Sherrybaby DVD (Short)

director: Laurie Collyer
writer: Laurie Collyer

Happy endings are good for films (or at least for box offices).
But sometimes people need to know that things just don't end with people becoming better - sometimes the best we can do is to hope to change because sometimes we can't change at all. Those are just circumstances, that's just life.
People are very flawed - don't expect them to be unflawed by the end.

There are no special features.

rating: ***1/2/***** (an indie find)

recommendations: Secretary, Thirteen, Mysterious Skin, The Station Agent

Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) (Short)

director: Guillermo del Toro
writer: Guillermo del Toro

Touted as an "adult fairytale," this dark and violent Spanish film lives up to its description.

rating: ****/***** (a definite-see)

recommendations: Finding Neverland, The Devil's Backbone, MirrorMask, Grave of the Fireflies

Children of Men

director: Alfonso Cuarón
writer: Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton

What would the world be without the sound of children? Quiet, perhaps, at first. But people would not go down without a fight. And fight they do.

Twenty years in the future, women are infertile from no discernible cause. Whatever the reason, mankind has lost hope. The world looks bleak and apocalyptic.

And it's all up to Clive Owen to save humanity. I can believe that, and I say this without a smidge of sarcasm. It is up to him to deliver a miraculously pregnant woman to the Human Project. Although the specifics of this clandestine and perhaps mythological organization is never revealed, it and the girl are the last vestige of a continuing future.

This surprisingly action filled film rightly never dwells too long on the implications of a childless world. Instead, it shows the chaotic remains of mass hopelessness, and the incredible human spirit and will to survive.

rating: ****1/2/***** (a must-see)

recommendations: Black Hawk Down, Gattaca, Saving Private Ryan, Code 46