Godzilla (1954); American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable, dinosaur-like beast.

The Host (2006); Due to pollution with toxic material by an American scientist, a monster emerges from Seoul's Han River and attacks people.

It seems that these times of upcoming terrorism and political suspicion have created a new monster: Gwoemul. An American scientist (of course it's an American) orders his employee to throw old toxic material in the sink. This results into this mutated monster that ends up attacking people, and dumping them in a lost sewer under the bridge over the Han river. Because an ex US-marine officer almost gets killed - but saved by Gang-du, one of the main characters - US authorities get involved and soon they determine that this monster is the host of a potentially dangerous virus.

Gang-du is put in quarantine, after having seen his daughter being taken away by the monster. Gang-du and the rest of his family escape from the hospital, and there starts the great political metaphor of this movie: The poor family trying to rescue one of themselves from the real danger - the monster - is being chased by the authorities. The authorities completely loose focus, and the family becomes the subversive danger, instead of the monster itself. In the meantime they try to conceal the fact that there is absolutely no virus.

Besides the impressive special effects and the camera work totally in the line of the new generation Korean films, this blockbuster has a kind of black sense of humor. I loved the part where the family is hysterically agonizing over the loss of the little girl, an officer comes in reading out someone's license plate and announcing this person has to remove his car quickly, because it might be dangerous…

I'm a big fan of Pedro Almodovar's movies. I think he's one of this time's greatest directors. One thing I really like about his work is his feeling for music. Browsing around on the internet I found this disc with songs from his movies. Apparently the disc was released around 1997, so it doesn't contain soundtracks from recent films. The disc is an excellent collection of various musical styles: latin, flamenco, heartbreaking ballads, 80ies … Great to listen to, reccommended for every Almodovar fan.

I really hope there will be a second version of this disc, with the great songs from Hable con ella (Caetano Veloso), Todo sobre mi madre and Volver.

Can't say this is really my absolute Top 15 of film quotes, but all of them either shocked me, made me laugh, made me think or are simply legendary.

1. You know, Billy. We blew it. - Easy Rider
2. You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Well, who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one here. Who the f*k do you think you're talkin' to? - Taxi Driver
3. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. - Casablanca
4. I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. - The Godfather
5. HERE'S JOHNNY. - The Shining
6. So today's lesson is... you kill each other off 'til there's only one left. Nothing's against the rules. - Battle Royale
7. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. - Fargo
8. That'll be the day. - The Searchers
9. What we've got here is failure to communicate. - Cool Hand Luke
10. When the child was a child, it was the time of these questions. Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? - Wings of Desire
11. A martini. Shaken, not stirred. - Goldfinger
12. I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me? - Meet the Parents
13. I bet you can squeal like a pig. - Deliverance
14. You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk? - Dirty Harry
15. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. - Apocalypse Now

Feel free to leave your comments or additions to this list.

A bad week for European cinema. Not even 24 hours after Ingmar Bergman died, the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni left life.

Michelangelo Antonioni was born in 1912 and grew up grew up in bourgeois surroundings of the Italian province. He studied commerce and started to write film criticisms for a local newspaper. In 1939 he went to Rome to study directorship at the School of Cinema. There he came in touch with Frederico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini.

Surrounded by the upcoming neorealism, Michelangelo Antonioni took distance of this currant by focusing his films on middle and upper class characters instead of lower class, poor main characters, like DeSica and Rossellini did. Also did his films not treat after-war misery and social subjects, as usual in neorealism, but themes like existentialism, isolation and twisted psychlogical storylines.

Antonioni's first big success was l'Avventura which (after beeing booed by the audience) won the Jury prize at the 1960 Cannes festival. A fascinating mystery, shot with rule-breaking camera work.

Other successful films were La notte (1961), L'eclisse (1962), Blowup (1966) and Zabriskie Point (1970, both in the USA).

In 1985 he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak.

Antonioni died on July 30, 2007 at the age of 94.

I managed to get my hands on a dvd version of one of my favorites in japanese exploitation cinema, called: Joshuu sasori: Dai-41 zakkyo-bô (1972). The second part out of four from the scorpion series created by Shunya Ito. I consider this movie as a masterpiece, because of its surrealism, color, camera angles, its intensity and its main character, played by Meiko Kaji (also known from Lady Snowblood).

Despite its simple plot, its exaggerated violence and eroticism and everything else related to exploitation cinema, Ito manages to create something poetical, original and captivating. Meiko Kaji's second appearance in the Scorpion series is in my opinion the best one. In the first part (Female prisoner 701), Matsu is a poor woman, betrayed by her lover, looking for revenge. In this episode the scorpion woman is more bitter, way more dangerous, and insanely mysterious…

The plot is simple: the prison director, Inspector Goda, is mad at her (she stabbed out his eye in the first part), and wants to make her suffer and drive her crazy. He locks her up in the deepest, darkest prison cell available, where she lies tied up on the floor. Matsu is lying on the floor holding a spoon firmly clamped between her teeth and scraping it against the stone floor. She is preparing her revenge…

What follows are Goda's desperate attempts trying to break Matsu, which make Matsu's determination even stronger. An escape from prison through dazzling landscapes, meeting the strangest people and experiencing surrealistic and hallucinatory events. A rape, a murder… And a final bloodthirsty, but very satisfying vengeance.

Meiko Kaji (also the singer of the original soundtrack song) is delivering an ecstatic performance playing Matsu's character so intensely with only 2(!) lines of text. (trailer here)