Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau, Alan Mak, 2002)

Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-wai in Infernal Affairs

Cast: Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong, Eric Tsang, Kelly Chen, Sammi Cheng, Edison Chen, Sawn Yue. Screenplay: Alan Mak, Felix Chong. Cinematography: Yu-Fai Lai, Andrew Lau. Art direction: Sung Pong Choo, Ching-Ching Wong. Film editing: Curran Pang, Danny Pang. Music: Kwong Wing Chan, Ronald Ng. 

The spy-vs.-spy thriller Infernal Affairs is also a fable about identity. A young man is chosen by the mob to become a cop and serve as a mole within the police force; another young man is chosen by the cops to go undercover in the mob. After years posing as something they're not, each finds himself at odds with the persona he has assumed, but their lives depend on maintaining that identity, even when they come face to face. Co-directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak keep this intricate and potentially lethal dance going to the final face-off. Though on a first viewing it's sometimes hard to keep straight who's ratting on whom and how and about what, the star charisma of Andy Lau as the mob's spy and Tony Leung Chiu-wai as the undercover cop gives the movie the drive it needs, with solid support from Anthony Chau-Sang Wong as the police inspector and Eric Tsang as the mob boss. It's a cleaner and leaner film than Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning 2006 remake, The Departed. 
 

Sex Is Comedy (Catherine Breillat, 2002)

Grégoire Colin and Roxane Mesquida in Sex Is Comedy

Cast: Anne Parillaud, Grégoire Colin, Roxane Mesquida, Ashley Wanninger, Dominique Colladant, Bart Binnema. Screenplay: Catherine Breillat. Cinematography: Lauren Mahuel. Production design: Frédérique Belvaux. Film editing: Pascale Chavance. 

Sex scenes are so common in movies today that producers routinely hire "intimacy coordinators" to supervise them, mostly to avoid lawsuits and media controversies of the sort that have followed the release of films as various as Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968), Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972), and Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013). There are no intimacy coordinators in Catherine Breillat's Sex Is Comedy. There's only the director, Jeanne (Anne Parillaud), who is trying to get the most out of the actors in the sex scene of the movie she's making. And this involves much pleading, coddling, coaching, and even bullying on Jeanne's part, especially since the actor played by Grégoire Colin and the actress played by Roxane Mesquida despise each other. Sex Is Comedy is based on Breillat's own experience filming a painful scene in a painful movie,  Fat Girl (2001). She is using this metafictional approach to examine several things, including the nature of acting, the role of the director, and the simulation of private intimacy as public performance. Despite its title, the movie provides very little comedy beyond some scenes involving the penile prosthetic the actor is forced to wear, and it ends in tears rather than laughter as Jeanne gets the performance she wants from the actress. Mostly, the value of Sex Is Comedy lies in the insights it provides into Breillat as the creator of films that push the boundaries of depicting sex on screen. 

The Bitter Stems (Fernando Ayala, 1956)

Carlos Cores in The Bitter Stems

 Cast: Carlos Cores, Julia Sandoval, Vassili Lambrinos, Gilda Lousek, Pablo Moray, Virginia Romay, Aída Luz, Bernardo Perrone, Adolfo Linvel, Otto Webber. Screenplay: Sergio Leonardo, based on a novel by Adolfo Jasca. Cinematography: Ricardo Younis. Production design: Germán Gelpi, Mario Vanarelli. Film editing: Gerardo Rinali, Antonio Ripoll. Music: Astor Piazzola. 

Fernando Ayala's The Bitter Stems is as solid and twisty a thriller as you're likely to see, and only because it was made in Argentina explains why you've probably never heard of it. The handsome Argentine leading man Carlos Cores plays Alfredo Gasper, a journalist who hates his job because it never brought him the excitement and wealth he hoped for -- and, in an expressionistic sequence, dreams about. He's so fed up with the work that when he meets a Hungarian émigré named Liudas (Vassili Lambrinos) who has a get-rich-quick scheme, he signs on. Liudas wants to make enough money to bring his family, especially his son Jarvis, to Argentina. Gasper is so impressed with Liudas's devotion to his family that he agrees to give him a majority interest in the proceeds. But after the money begins to flow in, Gasper begins to suspect that Liudas is conning him out of his rightful share, and that the much-lauded Jarvis doesn't really exist. So he plots to bump Liudas off and take over the business himself. How could anything go wrong? The Bitter Stems benefits from the cinematography of Ricardo Younis, who was influenced by the work of Gregg Toland: In addition to a skillful use of light and shadow, Younis also effectively employs the deep-focus camerawork that was Toland's signature. 

