Director: Jim Jarmusch

Cast: Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton, Julie Deply, Jessica Lange

The ‘oh-so-original’ tag can be a handicap for filmmakers like Jim, since viewers and critics alike are always busy searching for their trademark style in all films. This one-a Grand Prix winner at Cannes 2005-actually has a tidy story not fractured moments revolving around characters. (Think of the final version of the director’s 2003 Coffee and Cigarettes with 11 different stories somehow holding on for dear life on transient whiffs of caffeine and smoke!) Here Don Johnston (Bill) has a story to tell if not conclude and a quest to fulfill. This supposed womaniser (it took some stretch of imagination to think of deadpan Bill hooking those gorgeous women) gets an anonymous letter from one of his lovers that says he has a son by her who might come looking for Don. With a nosy neighbor who wants to play detective Don moves out of his mostly-finished and gone-sour life to look up exflames. This is followed by a glam ramp walk cum close peek into the lives of some very eclectic American women who were once draw (god alone knows why) to Don.

HOT Tip: Slow and unfocused at times Bill reprises a role he’s good at–man of action not words-but his girls steal the show!

Director: Takeshi Kitano

Cast: Takeshi Kitano (Beat Takeshi), Tadanobu Asano, Michiyo Okusu; Japanese with English subtitle;

A placid countryside in Japan. A blind, blonde man sits on the roadside to rest his aching limbs. A few rogues appear and entice a child to steal his shiny, red cane. The child does the job but gets slap instead of the promised coins. In a flash, the blind man leap up, a snatches back his sword (disguised under the very shiny cane all this while) and slashes all the rogues to very bloody ands. If you liked what Quentin tarantino did in the gory Kill Bill series, you’ll now know where his inspiration came from! A high-budget film production of the immensely popular Zatoichi TV action series of sparring Samurais and the local Yakuza gang wars, this flick adds more finesse to swordfights, more gore to blood (Which incidentally is computer generated) and more panache to the reticent, grimacing, muttering oddball of an actor Takeshi Kitano (aka Beat Takeshi). This pop-cultural icon of Japan has scripted, directed, acted in and edited the film as well! Zatoichi is aided by a pair of sibling geishas (including a cross-dresser!) trying to avenge their parents murder. He has to vanquish the powerful Hattori (Tadanobu), the bodyguard of the gang chief, to reclaim peace and fairplay in the village. Look out for the gang chief, to reclaim peace and fairplay in the village. Look out for the stylistic ending-quite unlike the gory tempo of the gory tempo of the entire movie.

HOT Tip: Won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Fest and the People’s Choice award at the Toronto Film Fest, both in 2003.

Director: Kurt Voss

Cast: Jaime Pressly, Megan Edwards, Michael Des Barres

lvy’s sis Violet visits the Greer household and soon seduces her way in to throw the family into a state of confusion and deceit!

Eight-year-old Tahaan lives with his grandpa, mom Haba and elder sis Zoya in Kashmir. After grandpa’s death, the local moneylender takes away all the assets of the family, including Tahaan’s pet donkey Birbal. Getting Birbal back becomes his sole purpose in life. So much so, he even follows an old man Subhan Darr, who’s bought Birbal, across the mountains. What price is Tahaan ready to pay for Birbal?