Paranoid Park is adapted, with reasonable fidelity, from Blake Nelson's young-adult novel. But in telling the tale of a Portland skater kid involved in the accidental death of a railroad bull, Van Sant comes close to inventing his own film language. The chronology is shuffled and the narrative dealt out as a succession of subjective impressions. Paranoid Park is both loose and structured, fluidly shot in 35mm, Super-8, and videotape by Chris Doyle and suavely jagged in its editing.

The sex is real in John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus; only the setting—an animated New York cityscape, watched over by a fluorescent Statue of Liberty—is fake. To an extent, that describes the movie: a sexually daring, dramatically timid roundelay that employs unsimulated twosomes, threesomes, and even solos for skin flute in the service of subplots reminiscent of late-night-cable soap. Yet there's something refreshingly frisky and celebratory about Shortbus that offsets its flaws. It's a triple-X midnight movie with a heart of squarest gold.

Director Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet, which premiered at the prestigious Venice film festival and screened at many other major festivals, became Hong Kong's submission to the Oscars this year. This epic features multiple award-winning actor Ge You, Feng's long-time collaborator, as a cunning emperor. The internationally popular Zhang Ziyi returns to Chinese cinema to portray a queen who experiences intense inner struggle. Hong Kong handsome prince Daniel Wu and best actress winner Zhou Xun from Perhaps Love also excel in delivering their roles.

Adapted by Fassbinder from Alfred Döblin's classic 1929 novel of the underclass in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, this is not merely Fassbinder's longest and most ambitious film: it represents the crowning of the director's lifelong obsession with Döblin's novel and is considered by many to be his greatest film. Fassbinder identified closely with his protagonist, released murderer Franz Biberkopf, and of central importance to the plot is Biberkopf's intense friendship with another man.

HONG KONG -- Bong Joon-Ho takes a page from the Hollywood horror machine for his latest, a boxoffice monster both literally and figuratively. With "The Host" Bong has pulled together a multilayered horror-drama that works more often than not. The film gets back on track after a clumsy middle section that's too long and finishes strong, and Bong fans, horror fans and Asiaphiles are likely to be thoroughly satisfied. There's a chance for moderate breakout success overseas.

by Michael Koresky, with responses from Erik Syngle and Neal Block