“Infection” (Japanese) 05 | Masayuki Ochiai

Probably the worst of the current glut of Japanese horror films, “Infection” plays like a parody of Von Trier’s “Kingdom.” Insane patients wander the hospital conversing with ghosts and disgruntled doctors complain of being understaffed and unpaid while medical supplies dwindle (“What! No more sutures?”). When a dead patient (abandoned in the emergency ward) infects everyone with an unknown virus, green goo begins to gush from every orifice (yes, that one, too!) and contaminated patients explode like water balloons. An incompetent nurse inadvertently kills patients with lethal injections as the doctors begin to splatter on the walls and ceiling and ooze out of their lab coats. Gross and revolting. Bring a tub of popcorn. P.S. This is part of a “trilogy.”

“Intermission” (Irish) | 108 minutes

This film has a wonderfully complex plot that manages to weave together mayhem, betrayal, love and humor in eleven interrelated stories. The setting is the streets and pubs of Dublin and Colin Farrell, Colm Meaney and Shirley Henderson are wonderful. Presently the most popular film in Ireland and just beginning to attract attention in the U.S.A. I don’t know what I liked best — Shirley’s mustache (that everyone pretends isn’t there) or Colin’s version of “I Fought the Law”.... r maybe it was the clown robbery. No, actually, it was Colm’s frustrated attempt to sell his life story to a “reality” cop drama.

“No Man’s Land” (Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles) 2001

This amazing film won the Oscar for the Best Foreign Film a few years ago. For me, it is the European equivalent of “Paths of Glory” or “Apocalypse Now.” The Bosnian War becomes a dark “theatre of the absurd” drama that captures the meaningless futility of war. Filled with razor-sharp humor, the plot deals with the hapless fate of three soldiers (a Bosnian, a Serb and a poor guy that everyone thought was dead) trapped between enemy lines while both sides (and an inept U.N.) bicker and fulminate.

The ending left me stunned and even months after I had seen it, I still remember the final, heartbreaking image. See this one if you are interested in a thought-provoking masterpiece.

— Gary Carden