other films

district 9
Surprising and exceptional, an examination of attitudes towards the alienated alien in our midst. South Africa has an attuned sense of the power of this, the potential and the potential damage. Taking for granted apartheid parallels, we observe in this more than the popular what-if-god-was-one-of-us meme of incarnation, empathy and vulnerability: here God is found in the economic Other, racial Other, sexual Other. We discovered the South African accent presents a brilliantly staccato tone for swearing at prawns. And the CG on show here heralds a new age of low budget high performance films, surprising and exceptional.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/

priceless
Hosea in pursuit of the girl of great price, this films taps an eternal longing, in amongst a frank and distressing portrayal of the shattered genders of a modern he and she.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482088/

black cat, white cat
A sort of Gogol Bordello the movie, a Serbian Trainspotting roadtrip, an off-kilter fairy-tale I haven't a bracket for. I felt a little on the outside looking in on a genre parody, on a film confident of its own necessity and confident of the validity of chaos and of the relevance of its title's cats. Held happily by its music and the pleasingly washed out palette of its dilapidated charm.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118843/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/black_cat_white_cat/

wildgrass
What is the meaning of colour in this film? I would parallel the pleasure here with that which I take in Kieslowski for want of a reference that does not so betray my shallow and narrow familiarity with the classics. Here presented are that use of colour, colour on faces, driving cars, and older men with younger women, things which made Red Red.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1156143/

the tourist
What is Florian Henckel Lives-of-Others von Donnersmarck doing making a film like this, what are Jolie and Depp doing starring here and what were we doing watching this film: a film which contains, with no particular excellence or order, all of the requisite parts for a comedy or a spy film or a romantic number. How much we long to be so hapless a nobody caught up in so high powered conflict in so beautiful a place struggling but invincibly towards so tidy a conclusion – these are the very basic elements of the Christian faith. No?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1243957/