Nobody Knows - True story, The Affair of the Abandoned Children

Just watched this film based on a true story about a mother that leaves her four children for weeks at a time while she goes off to party and meet men until she finally abandons them altogether. The movie is definitely worth watching. For the good acting (the boy who plays Akira won the 2004 Cannes Film Festival best actor award), beautiful cinematography and imagery. Actually, Ella Taylor of the LA Weekly sums it up perfectly, "Nobody Knows unfolds with such leisurely, terrible beauty, it takes a while to realize that what we are witnessing is the children’s long slide into beggary, exacerbated by the slow torture of faint hope."

The horrifying thing is, the real life story is much more horrible than the movie version. I'm trying to find out more about the story, but all I keep finding is this Wikipedia article which indicates there were five children, one of them died of malnutrition so the mom wrapped her up in plastic and hid her in the closet and another was killed by one of the kids' friend. All other sites basically refer to the same Wiki article, or offer the exact same information. Apparently it was big news in the 80's in Japan, but none of my Japanese friends seem to know any specifics about this story. I want to know what ended up happening to the four children, and what happened to the mother. Apparently she only went to jail for two years.

The Departed

I finally watched the Departed. Now I have questions. Warning! *Spoilers*
-What happens to the first envelope Leo gives the psychologist chick? The manila envelope. I see her open up the letter that gets mailed to Damon but not the manila envelope. I felt like I was just left hanging.
-How does Marky Mark find out about Damon?
I guess I'm supposed to conclude the shrink gives the manila envelope to Mark.
-I didn't think Jack Nicholson was a good pick for this role. He didn't seem very Boston to me either. A better replacement doesn't come to mind right now. I do think Seamus O'Reily (Kevin Conway) from Oz should have had a role as one of his men.
-I think Damon, Leo and Marky Mark were fantastic in this movie. I wonder if it would have been better if Damon and Leo had switched roles.
-A lot of times they make gangster life seem so glam in movies, but not this one.
-If someone told me this move was filmed 7 years ago, I would have believed them. The hairstyle and makeup of the shrink and some of the styles people were wearing looked really dated.
-Damon did such a good job at playing a hateable character. I find often in movies, even the bad guys, you can't help but like them or feel sorry for them, but not Damon. Joaquin Phoenix is also good at playing a hateable character (e.g. his role in Gladiator).

Rating out of five: 3.5
Would I buy the DVD: Yes. if it was under $10
Would I watch it again. Yes, but only for Leo.
Scariest scene: When Jack is in the theater with MD and pulls out a you-know-what.
Favorite scene: When MD and the shrink are having dinner and he asks her if he actually thinks he likes her.
The Departed is a remake of a Chinese movie titled Infernal Affairs.