Opening at Cannes

The Cannes film festival starts this week, despite a threatened labor disruption. Yesterday I learned that the term Asia Extreme, the hot style in world cinema right now, has been copyrighted. "Asia Extreme" movies view John Woo as a quaint forefather and go much further in terms of throwing the book away. Are you interested? I'll recommend Battle Royale for horrific Hobbesian violence, and The Audition for shocking sexual drama. Both are Japanese, and neither is for the fainthearted. But if you feel jaded by most movies, a bit bored, and are looking for something conceptual, this is definitely the next step.