254. How to win at checkers (every time) (2015)

Country: Thailand
Directed by Josh Kim

A simple and humble film, with a plot that every audience can enjoy and, at the same time, an essay against the many levels of the social unequality in Thailand, when the ones who have money can win everytime and the ones who don't they have their future pre written as the 'slaves' of the above. With an amazing cast and characters, with humour and humanism, the film succeed to make the audience to get deeply involved emotionally from the first minutes without to capitalize on misery, over dramatization, easy tricks and easy tears. However the bitter taste of the social unjustice at the end feels intense.
'How to win at checkers (every time)' has also to be credited with the most natural depiction of gay characters ever: i really believe that they have to screen this film at every school in order to boost acceptance and to fight homophobia.
Not a 'watch, i m a masterpiece, product of a genious' type of film but it deserves any praise

253. Cruel story of youth (1960)

Country: Japan
Directed by Nagisa Oshima

One of my most favorite movies of rebellious youth ever, this film is a ground breaking work as defines the New Wave era opposing most of the things that the old Japanese cinema was standing for. Although the exploitation films with sex, crime and violence were already a trend in Japan, Oshima's intellectual approach eleveted this concept in a very high level as he used it as a platform to present a psycological study of the rather existential anxiety of young people and its connection with the social and political issues of his era. Stunning colors and visuals, documentary style of filming but with sound effects that give to it a weird dreamy feeling that communicates with the subconscious

252. Made in Thailand (1999)

Country: Thaiiland
Directed by Eve-Laure Moros and Linzy Emery

A simple but compact and informative documentary about one of the worst industrial fire accidents ever (in reality a murder as the workers were not allowed to evacuate the building in time and they got locked inside) in Kader toy factory of Nakorn Pathom, in May of 1993, that cost the lives of more than 200 young female workers and it injured seriously another 500. Although far from ambitious or deep, the film is well made, in the sense that doesn't focus to the emotion and to heartbreaking drama but use it in order to present the general inhuman conditions for the workers in Thailand, their every day struggles, the impunity of the bosses and corporations who exploit brutaly the cheap labor at will (nobody got in jail for this crime, instead the owners got an extremelly high conpensation from the insurance company), the efforts of the workers to form unions in order to protect themselves. Although many years passed and it seems as Thailand moved from the extreme poverty, the film is relevent today as not many things in reality changed: just the poor immigrants from the neighboring countries are most often the victims of this extreme exploitation rather than the locals

You can watch the full movie here: https://youtu.be/FyhHwK9Vtxg

251. Grass labyrinth (1979)

Country: Japan
Directed by Shuji Terayama

As often happens with Terayama films, while you are watching 'Grass labyrinth' you cant decide if it's just a pretendious artsy junk or a master work of a genious. When a scene is really ...trashy then the next one comes up somehow so beautiful that you forget the previous one. For sure 'Grass labyrinth" is a bizzare, poetical film that, you like it or no, it's very captivative so you dont want to stop watching it. You get lost to this weird unique Terayama world consisted of nightmares, memories, time spirals, sex and existential anxiety

You can watch the full movie here: https://youtu.be/91VN172ejOE

250. Sandy lives (1999)

Country: Vietnam
Directed by Nguyen Thanh Van

One of the good moments of the modern Vietnamese cinema, although old fashioned in style ( if you would guess you would say that it belongs to early 80's ), 'Sandy lives' delivers an autentic documentary-like touch when at the same time it's a melodrama that uses every possible dramatic trick, but not the cheap ones, to get you emotionally involved. 'Sandy lives', more than anything else, is a touching movie, full of compassion for all its characters, not any judgement, as all of them suffered a lot, as the side victimes of the traumatizing Vietnamese history