one in Jingxi, a working-class provincial town

The Second Industrial Revolution took off in the middle of the nineteenth century, with machines ultimately producing increased power to support the mass production of the twentieth century. Detractors have pointed out that, as a consequence, hitherto unimaginable corporate greed trampled on the individual worker and over the pristine environment. Steamboy, an animé directed by Katsuhiro

The norms governing gay life have not been written authoritatively, so expectations are sometimes based on a model of straight relationships that may be inappropriate. The soap opera Queer as Folk, which began on cable in 1999, grapples with the adjustments made by young gays as they encounter the unexpected. Slutty Summer, directed by Casper Andreas, presents

Sense of Need is a film about a Palestinian named Yusuf, known as Joseph while studying music in San Francisco. Directed and written by Palestinian newcomer Shady Srour, the film takes several minutes to present streams of consciousness at various traumatic times in Joseph’s confused mind before filmviewers will realize that he suffers from performance anxiety

Shôjo, directed by Eiji Okuda, is perhaps the Japanese answer to the classic Lolita (1962, 1997), though with a much better karma. A fifteen-year-old girl, Yoko (played by Mayu Ozawa), meets fortysomething Tomokawa (played by the director), a cop eating at a restaurant, and immediately asks for sex. Evidently, her question has been answered affirmatively before with

Sahara, directed by Breck Eisner, is an adventure film hyped as an Indiana Jones clone, based on the 1992 novel of the same title by Clive Cussler. The plot is overshadowed by action, with guns blazing, in which the American hero, Dirk Pitt (played by Matthew McConaughey), Pitt’s longtime sidekick Al Giordino (played by Steve