If you want the full sledgehammer-to-the-stomach effect of Audition, stop reading this review now. Just watch it and take the consequences. At first glance, Takashi Miike's jack in the box of a movie works like a romantic comedy: amiable widower Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) decides it's time to find a new wife, and a friend suggests holding a fake audition to find the right girl. It soon becomes clear that there is something wrong with Aoyama's choice. This is no ordinary Fatal Attraction-style thriller, however; Audition slowly and carefully builds into a wrenching exploration of both deep male fears and the stereotype of the cute, submissive Japanese woman. Audition is by no means an easy movie to watch-even hardcore horror fans may have trouble-but it will stay with you for a long, long time. -Ali Davis.

Vanessa Redgrave glows from within as the heroine of this superb adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel. As Clarissa Dalloway prepares to host a sumptuous party, her mind wanders back to a summer in her youth, when she was courted by an eager young man-a young man whose much older self will come to the very party she's preparing. Mrs. Dalloway moves fluidly between the past and the present, exploring the shifts in perspective and understanding with an unsentimental but graceful eye. What's most stunning is the remarkable interplay between the younger and older actors, who truly seem to be different versions of the same character (the young Clarissa is played by Natascha McElhone). Beautifully directed by Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line), the movie also features Rupert Graves as a shell-shocked soldier who crosses Clarissa's path. -Bret Fetzer.

Ossessione isn't just the finest film version of The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain's classic tale of murder, betrayal, and erotic obsession; it's also the first masterpiece of Italian neorealism and a key historical precursor of film noir. A handsome drifter (Massimo Girotti) fetches up at an isolated roadhouse, gets mutually besotted with the proprietor's sultry wife (Clara Calamai), and has soon carried out a plot to murder the older man in an apparent off-road accident. That's only the beginning, of course. In his directorial debut, Luchino Visconti weaves a sensuous, tragic spell, born equally of the stark, sun-struck settings-especially those utterly realistic yet somehow otherworldly highways, elevated above the surrounding marshland-and a dynamic camera style that lifts the storytelling to operatic heights. Yet another layer of erotic complication is added by the presence of "La Spagnolo" (Elio Marcuzzo), a philosopher-king of vagabonds who-like the director-is at least as infatuated with Girotti's studly beauty as the heroine is. -Richard T. Jameson.

Ranked by critics as one of Germany’s most important films, The Murderers Are Among Us offers a wrenching look at history and humanity. The first feature film produced in Germany after World War II, it is set in Berlin just after the surrender, and the city is still being battered by air raids. The characters move through the half-destroyed husks of old buildings, and even simple acts like serving a meal at a table take on new meaning as the people try to put their lives back together. Susanne Wallner is a concentration camp survivor, eager to taste life again after her living death. Dr. Hans Mertens is a former German officer, unable to live with the guilt of what he and his former comrades have done. The two must quite literally learn to live side by side as they come to terms with the past and start to look toward the future. The film is beautifully and sensitively made, and possesses a shining optimism that is surprising for its time. -Ali Davis.

Régis Wargnier's 1992 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film is a bit like watching paint dry, despite its exotic locale and lead performance by the legendary Catherine Deneuve (Belle de Jour, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). Deneuve plays a wealthy French landowner, born and raised in Indochina, from 1930 until 1955, the year of a Communist takeover. The brewing political changes bound to upset her fortune and destiny find an even more personal parallel in her relationship with an adopted daughter (Linh Dan Pham), who grows up and becomes independent. The outline of this scenario sounds pretty good, but the film is flat and unworthy of its star. -Tom Keogh.

The incredibly prolific exploitation film producer and director, Roger Corman, tries his hand at a war film with Von Richthofen and Brown, about WWI air battles between German icon Baron Manfred Von Richtofen (John Phillip Law), and his alleged captor, Canadian Lt. Roy Brown (Don Stroud). With a slowly unfolding plot that may be tedious to anyone but war buffs trolling for historical accuracy, the film is mostly about its flight sequences, as it should be. Von Richthofen and Brown shows The Red Baron's rise to glory and his noble downfall, while building sympathy for the opposing forces who plan revenge on his unbeatable German team. Interpretive scenes during which he snidely paints his squadron's planes, including his own conspicuous red, and later depicting his controversial death, during which he is shot mid-air but somehow lands his plane, are the most arresting to those not aircraft-obsessed. Tension built between Von Richthofen and Brown is half-baked, making further argument for the film's battle-scene priority. War aficionados will appreciate this film, while Corman fans will yearn for more sex, gore, melodrama, and classic Corman action. -Trinie Dalton.

