FINAL BALLOTING FOR BEST POLITICAL FILMS OF 2002 CONTINUES Many films were pre-nominated for Political Film Society awards for 2002. Since Political Film Society rules require the number of nominated films to be reduced to no more than five in each category, members voted in January to narrow the choices. Accordingly, the final ballot appears […]

The ancient Egyptians and many other peoples have written and painted onto the skins of animals. Tattoo, a German film directed by Robert Schwentke, features a serial killer who tries to harvest tattoo art from the skin of humans. (Nazis, of course, experimented with skin harvesting, but the film neither makes that linkage nor points out

Why are youth increasingly leading a life of crime? One answer emerges in Sweet Sixteen, which centers on Liam (played by Martin Compston), a skinny but tough boy in Glasgow who is fifteen years old for most of the film. At the beginning of the film, his mother Jean (played by Michelle Coulter) is in prison,

Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson team up again in Shanghai Knights, directed by David Dobkin. But neither gets to Shanghai during the film. Instead, the film begins in 1887. Lord Rathbone (played by Aidan Gillen) raids the Forbidden City in Beijing to acquire the imperial diamond on behalf of Wu Yip (played by Donnie Yen), who

The poverty of the rural population of the Philippines provides the background for Small Voices (Mga Munting Tinig), which was voted best picture in the Philippines for 2003. Directed by Gil M. Portes, the story centers on Melinda Santiago (played by Alessandra de Rossi), a recent teacher’s college graduate who decides not to join her mother

The Japanese film The Sea Is Watching (Umi wa miteita) is mostly filmed at a house of prostitution located at Okabasho (east of Edo) between ocean marshlands and a canal. Only is the sea is watching over the geisha house, as the clients are not among the best men in the community. The women do their best

Secondhand Lions, directed by Tim McCanlies, is about a couple of wacky oldtimers and their nephew. Single mother Mae (played by Kyra Sedgwick) has dreams of a husband, a house, and being a homemaker, but she foolishly throws herself at the first man who comes along and pays the price. However, her adorable son Walter

In The Sea (Hafið), directed by Baltasar Kormákur, Thórdur (played by Gunnar Eyjólfsson) summons his family to a small town in Iceland for an important announcement. He has been running a small fishery business for the last fifty years, but the financial situation has been going downhill. The Cod War and resulting international treaties gave Iceland

The 9/11 tragedy served as a recruiting magnet for the CIA and the FBI. In The Recruit, directed by Roger Donaldson, Walter Burke (played by Al Pacino) is the recruiter, James Clayton (played by Colin Farrell) is the recruit. Burke tracks down Clayton, who graduated at the top of his class at the Massachusetts Institute of

Samsara, an Indian film, takes place 15,000 feet above sea level in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, where Chinese and Indian troops clashed in 1962. The word “Samsara” means “reincarnation.” Tashi (played by Shawn Ku) begins in the role of a Lama (a Buddhist monk). He has fallen into a trance in a remote monastery,