The best film we’ve seen at the NYFF (and maybe in 2006), The Host is a straight-up classic monster movie from South Korea in the fine tradition of Godzilla, Them!, and Attack of the Mushroom People. Bong Joon-ho’s second film is based on a sorta true story of a few years back, in which American toxic waste was proven to be the cause of some seriously mutated fish. In the flick, American dumping of formaldehyde into the Han River gives rise to a monstrous pissed off guppy with teeth, which proceeds to rampage through Seoul and gorge on a few Koreans (and a few Americans to boot). When the amphibious beast nabs a ridiculously cute little girl, her deadbeat dad and his misfit family must band together to get her back. The movie is scary, funny as hell, filled with kick-ass effects and somehow manages to be an insightful look at family dynamics.

You have two chances to see The Host at NYFF: a midnight showing tonight and Monday the 9th at 3:30. The film will get a theatrical release in NY somewhere in Jan. But better to see it now. Trust us.

The opening night feature at the 44th New York Film Festival, The Queen goes behind giant, gold-crested closed doors to give a revealing look at an all-but useless monarchy in the age of democracy. The new film by Stephen Frears (The Grifters, High Fidelity, Dirty Pretty Things) dramatizes the strained, awkward relationship between Elizabeth II and then-newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair in the week following the sudden death of Princess Diana back in ‘97. I suppose the mark of a good film, or any piece of art, is its ability to make meaningful that which isn’t necessarily riveting. There aren’t too many things in this world I care less about than the old hag’s handling, or mishandling of Lady Di’s death, and yet, I was fully engrossed in this movie. I guess that’s what you call a success. Helen Mirren, fresh off playing Elizabeth I in some long TV miniseries, is amazing as Liz II, half respecting the royal order, half mocking its unbelievable pomposity.

The Queen plays twice tonight, at 8:15 at Alice Tully Hall and at 9 at Avery Fisher Hall. Expect director and cast, which also includes everyone’s favorite talking pig handler James Cromwell, to be in attendance at Avery Fisher. Mirimax Films is opening the film in NY next Friday.

Tomorrow marks the opening night of the 44th annual New York Film Festival up at Lincoln Center. Unlike its downtown cousin the Tribeca Film Festival, which over the past few years has spread like a mushroom cloud over Manhattan, hell bent on dominating the public’s consciousness every May, the NYFF remains small and manageable, presenting a mere 28 features (Tribeca had over 250 this year). This year features an especially New York touch to the overly European artsiness of the fest: Lincoln Center is being ripped up for impending construction and looks like garbage, so all those stereotypical snooty French cinephiles will have to navigate through a construction yard to get to the venues.

As the snobbiest film festival on the East Coast (if not the Western Hemisphere) you may think the lineup has nothing to offer those of you who spent this past Friday sneaking flasks full of bourbon into Jackass: Number Two. Not so. This year’s edition of the fest features the first US showings of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (Oct. 13-14), with Kirsten Dunst as the doomed queen and Jason Schwartzman as Louis XVI frollicking around Versailles in 1780 to the sounds of Gang of Four, New Order, and The Strokes. Bow Wow Wow is used not once, not twice, but three times. And I could’ve sworn that was Phoenix in the background as the royal violin quartet.

The closing night selection (Oct. 15) is Pan’s Labyrinth, the new horrorshow from Guillermo del Toro (Mimic, Blade II, Hellboy) and it’s the creepiest, most horrifically violent fairy tale I’ve ever seen. Picture some crazy-ass mix-up of Tim Burton, Harry Potter, and a bloody Spanish Civil War thriller. Fans of David Lynch will be happy to know that the maniac is back with another epic mind-fuck, The Inland Empire (Oct. 8-9). This one clocks in at just over three hours, and one story thread centers on a human family with oversized rabbit heads that act out sitcom scenarios on a stage set. What! Ah but the real treasure of the fest is a straight-up monster flick from South Korea: The Host (Oct. 7 & 9) is about a mutant fish that’s born when toxins from a U.S. army base flow into the Han River. An enormous pissed off guppy with teeth proceeds to terrorize the residents of Seoul, and I’m sure they all blame George Bush.

The 44th NYFF runs September 29- October 15 at Alice Tully Hall and Walter Reade Theater. Check the full schedule. Over the next two weeks, Razor Apple will give you the low down on the films screening.