In this classic documentary, one of the world's finest directors captures the colorful pageantry and emotional intensity of the 1964 Olympics. Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad is both a celebration of Japan's postwar recovery and an artistic statement about athletic competition. To produce this epic work, Ichikawa (The Burmese Harp, Fires on the Plain) brings together an impressive team, including his wife and collaborator Natto Wada, renowned cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon), and 164 ubiquitous cameramen. Using his talents as a novelist, Ichikawa searches out the human side of the Olympics in such dramatic moments as Vera Caslavska's virtual sweep of the gymnastics medals and Billy Mills' astonishing, come-from-behind victory in the 10,000-meter race. The 1964 Olympics in Tokyo were a milestone as much for the intense athletic competition as the joyous commemoration of Japan's recovery following its defeat in World War II. Director Kon Ichikawa (The Burmese Harp, Fires on the Plain) created an epic film of the event, a documentary that covered the entire athletic competition while also capturing the surrounding atmosphere. Early in the film is a stunning aerial shot of Hiroshima, which first shows the devastated area, where destruction from the atom bomb has been preserved, before focusing on a beautiful park where an Olympic ceremony was being held. The scenes of athletic competition, some of which were shot by cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon), work beautifully on two levels. The camera frames the extreme effort expended by such athletes as the great American runner Bob Hayes, and thus the film functions as a credible sports documentary, yet the camera also goes in for close-ups, lingering on the athlete's muscled forms to provide images that would look perfectly at home on the wall of a photography gallery. The narration in Japanese is accompanied with English subtitles, and this edition retains the widescreen look of the original theatrical release (in a letterboxed format) as well as the complete 170-minute running time. [+]

Comedian Chris Rock is the leader of a middle-class rap act that wins fame and fortune after donning a prison persona. The title stands for Cell Block 4. Naturally, they are mistaken for the real thing by everyone but the incarcerated gangstas, who are none too happy at the theft of their identities. One of the better efforts from Saturday Night Live alumni, this "rapumentary" is a hip-hop hit. However, it is not up to the cutting humor of that granddaddy of all spoofs, This Is Spinal Tap?, as misogyny and meanness get in the way. It has an anything-goes mentality, so expect outrageously filthy lyrics and plenty of tasteless humor. Of note: Director Tamra Davis was also behind that wild 1992 road movie, Guncrazy. -Rochelle O'Gorman.

Dario Argento takes sole writing credit for his directorial debut but The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is actually an unofficial adaptation of Fredric Brown's novel The Screaming Mimi. Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante), an American novelist in Italy, is a helpless spectator to a vicious attack in an art gallery. Initially a suspect, Sam becomes the key witness to the attempted murder, the fourth in a month but the first survived by the victim. Something about the attack haunts him and so he launches his own investigation as the murders continue, the killer finally turning on Sam. Argento exhibits a sure hand in his first film, creating an easy to follow thriller spiced with tightly choreographed murder scenes and leavened with character humor (his colorful cast includes a genial stuttering pimp and an eccentric artist who lives in a house with no doors). But it's his gift for arresting images and cinematic inventiveness that gives this thriller its edge, from the opening murder where Sam impotently watches the bleeding victim while trapped in a veritable glass cage to the killer's naked eye peering through a peephole at Sam's girlfriend (Suzy Kendall) as she hysterically searches for an escape from the killer's pounding attempts to break into her apartment. Future Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro shot the film and Ennio Morricone provides an unusual, often eerie score arranged for human voices. While less baroque than Argento's later work, it's a fine first film and a standout in the giallo genre. -Sean Axmaker.