DVDs and videos I have

Beautiful work as always by Wong Kar-Wai, and Faye Wong is exquisite, but the film drags on a bit at parts. Amazing soundtrack. Visually stunning but weak story-wise and I don't get how people can love this more than In the Mood For Love!

The most remarkable thing about this movie is Almodovar's stunning colour palette, which serves to highlight the extraordinary characters which populate this movie. Cecilia Roth is wonderfully touching, real, funny, and emotional as Manuela, who as surrogate mother-sister to all the other characters is the cornerstone of this masterpiece. Penelope Cruz is also effective as a childlike nun, a wonderfully moving and effective role for someone who has come to be known as a sex bomb. Antonia San Juan is hilarious as the mouthy Agrado, and shines in her adoptive female role. Overall, the movie sometimes reduces the people to mere caricatures, but the stunning colours and shots and brilliant acting serves to make this movie a raw, beautiful experience. Still one of my favourites.

One of my favourite movies of all time (tied with Memento). Charming, beautiful and whimsical; Audrey Tautou makes you fall in love with her and believe in humanity.

Genius. Spacey is one of the most brilliant actors I've ever had the pleasure of watching, and this black comedy is a funny yet disturbing look at modern suburban life (and at suburbia's repression of life). The score by Thomas Newman is beautifully poetic.

THE Audrey Hepburn movie to watch, and George Peppard is just darling. Hepburn is unforgettable as she sings "Moon River," or puts on a lampshade, or considers buying a telephone-dialler.

Chilling yet lighthearted view of pre-WWII Berlin - Liza Minelli plays the flighty Sally Bowles to airheaded, vulnerable perfection. I'm not a fan of Michael York, and I think his acting is a bit stiff, but the music as social commentary is wonderful and Joel Grey shines as the eerily cheerful Master of Ceremonies. Good stuff.

I love Wong Kar-Wai; Chungking is a delicate probing of relationships, painful and hopeful at the same time.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is a goddess as Velma Kelly, and so is Queen Latifah. The movie works as well or better than the stage version, and the cast conveys seediness and sexiness with equal panache. Renee Zellweger is a tad irritating at times. The Cell Block Tango scene is AMAZING.

Maggie Cheung is dazzling as always. This would get 2 stars if not for her stellar performance.

Too stylish for words, and Yoko Kanno's jazzy score tops it. The plot is a fascinating character study and very much in the spirit of the series.

Stunning performances by the whole cast, haunting story which ties in beautifully with 2046.

UPDATE: I think I gave this one such a high rating because it's WKW and I was already attached to the other two stories (In the Mood For Love, 2046), but it stays with me less than does some of his other films, so I'm downgrading it by half a star until further notice. Needs a rewatch.

Wonderful storyline; a dark tale exploring causality, mortality and fate. Jake Gyllenhaal is terrific, and the pacing of the movie is suspenseful. Amaziing.

I looooove musicals, and I miss good ol'-fashioned 2D hand-drawn animation. As such, Enchanted is absolutely lovely, and possibly one of the best films I've seen in theatres this year, with its blend of spoofy, yet warmhearted humour, sweet idealism, and glorious, gorgeous showstopper numbers (too few of them! There really should have been more, IMO). Of that last element, the Central Park number "That's How You Know" is absolutely fantastic and immensely hummable. I won't pretend that I'm not one of those freaks that would love to sing and dance all day, I am, but you'd have to really hate musicals to dislike that number, featuring the wonderful Amy Adams as our hapless 2D-turned-flesh-and-blood heroine Giselle. Adams has a great voice for Disney, and her starry doe-eyed looks and red hair are perfect for this role.

Disney does a delightful job of balancing irony - note the gentle send-ups of the stereotypical wake-up stretch and pillowed hands pose as Giselle is about to fall asleep - and wide-eyed enchantment, and I was entirely enthralled throughout the first two-thirds of the movie. I found myself thoroughly entertained by all the singing numbers, and the stereotypical working-with-the-help-of-animals song ("Happy Working Song"), subverted with the help of a little creepy-crawly Manhattan twist, had me laughing and smiling along. I'm also a huge fan of Disney's willingness to encourage working through stuff instead of just giving up in divorce.

But then the movie's tone changes as Giselle becomes less and less starry-eyed under Robert (Patrick Dempsey)'s cynical tutelage, and the pivotal romantic turn is creepy and uncomfortable (SPOILER ALERT: I for one was rooting for Giselle to end up with the dimwitted Edward - a perfectly, perfectly cast James Marsden who has a surprisingly amazing voice and boy, does he look like a cartoon Prince Charming!).

Susan Sarandon's evil Queen Narissa also seems somewhat thrown in as a plot device, although she, like the others, has a great look for the role, although poor Ms. Sarandon looks a bit wrinkly throughout her live-action segment. Timothy Spall, however, as the nefarious Nathaniel, is both hilarious and pitiful - I cannot fault the casting in this movie.

If you were born before 1996, Enchanted is a great nostalgic movie to watch as you recall the heyday of Disney, and the screenplay certainly rewards older viewers with throwbacks to Snow White and Cinderella, and it's great that Jodi Benson who voiced Ariel in The Little Mermaid got a small role as Robert's receptionist and even got to do a tiny bit of warbling, and Paige O'Hara, the voice of Belle in Beauty & the Beast has a tiny cameo as a hilarious character in a soap opera, although she and Broadway superstar Idina Menzel (as Robert's fiancée Nancy) are rather wasted though, as they don't get to do any singing.

Young children will be able to get into the fairy-tale princess clichés we all know, love and miss, and I suppose teens can enjoy the sassy "follow your dreams" theme. It's a movie for everyone!

All in all though, a fantastic movie, and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Ah, how I long for the '50s movie musical. An instant favourite.