Nine (Rob Marshall, 2009)

Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Fergie, Sophia Loren. Screenplay: Michael Tolkin, Anthony Minghella, based on a musical by Arthur Kopit, Maury Yeston, and Mario Fratti and a screenplay by Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, and Brunello Rondi. Cinematography: Dion Beebe. Production design: John Myhre. Film editing: Claire Simpson, Wyatt Smith. Music: Andrea Guerra, songs by Maury Yeston.

Federico Fellini's 1963 classic 8 1/2 is a work of self-deprecating wit, in which a director played by Marcello Mastroianni, who was Fellini's cinematic alter ego, tries to launch a new film while at the same time scrutinizing his failures and foibles, most of which have to do with women, including his mother, his wife, his mistresses, and his flings. Any attempt to remake or adapt that film is going to lack its essence: the personality of Fellini himself. On Broadway, the musicalization of the film as Nine substituted performance for personality, using the very slight plot of the movie as a reason to string together songs and production numbers. But by returning the stage production to its original medium, Rob Marshall's Nine not only loses the energy of live performance but also invites comparison of one movie to the other. Nine is essentially a remake, and has to be judged as that. Everyone in Marshall's film works very hard to put it across. As Guido, Daniel Day-Lewis energetically tries to efface the memory of Mastroianni is the tormented director. Penélope Cruz has a sizzling musical number and manages to create a vivid character out of Carla, Guido's mistress. Marion Cotillard sings well and acts beautifully as Guido's wife. And just the presence of Sophia Loren as Guido's mother is enough to cast a spell over the movie. But in the end nothing works, and the film falls flat where 8 1/2 sent moviegoers out of the theater with a sense of exhilaration, of having experienced a director's complete and complex vision. Once, while typing the title of Marshall's movie, I wrote None. Maybe I should have left the typo.   

Black Caesar (Larry Cohen, 1973)

Fred Williamson in Black Caesar

Cast: Fred Williamson, Gloria Hendry, Art Lund, D'Urville Martin, Julius Harris, Minnie Gentry, Philip Roye, William Wellman Jr., James Dixon, Val Avery. Screenplay: Larry Cohen. Cinematography: Fenton Hamilton. Production design: Larry Lurin. Film editing: George Folsey Jr. Music: James Brown. 

Larry Cohen's Black Caesar is often clumsily put together, as in the big scene in which the protagonist, Tommy Gibbs (Fred Williamson), is shot on the streets of New York, stumbles for several blocks, commandeers a taxi that he somehow forces to drive on the sidewalks, goes several places for help, and even rides the subway, without showing any signs that he's bleeding from the wound. Some of the dialogue and acting are inept and many of its scenes are derivative and even laughable. But it's also immensely watchable, thanks in large part to Williamson's charisma and the rawness of its unabashed treatment of racism -- every taboo epithet for several ethnic groups is spoken at some point in the movie. The title, of course, is an homage to Mervyn LeRoy's 1931 classic Little Caesar, about the rise and fall of a gangster. The movie views that 1930s melodrama through a Blaxploitation lens, much the way Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983) filtered Howard Hawks's 1932 classic through the experience of Cuban expatriates in Miami, though more successfully. 

Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhang-ke, 2018)

Zhao Tao in Ash Is Purest White

Cast: Zhao Tao, Liao Fan, Feng Xiogang, Xu Zheng, Zhang Yibai, Casper Liang. Screenplay: Jia Zhang-ke. Cinematography: Eric Gautier. Art direction: Liu Weixin. Film editing: Matthieu Laclau, Lin Xudong. Music: Lim Giong. 

Like many of Jia Zhang-ke's films, the real protagonist of Ash Is Purest White is China itself, undergoing its own character arc in tandem with the people depicted in the movie. It this case, the focus is on Qiao (Zhao Tao), the mistress of the gangster Bin (Liao Fan). When we first meet them, they are partying and Bin is muscling his mob. But that soon comes to a violent halt when Bin is almost beaten to death by rival gang members, saved only by Qiao's firing an illegal gun, which lands her in prison for five years. After her release, she devotes herself to reuniting with Bin, whose own life has taken a mostly downward course. And through Qiao's peregrinations we get a view of China across almost two decades of change. It's an absorbing, sometimes enigmatic film, held together by a magnetic performance by Zhao, Jia's favorite actress. 

Across 110th Street (Barry Shear, 1972)

Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto in Across 110th Street

Cast: Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, Anthony Franciosa, Paul Benjamin, Ed Bernard, Richard Ward, Antonio Fargas, Nora Donaldson, Gilbert Lewis, Marlene Warfield, Nat Polen, Tim O'Connor, Gloria Hendry, Burt Young. Screenplay: Luther Davis, based on a novel by Wally Ferris. Cinematography: Jack Priestley. Art direction: Perry Watkins. Film editing: Byron "Buzz" Brandt, Carl Pingitore. Music: J.J. Johnson. 

