Man, I love Korean films, not the long-ass drama series, but the more challenging to watch. With I Saw the Devil, director Kim Jee-woon pushes revenge beyond humane. The movie is so fucked up that I feel like a sick bastard for enjoying it. Not recommended for the faint of heart.

I was NetFlixing around and didn’t realize that I was watching Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo Trilogy until the second film. I started out with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, then The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and then The Girl Who Played With Fire. The experience was still riveting. The films are dark, thrilling and wild. Dragon Tattoo is disturbing; Played With Fire is violent; and Hornet’s Nest is edgy. Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander owns every scene she’s in. Her portrait of Lisbeth as smart, wicked and can’t be fucked with. The trilogy is a suspenseful escape.

Thanks to NetFlix, my late night entertainment has been watching stand up comedies. After a long day at work, wrestling with Dao at home before he goes to bed and cleaning up the dishes or the house, I get about an hour to myself. I would like to watch movies on NetFlix, but they are about two-hour long. Stand up comedy, which runs from forty-five minutes to an hour, is perfect for a good laugh before the night end. Here are some of my favorite routines:

Patrice O’Neal’s Elephant in the Room. His lines are misogynistic, but highly hilarious. He makes his audience laughs and embarrass as the same time, especially the ladies.

Louis C.K.’s Chewed Up. If a white guy could get away with using “Nigger,” he has his way with word. Louis C.K. pulled that off so effortlessly. The only thing I didn’t like was his daughter’s joke. He went over the top on that one.

Craig Ferguson’s Does This Need to to be Said?. This Scottish-accent guy is simply entertaining. He’s very charismatic.

Whitney Cummings’s Money Shot. It’s a nice change to hear sex jokes from a woman perspective and she nailed it. She’s also very energetic.

Kathleen Madigan’s Gone Madigan: She’s funny, witty and doesn’t give a damn.

Update:

Orny Adams’s Takes the Third: He makes mundane things funny. My favorite is how CVS gives you coupons on the things you just bought.

This film documents The Prince of Darkness performing one of his breakthrough albums, Bitches Brew (currently on heavy rotation in my iPod), at the 1970 Isle of Weight Music Festival. The video also featured interviews from Davis’s sidemen (Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarret), his admirers (Carlos Santana, Joni Mitchell) as well as his hater (Stanley Crouch). Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue could be viewed on YouTube (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). What are you waiting for?

Yesterday afternoon, we caught up with Avatar in 3D before the film goes off the theater. I thought it would be just the three of us, but the seats were almost filled up. I have to admit, Avatar was a visual-stimulating experience complemented with a solid story, something James Cameron has managed to pull off once again.

Revenge is best served cold, but Chan-wook Park’s Oldboy serves a disturbingly imaginative dish of revenge that is bold, bloody, beautiful and brilliant.

Kim Ki-Duk’s The Isle is sick yet sensual, gross yet gorgeous and eccentric yet erotic. I should have read this before watching the film:

[The Isle] became notorious for being difficult to watch, with stories of viewers vomiting or passing out during the more gruesome scenes when the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

When I first heard that Danny Boyle’s new film Slumdog Millionaire has something to do with the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, I was kind of turned off. After seeing the film, however, I was stunned. Boyle has incorporated the game into the story in such a brilliant manner.

The contestant Jamal Malik (a fantastic performance from Dev Patel) answers the questions not based on his book knowledge, but his past experiences. Every time a question is asked, we get to see the flashback of Jamal’s life in the slum of Mumbai corresponding to the question. Right from the first scene, we get to experience the ghetto part of the city through a breathtaking chasing scene (polices go after the kids) with M.I.A.’s blasting beat.

With an incredible cast, stunning visual, brutal violent and sweet romance, Slumdog is simply irresistible and every scene will leave you breathless. Highly recommended.

Eric, my little nephew, got me hooked on Madagascar three years ago. I used to love watching him (two something at the time) imitating every animal in the movie every time he popped in the DVD. So when the sequel hits the theater, I have to take him and Samantha to see it. Unlike most of Pixar’s animated features, DreamWorks’ Madagascar 2 is strictly for the kids. Except for some quick laughs, I didn’t find anything inspiring, even the visuals. Maybe Eric would convince me when he has a chance to learn the characters. I should have waited until the DVD released then watch it with his live acting, but Eric and Samantha seemed to enjoy the film.

The title of Kevin Smith’s new film tells it like it is. Two best friends, Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks), make an amateur porn flick to pay their bills. They turned an acting scene into lovemaking romance on camera. Zack and Miri Make a Porno is thin on the plot but thick on profanity and soft pornography. I lost track of how many times the F bomb is dropped in the movie, but I would estimate one every five minutes. Sure there were boobs and dicks whipped out on screen, but the real deal is in the amusing dialogues and the race jokes. While the porn-turned-romance concept is creative, the film turned wearisome, predictable and unconvincing trying to make the transition from sex to love.