'Children of Men', the new Alfonso Cuaron sci-fi flick

Plus I can't seem to watch TV without seeing an advert for it.

http://the-numbers.com/charts/thisweek.php

See it for Lubezki alone. Caine's good, Owen's good, Chiwetel Ejiofor's good ('Dirty Pretty Things'), Claire-Hope Ashitey's good, hell, even Julianne Moore, who I often don't much like, was good and Cuarón is an elegant story teller. He doesn't lay it on too thick, and doesn't assume you're an idiot but keeps the pace (mostly) rolling along quite smoothly.

Also syncs with America's current free-floating anxiety caused by foreign turmoil.

Yes, but only if it's as secretly dumb as The Matrix.

I saw that critics in the U.S. were not too fond of the fact that nobody explains why women stopped having children, or what exactly the Human Project was, which both seem ridiculous.

I always figured it would be difficult to find a large American audience because it's so downbeat. It's a nightmare sprint through hell, really, and hardly contains the kind of cathartic action-adventure popcorn elements of a Mission: Impossible III.

Brilliant filmmaking is, unfortunately, not a selling point in most markets.

With regard to the film itself, I plan on writing more later, but for now, i'll just say that it is easily the best film i've seen in a megaplex in years.

Both Clive Owen and Michael Caine have this supreme EASE with whatever they're doing on screen, it's kind of terrifying. And God, SO FUCKING HARROWING.

Second thoughts: Well, yes, there are certain flaws.

Resolution: Grafts everything I liked about War of the Worlds (panic, confusion, brutality, relentlessness) with practically everything I liked about Titanic (same as above, only with unapologetic sentimentality), and it's a goddamned miracle that something of that sort could be so widely and rightly beloved.

My worst fears about it (i.e. the cinematography being so ostentatious that it grabs you by the lapels and shouts "I. AM. CINEMALANGUAGE.") were wiped away once I'd realized one shot had been going on for five, six minutes without my knowing it. Which certainly puts it above the one epic shot in The Black Dahlia.

(all of 2006, too)

Which certainly puts it above the one epic shot in The Black Dahlia.

I just saw this last night and it's so fucking terrible (the movie, not the shot) that children of men seemed like citizen kane in comparison.

only 20 minutes take place in london!

Two days later I'm also wondering if Clive Owen's going barefoot or sandal-clad is an allusion to Die Hard (Owen's feet are more attractive than Willis', though).

the long tracking shots are unreal. the action sequences are great because, while they owe a slight debt to Saving Private Ryan, they aren't indulgent; they aren't Michael Bay'd to death.

The only thing I didn't like was the ending. But it's one of the better movies I've seen in a long, long time.

yeah, i don't think this was a showoffy film at all, by contemporary standards.

Why was Julianne Moore so clean while everyone else was so grubby?

the "Ruby Tuesday" cover was nowhere as cloddish as TOMORROW, tho.

I'm eager to see it again.

As for glamour, her teeth weren't capped.