Think of it as a darker, lonelier version of Chungking Express, with glimpses of heartbreaking comic relief. Christopher Doyle's breathtaking cinematography really connects you with the characters and makes you feel their desolation and hope and joy. Takeshi Kaneshiro stands out in particular as an endearing mute who breaks into people's shops after dark and runs them as his own. Beautiful stuff from a master.

Powerful, poignant, and heartwrenching.

Poignant, and Tony Leung is wonderful, but you can't help being irritated a lot of the time at how stuck they are.

Gorgeously filmed, with interesting use of plot, but I feel it was a bit more spectacle than substance. Worth a second watch if just for that gorgeous colour-changing fight scene between Maggie Cheung's character and Zhang Ziyi's character.

An interesting case study in the relationships between women, both the biological kind and the transsexual kind. Almodovar's rich use of colour is gorgeous and reminiscent of an early 60s movie. Victoria Abril and Marisa Paredes are both wonderfully manipulative, cold, and vulnerable by turns.

I liked this cat-and-mouse movie well enough, and it's a stylish, fun precursor to The Departed, and definitely lived up to its hype. Tony Leung (whom I absolutely adore), Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, and Eric Tsang are all stellar in this movie, wonderfully cast, and the movie oozes with style. The twists and turns are pretty good too. The opening scenes are rather mysterious, and the main characters are introduced without much fanfare, leaving you to deduce things as you go along. Well done, although somehow it still leaves me wanting more, and I can't articulate why. Deserves a second watch, and I can't wait to see how Scorsese's remake compares.

The apex of WKW's career for me, In the Mood for Love is a perfect blend of voyeuristic camera angles, sublimely restrained sensuality and longing, divine music and heartbreaking forbidden romance.

I am incredibly moved by the loving detail put into every scene, from Maggie Cheung's beautifully sad and lonely face, perfectly composed except in rare moments of emotional surrender, and Tony Leung's unconscious smirks and quiet desire. Doyle & Li's cinematography is breathtaking.

This movie is all the more powerful for its simmering, subtle composition, without resorting to overt flashes of style; I cried with Mrs. Chan when Chow pretended to leave, and many other times during the movie.

A story of a futile love, all the more remarkable in its ambiguity about the lead couple's actual consummation of their relationship, especially in view of today's wham-bam mentality. WKW is a virtuoso, and this is his masterpiece.

Wonderfully put together, this anti-war film's occasional cheesiness is eclipsed by its stunning plotline.

Love Tarantino's brand of violent madcap humour. Standout performances by Thurman and the girl who plays Go-Go Yubari.

Lovely! The children are unforgettable in this delightful romp, mildly reminiscent of Home Alone in its more entertaining years, but WAY better. It's an intriguing mix of Victorian sensibilities, modern gadgetry and inventions, and kaleidoscopic sets, and the score by Thomas Newman (my favourite!) perfectly underscores the movie's quirkiness. Emily Browning is stunning - I hope to see her in more stuff.

One of my favourite movies (tied with Amelie). Brilliant from start to finish, amazingly edited and directed, wonderful plot and great cast. I can't praise it enough!

While I absolutely love the story and the setting of this movie - a darkly funny tale of sex and scandal in the genteel south - the stiff acting really does me in, and the characters are reduced to caricatures along the way. I can understand the Lady Chablis being a total cartoon, but Kevin Spacey's mannered nouveau-riche collector is just a little painful to watch (much as I love the guy). Alison Eastwood's accent slips all over the place, and I have no idea why she's in this movie besides the fact that Daddy Eastwood is the director. John Cusack is the sole highlight of this cast, but he doesn't stray far from New York City boy, and as such is not in such sticky uncharted territory as the rest of the cast. However, the soundtrack is awesome and Savannah's rich culture of voodoo and vanity shines through beautifully, so it's not a complete wash.

Moving and lighthearted, this Korean romantic comedy negotiates wonderfully through both the ridiculous (and disgusting!), the sorrow, and the romance in a memorable way. The lead actors are great, although they veer towards slapstick at times. Great exploration of fate and destiny too. Well done!

Woooooow. A complete mind-f***ing ending. Beautifully shot, absolutely gorgeous movie and the stars are magnetic. Some really breathtaking scenes, esp. the fight scene with the hammer, the flashback chase scene and the opening, The plot and story are incredibly tight and well thought-out, but woooow, this has got to be one of the most screwed-up movies I've seen, rivalling Ichii the Killer in terms of mind-blowing sickness. But what an incredible movie nonetheless... this is one you HAVE to watch, and then perhaps get out the sick bag later.

Deadpan humour at its best! A well put-together cast; even the usually one-dimensional Gwyneth Paltrow does surprisingly well in her role. Sharp, black wit.

Funny and exciting! Who knew a movie about running could be so intriguing?

Thought-provoking and eerie. Built a bit like an old-fashioned whodunit, the twist at the end is great.

Maybe it's because I'm a journalist, but I loved it. Hayden Christensen pulls off the nerdy brown-noser with oily ease.

Stunning and heartbreaking, the masterful film shows how much can be communicated by a nervous giggle, a resigned removal of an earring, or tightly clasped hands around a waist. Shu Qi is gloriously showcased in three different roles, first as the blushing ingenue, then the quietly demure courtesan, and then the sensual singer. Chang Chen does a decent job as her stolid counterpart, but the true beauty of this films lies in its artful direction. Magnificent.

Amazing choreography and I love the classic story of two star-crossed lovers in '50s New York. Rita Moreno dazzles, but the rest of the cast is ho-hum. The first ten minutes are... surreal; I love the dancing but it's almost too weird seeing those guys prancing about (even as a devout musicals fan). George Chakiris also turns in a good performance as Bernardo.