Parasite (2019)

The Kims are a family at the bottom rungs of society. Literally, since their shitty, one bedroom apartment is in a basement. They’re so poor that they have to use a neighbors fumigation to kill the cockroaches crawling over their belongings. They’re willing to do just about anything to get ahead, even if that means lying, and getting other people fired. Which is precisely what they wind up doing when the son gets an opportunity to act as a rich girl’s English tutor. He forges a university degree, and when the parents of  this girl like him, he’s able to find the rest of his relatives employment as the rich people’s art teacher, driver and maid, respectively. All is well, until they realize that the maid they got fired has been hiding something in the rich people’s basement, and that they just might have walked into something far more dangerous than they could have imagined.

First Love (2019)

When he’s diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, orphaned boxer Leo finds himself without purpose. After visiting a fortune teller, who urges him to “fight for someone other than yourself,” Leo saves a young woman, Monica, from a man chasing her. What he doesn’t realize is that Monica, real name Yuri, is a prostitute, the man he punched, Otomo, is a corrupt cop, and that by saving the former, he’s unintentionally caught himself up in a large, extremely dangerous scheme involving stolen drugs, the yakuza, and a crazed female assassin. Now he and Monica must survive the night by avoiding the many parties coming after them. Will they? Watch the movie and find out.

The Art Of Self-Defense (2019)

While walking home from the store one night, mild-mannered accountant Casey Davies is beaten by a biker gang. This traumatizes him, and he begins desperately searching for some means to defend himself. First, he goes to a gun store, but when he learns about all the dangers associated with firearm ownership—an increased likelihood of suicide, and a greater chance of getting shot—he decides it’s not for him. Then, while walking through a rundown strip mall, he sees a karate class, taught by a charismatic, enigmatic figure known only as “sensei.” Sensei is everything Casey is not—confident, aggressive, charming—so naturally, Casey believes that he can become so as well by enrolling in courses. Over the next few months, Sensei molds him into his idea of manhood, not just by teaching him karate, but by instructing him on what music to listen to—Metal—and what language to learn—German. Desperate to please his new teacher, Casey goes along with everything the man says, even when the requests get much more violent, and considerably less legal.

Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (2014)

We’ve all seen movies that advertise themselves as “based on a true story.” But what happens when someone actually believes that claim? Kumiko, a friendless, unmarried office worker in Tokyo, has convinced herself that the Coen Brothers film Fargo, wherein a criminal buries a suitcase full of money in the North Dakota snow, is real. So much so that she steals her boss’s credit card, abandons her apartment and pet rabbit, and journeys to the US to find the “treasure.” She barely speaks English, and has no real plan of how to find the fictional loot. But she’s determined, and won’t let anything, be it the cold, or the fact that the treasure isn’t real, stop her. What will happen? Watch the movie to find out.

Cold Pursuit (2019)

When his son, Kyle, winds up dead from an apparent heroin overdose, Colorado snowplow driver Nel Coxman becomes depressed. He grows distant from his wife, Grace, and is contemplating suicide when one of his son’s co-workers, Dante, reveals that Kyle’s death wasn’t an accident. Kyle stole some drugs from the local kingpin, Viking, and Viking had him killed. Realizing the truth, Nel arms himself, and begins picking off Viking’s men, one by one. Unfortunately for him, Viking believes these murders to be the work of another, Native American gang, and soon a fullfledged turf war is in swing, with the outmatched Nel at the center.

Damsel (2018)

Parson Henry isn’t a real preacher. He isn’t even a man of God. He’s just a sad widower, looking for a fresh start, who was given a preacher’s clothes while journeying out West. How unfortunate for Henry when young Samuel, thinking that he is a real parson, recruits him to go out into the wild and wed him and his fiancé, Penelope, whom he claims was kidnapped. Henry is reluctant, but, seeing as he’s got nowhere else to go, and Samuel has offered to pay, agrees. When they reach Penelope’s cabin, however, and shoot her supposed kidnapper, Henry realizes that not all is as it seems to be, and things spiral out of control from there, with the line between good and evil, sanity and insanity, getting blurred.

The Death Of Stalin (2018)

It’s 1953, and Joseph Stalin is supreme leader of the Soviet union. His rule is so absolute, so terrifying, that everyone lives in constant fear that they may be killed. It’s gotten to the point where people can’t even answer the door, or pick up the phone, without bidding their loved ones goodbye. Then one day, out of nowhere, Stalin dies, and everything is thrown into turmoil. Who’ll take his place? Who’ll be executed? What reforms should be implemented? Should reforms be implemented? All of this depends on which member of Stalin’s inner circle, the dim-witted Georgy Malenkov, the crafty Nikita Khrushchev, or the ruthless Lavrentiy Beria, will assume power. And, the truth is, whichever one of them does win, everyone else still loses.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Seven months after her daughter is raped and murdered, Mildred Hayes, frustrated with the police department’s lack of results, rents out three billboards, on which she asks the question “raped while dying, and still no arrests, how come, Chief Willoughby?” This, naturally, upsets many of her neighbors, including the aforementioned Willoughby, who considers this an unfair attack on his character, seeing as how he’s dying of cancer. He and his racist, incompetent deputy, Dixon, demand that she take the posters down, but she refuses. This leads to them taking drastic actions, like arresting her co-workers, and threatening the man Mildred pays to rent the billboards. And, well, things get crazy, and I mean CRAZY, from there.

Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes)

And I really don’t know what to say about today’s picture. I mean, from a structural standpoint, there’s nothing wrong with it. Its cinematography is superb, its dialogue is all right, and the acting is certainly serviceable. On top of this, it’s made nearly ten times its $3 million budget, and it’s been praised by nearly every critic whose seen it. Hell, it was even nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Oscars! And yet, despite all this, there’s still something deeply unsettling about Wild Tales, or as it’s known in the original Spanish, Relatos Salvajes.