"Everyone makes mistakes. But if you sin, you have to make atonement for it...Big atonement for big sins. Small atonement for small sins."

—Geum-ja's (played by Yeong-ae Lee) words to her young daughter Jenny serve as an emotional lesson in morality from Chan-wook Park's 2005 Lady Vengeance.

Following Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Oldboy (2003), Korean New Wave director Chan-wook Park's unintended Vengeance Trilogy ends with a breathtaking and devastating bang. Lady Vengeance (literally translated from Korean "Kind-hearted Miss Geum-ja") follows Geum-ja, a woman in her mid-30s newly released from 13 years in prison for kidnapping and murdering a boy. A preacher and a group of Christians dressed as Santa Claus await her release with the singing of hymns. When she coldly approaches, the preacher offers her a large block of white tofu. "It's tradition to eat tofu on release," he tells her, "so that you'll live white and never sin again." Geum-ja's voice-over interrupts, narrating her story over a flashback to her early prison days. She explains how the angel that resides in her is invoked through her prayers. She has become a person of faith—a convert. Back with the preacher and his tofu, Geum-ja stares blankly into his eyes. The choir watches in suspense as she slowly reaches up and casually flips the plate over onto the ground. Everyone stands frozen in surprise as they are introduced to Geum-ja—the angel of death.

Lately I've been stuck in a cycle of comparability within mediums, mainly in terms of literature and film. History itself is interesting to me for that very reason. Depending on who won or lost a war, for example, we can be given two entirely different perspectives on that war's history. Biographies and biopics do the same, which brings me to the different perspectives in film and theory on the Papin sisters—two French chambermaids in the '30s who carried out an atrocious crime that shocked a nation. Their lives, and the crime in question, has been of interest to both psychoanalysts and social theorists, yet given the facts and testimonies during their trial, each person comes away with a different motive.

On one hand you've got doctors and historians approaching the sisters within the context of class, in fact calling their actions a class-crime—no more than two underpaid, often humiliated, servants in a harsh class system who took out their rage on their employer and her daughter by murdering them. This theory touches on the assumption that the two were lovers from a broken home, but only as a side note. They consider the slaying premeditated. The opposing outlook deals almost entirely with their sexual identity, sexual relationship with each other, and their disturbing family life. Here theorists make the claim that the two were mentally disturbed, that there could have been unreported instances of sexual abuse, and that the crime was one of passion, or at the very least of a sexual construct. The two films that I've discovered that chronicle their lives best are Murderous Maids, a French production, and a British production, Sister My Sister.

Watching the recent excellent documentary, Page One: Inside The New York Times, which questioned the potential end of print media and mature fact-based journalism, made me hanker to rewatch the greatest film about how journalists can seek the truth, and the standards and hoops they need to jump through in order to have their stories reported. Based on the true-story, autobiographical, political thriller by journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All The President’s Men details the young reporters' involvement in the Watergate scandal that worked its way through the cover-ups run by President Nixon’s staff, eventually reaching him and ending his presidency prematurely. All The President’s Men is a riveting account of the Watergate story from war zone reporters covering it, but today it’s also a reminder of the hard work and fact checking that goes into the coverage by these old dinosaurs, in this case the Washington Post, and the good that old media can sometimes bring to our democracy.

Due to a lack of high quality competition, King of the Gypsies is still the quintessential American fiction film about modern day gypsies, that is if you're old enough to think of 1978 as “modern day” (while the best non-fiction flick has to be Robert Duvall’s little seen documentary Angelo My Love). Based on a novel by Peter Maas (Serpico), King of the Gypsies reeks of importance and epic pretensions; but besides the cultural curiosity what actually makes the movie worthwhile and totally entertaining is the ham fisted act-off going on up on the screen. From Elia Kazan’s Streetcar Named Desire to Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River there’s a long tradition of method acting emoters chewing scenery and King of the Gypsies has its share of hungry thespians eager to chew. Heading the cast in his film debut the young pretty-boy Eric Roberts, pouting and brooding (but even under a teary-eyed tortured sulk the guy has chops and acts up a storm), doing what he can to keep up with his co-stars Susan Sarandon and Judd Hirsch who are totally over the top, with legendary ultra-hams Sterling Hayden and Shelly Winters nipping at their heels. Any film where Michael V. Gazzo (Frank Pentangeli in the Godfather: Part II) is an example of restraint in his one early scene, you know this is going to be some histrionic fun.

"I am no criminal. I am a good egg. We are. We are a good egg." 

—With this, the bouncing Roberto Benigni's "Bob" brings his two new friends together in Jim
Jarmusch's 1986 prison break film Down by Law.

Those familiar with Jim Jarmusch's films have come to expect and embrace the notion of the outsider. His characters, square pegs in round holes, consistently defy their societal norms and expectations. As defined and complex as their interests and personalities are, they are immanent sojourners in search of a secure homeland. From the black samurai hit man in Ghost Dog to the foreign tourists visiting Memphis in Mystery Train to the hunted accountant in Dead Man, Jarmusch's films are about opposites and reversals; characters who don't belong, awkwardly trying to find their place. Jarmusch consistently mines great comedy in these situations, particularly when it comes to race. One need look no further than Coffee and Cigarettes to find Bill Murray getting health tips in a diner from Wu Tang's RZA and GZA.  Even with his more dramatic work (i.e., Stranger than Paradise, Broken Flowers, The Limits of Control), Jarmusch continues to explore and relate to the transients of society.  In Down by Law, we are introduced to three such characters.