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Friday, Apr 18, 2008, Page 17

Sick Nurses How does a movie live up to a title like this? Good news: It comes very close. A doctor and several nurses at a Thai hospital run a side business in corpse recycling, but one nurse, the doctor’s spurned girlfriend, is killed to conceal the scam and comes back to annihilate her former colleagues in painfully, gorily apt ways. Bloody, sleazy, sexy and fun all the way, this clever, well-above-average Thai horror/ghost flick is getting plenty of support from genre fans and festival attention.
Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone Fans of Japanese manga and anime will need no convincing to see this. The first in a four-part re-imagining of the acclaimed original anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, episode 1.0 pits a number of huge biomechanical vehicles operated by troubled, even traumatized, teens against monstrous invaders after a cataclysm has killed most of the world’s population. The original anime’s director, Hideaki Anno, is at the helm of the four new films, whose pungent mixture of epic combat and aberrant psychology is bound to attract a new generation of admirers.
Animals in Love The title might raise a few eyebrows, but yes, it is a documentary about the animal kingdom, although one has to ask how the concept can sell tickets when perfectly good stuff is available on cable TV. One might also wonder if this French-produced family fare has been sanitized considering how brutal — and lethal — courtship in the wild can be. Unreleased as yet in English-language markets, this is one film where you are unlikely to need English subtitles. Directed by the photographer of the excellent Winged Migration and with music by Philip Glass. French title: Les Animaux Amoureux.
Riding the Metro A bitter young Japanese man estranged from his father finds himself and his girlfriend being whisked to and from the past in an underground train. There he finds his father in different stages of his life, leading to a change in the son’s understanding of his family and himself. The few Western reviewers that have watched this film agree that deep inside the family drama and maturation of character is a desire to romanticize a nation’s compromised past and honor paternal authority. Japanese nationalists and other conservatives might therefore be expected to get into this one. Made in 2006.