Hard, unforgiving, and extremely violent, Across 110th Street sometimes feels like director Barry Shear tried to turn it up to 11. Even the reliably volatile Anthony Quinn sometimes feels like he's holding back in comparison with the hyped-up performances of Anthony Franciosa as a mob boss and Paul Benjamin an ex-con who tries to rip off the mob. The film exploits the hair-trigger racial tensions of New York City in the '70s by pairing Quinn as an aging police captain forced -- for "political reasons"-- to work with a young Black lieutenant (Yaphet Kotto). Almost every character in the movie is unlikable, although the movie manages to elicit some sympathy for the three men whose attempt to steal the haul from the numbers racket ends in a shootout in which both mobsters and cops are killed. Caught between the police and the mob in their attempt to get away with the loot, the robbers meet gruesome ends. Critics were hard on the film when it was released, but it has gained some stature with time as an unvarnished portrait of a dark era in the city's history.  

When the Tenth Month Comes (Dang Nhat Minh, 1984)

Le Van in When the Tenth Month Comes

 Cast: Le Van, Nguyen Huu Muoi, Nguyen Minh Vuong, Lai Phu Cuong, Trinh Le Phong. Screenplay: Dang Nhat Minh. Cinematography: Nguyen Manh Lan, Pham Phuc Dat. Film editing: Hien Luong. Music: Phu Quang. 

Dang Nhat Minh's When the Tenth Month Comes is a lovely, poignant film about village life in Vietnam after the end of the war with the Americans, but while war was still being waged along the border with Laos. A young woman, Duyen (Le Van), learns that her husband has been killed in conflict with the Khmer Rouge, but decides to keep it a secret from her aging father-in-law and her young son. When she finds it difficult to maintain the illusion that her husband is still alive, she persuades the village schoolteacher, Khang (Nguyen Huu Muoi), to forge a letter from him to her father-in-law. Khang's attraction to the beautiful Duyen causes village gossip. When Duyen, who has been an actress, is persuaded to perform in a scene from an opera about a woman whose husband is leaving to go to war, the similarity to her own life overcomes her and she flees the stage, causing more talk. Dang effectively blends elements of the fantastic into Duyen's story, connecting its contemporary reality to the mythic traditions of rural Vietnam. 

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen, 2008)

Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Chris Messina, Patricia Clarkson, Kevin Dunn, Christopher Evan Welch (voice). Screenplay: Woody Allen. Cinematography: Javier Aguiressarobe. Production design: Alain Bainée. Film editing: Alisa Lepselter. 

There are no surprises in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It's the oft-told tale of Americans abroad, experiencing culture shock when their preconceptions about life don't mesh with those in other parts of the world. In this case, it's two young women, Rebecca Hall's somewhat uptight Vicky and Scarlett Johansson's more free-spirited Cristina, who get caught up in the relationship between a sexy Spanish painter, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), and his volatile ex-wife, Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz). Triangles and even quadrangles form among them. Allen supplies a narrator (Christopher Evan Welch) who sounds very much like Woody Allen, but he's not really necessary unless you've never seen one of his movies before. It's late-career Allen, and one of the few to be both critically and commercially successful, winning an Oscar for Cruz's vivid performance. 

Eye of God (Tim Blake Nelson, 1997)

Nick Stahl in Eye of God

Cast: Martha Plimpton, Kevin Anderson, Nick Stahl, Richard Jenkins, Margo Martindale, Mary Kay Place, Hal Holbrook. Screenplay: Tim Blake Nelson. Cinematography: Russell Lee Fine. Production design: Patrick Geary. Film editing: Kate Sanford. Music: David Van Tieghem. 

A solid drama about a crime in a small Oklahoma town, Tim Blake Nelson's debut as a feature film director, Eye of God, is among other things a piercing look into Bible Belt religiosity. Martha Plimpton plays Ainsley, a waitress in the barely there town of Kingfisher, who has struck up a correspondence with a man in the state prison, Jack Stillings (Kevin Anderson). When he's released he heads for Kingfisher, where he's soon married to Ainsley. While in prison, he got religion, and is bent on making her go to church with him. She doesn't care for it, and before long his insistence on having his way drives them apart: When she gets pregnant he insists that she not leave the house. Then she befriends 14-year-old Tom Spencer (Nick Stahl), a shy loner, and their lives intersect in calamitous fashion. But in the film this narrative line is fragmented into flashbacks from the moment police find Tom, covered in blood, wandering alone on a road at night. The nature of the crime and the identity of the victim are cleverly withheld until all the pieces of the story are assembled. But the real strength of the film lies in the performances, not only of Plimpton, Anderson, and Stahl, but of such estimable character actors as Richard Jenkins, Margo Martindale, and Hal Holbrook, playing people who have their own problems that color their responses to the crime.