Action
Rod Lott
Because she has a photographic memory for digits, 11-year-old Mei (newcomer Catherine Chan) was kidnapped and taken from Beijing to Brooklyn to "count" for the Chinese Triads, like a pint-sized accountant who needs no calculator.

Action
Rod Lott
Pop quiz, hotshot: What American movie would the South Korean filmmakers of Quick would like you to believe it emulates? The answer is not difficult, because it's written right on the box: Speed.

Comedy
Rod Lott
Through nearly every frame of the indie crime comedy Searching for Sonny, it is obvious that writer/director Andrew Disney's debut would not exist if not for Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket. That 1996 cult classic bears a quirky, amiable stamp in the way it deals with three lovable losers, which Disney has done his best to duplicate, right down to its distinctive beats and rhythms.

Horror
Rod Lott
With Vile, we may have a new cinematic achievement: the first torture-porn film to open with a quote from Gandhi. Take that with a grain of salt — or perhaps the box of kosher salt poured into the wounds of some sad bastard by some demented madman in the prologue.

Horror
Rod Lott
Until now, I had never seen the 1980 horror film Mother's Day, but its poster art has stayed top-of-mind when I first stumbled upon the VHS box in the early '80s, when the Sound Warehouse at Northwest Expressway and Rockwell Avenue — may it rest in peace — started renting movies in addition to keepin' the metro rockin' with a wide selection of LPs and cassettes.

Thriller
Rod Lott
Compared to the continent of Europe, the rate of death by guns in America is six times higher. You wouldn’t know it based on the current wave of crime films from that half of the globe. Arguably kicked off by the worldwide success of Sweden’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, the movies generally are ballsier and bloodier and, therefore, better.

Television series
Rod Lott
Marrying Hollywood's current fairy-tale craze to the ever popular crime procedural is Grimm. While it works on both levels, that it blends the two into a unified whole gives the concept so much fizz, as the 22 episodes of its five-disc first season indicate. This one's perfect for marathoning.

Comedy
Rod Lott
Japan's Karate-Robo Zaborgar is a movie that has everything: a female cyborg girl with a detachable head and with missiles hidden in her metal bra, a samurai robot with enormous lips, a floating castle, a lactating man, multiple exploding footballs, a flying wheelchair powered by flatulence, and, lest we forget, sex tentacles.

Thriller
Phil Bacharach
Killer Joe is brutal, pulpy and utterly, irresistibly lurid — provided, that is, you like your perversity when it’s deep-fried and extra crispy.

Action
Rod Lott
In the case of 1972's Sitting Target, the title refers to Pat Lomart (Jill St. John, Diamonds Are Forever), the wife of rough and rugged Harry (Oliver Reed, Gladiator). The opening scene finds her visiting him behind bars, where he's being held for murder. Since he's liable to get 15 years, she can't wait for him, so she's filing for divorce.