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I found this absolutely beautiful.

The visual style is incredibly striking and serves the story brilliantly, a clear tribute to Moebius, but distinct enough to be wonderful in itself. The music and Mackenzie Davis' perfectly judged performance are equally sublime, touching and emotional without drifting into melodrama.

The premise, a lone astronaut trying to make it to safety, is presented as relatively hard sci fi, but the story, the beating heart at the centre of it, is centred on fundamentally humane questions and ideas, handled with care, and I was deeply moved, enough to come back and review it months later.

I'm a big fan of LDR overall, but this, to me, felt like a whole different league and a fantastic illustration of what animated shorts can do that no other format can.

Just before, and many years after, almost everyone on Earth dies, we follow different times in several characters' interlocking lives, as they decide what they care to preserve or give up.

This is absolutely stellar so far. The cast is superb - Davis, Deadwyler, Wilmot and Petty are all magnetic in very different ways, and none of their characters sit neatly into any easy archetypes. Davis is an easygoing neo-hippy, until she isn't at all, Deadwyler can be at once stonily reserved to other characters and totally open to the audience, and so on.

The handling of humour and the elephant-in-the-room mass tragedy (that's either just started or long over) is really well balanced, and it doesn't feel like anything else on TV I can think of. The direction is confident and flavourful, with a good mix of compellingly everyday responses to the pandemic to colourful bits of flair that remain (as yet) just unexplained enough, and the writing is forgiving and kind. Nobody's an asshole just for the sake of it - if they're selfish it's because they're invested, if they're hostile it's because they're scared.

Tonally, it doesn't dwell on The Event itself for long, it's far more concerned with the people, Before and After, and the things they care about, and the flashes of surreality give it a citrus fresh signature identity in a fairly saturated genre. The timeline-disjointed narrative is a Marmite thing you'll either love or hate, but it does mean no one character ever overstays their welcome, and I closed out all three episodes so far equally torn between wanting more of this character and hoping to pick up where I left a previous one.

That does bring to mind one thing that people might find difficult - if you've missed some of the clues as to just how closely these seemingly very different stories interlock, they might feel like arbitrary tangents unrelated to each other. I have a feeling the next episode will start pulling those strands together more overtly and that might even be why they held off on it for now; but if you're not either paying close attention or patient enough to wait for it to be unfolded it might be mystifying. Like another recent slightly meta-entertainment property, WandaVision, the show is betting the farm on the idea it's given you enough reasons to stick around to see the significance of the stuff it hasn't fully spelled out yet.

I can say that for me, it absolutely has. As a huge book fan, enough has changed to keep me on my toes about what's about to happen next, but while the style is maybe a little more energetic than the book's dreamy wooziness, the same fundamental questions are there so far.

I'm all the way onboard with this and wherever the hell it's taking me. If the remaining eps can pay off on the promise of the first three, I can already tell it could be a strong contender for my show of the year.

This is, to be honest, a lot more interesting than I expected it to be. Not that I ever expected Arcade Fire to be tedious, but I was a little nervous about the potential for spectacular failure when I heard they were making a film.

And it is very much a film *by* them, rather than *about* them.

It's not a sequential document of their last tour, and it doesn't offer any real insight into how these guys and girls function or think. Aside from a few very sweet little moments - Win and Tim waltzing, Régine's pre-show nerves - there's no sense of cosy fly-on-the-wall intimacy. I didn't come away knowing an awful lot more about what makes these folks tick beyond lawnmowers and whirlyball, and it's pretty telling how many shots of bandmember's backs we've got.

But let's face it, anybody who's even vaguely familiar with this band wasn't really expecting a Behind The Music special. No, that would be far too easy and normal. Rather, it's a sequence of brief making-of shots and live footage, interspersed with abstract images and short films. The band never once address the camera, and there's no central narrative; the only discernible structure comes from a series of answerphone messages from fans that punctuate the film.

The result is an intentionally chaotic bundle of clever visual setups, documentary clips and all too curt glimpses of what the business of making this music actually entails. There's a lot going on in these seventy-something minutes, and as such, it's both brilliant and immensely frustrating. It does sometimes give a sense of what it's like to be in that kind of band, and it's rather odd to see just how much effort is required to look like it comes naturally - turns out it's not all fun and pipe organs, being in The Arcade Fire. Sometimes it sucks. The process of hammering out songs, too, that's touched on, and it's amazing to me just what it takes to get those songs to the stage. But neither could really be said to be the point of the exercise, and as such, I don't think it could correctly be called a documentary.

The show footage deserves a special mention, because it really is as furious and spectacular as it ought to be. After seeing just exactly how hard Jeremy Gara is working back there I'll never take his contribution for granted ever again. For the most part though, perhaps aware of just how freely available great live videos of their shows have become, they don't dwell too long on these clips, and the most interesting moments are the ones aimed specifically at the film's audience. The phone messages from fans vary from the knowingly wry to the achingly heartfelt, and the visual gimmicks - a pretty awesome acoustic version of Windowsill in a moving glass lift, geddit? - are endlessly imaginative.

It's one vexing flaw is that it's simply a little too ambitious - it's got too many ideas at once. Most of it works, and works spectacularly, but not all of it. The opening sequence is brilliant and arresting - and there are plenty of other highpoints that almost match it - but then the ending is a slightly awkward anti-climax that doesn't quite sit right, at all. Whenever it touches on something interesting - Win & Régine on the brink of an argument over a single note at the end of a song, being one example - it then has to leave it behind to move on to something else. And there's a lot of that; they've tried so many things they couldn't quite filter out the ones that didn't fly, and couldn't pause for the ones that were worth exploring further.

Another example that drives me especially mad; a properly stunning montage of American gameshows, televangelists and noise that eventually shifts into a shot of Win wading through a mass of adoring fans who greet him like a big army-booted Jesus. Seriously, you should see it; I kept expecting people to fling themselves out of wheelchairs or grow back leprosy hands. It's amazing. But there's no comment on it; no real insight into what that feels like for some twenty-something year old dude from Texas to have several thousand people completely in his thrall, or whether the irony is quite so readily apparent from his perspective.

An experiment then, and one which - for the most part - succeeds. It's got so many ideas that it doesn't quite know what to do with them, and that's hardly damning criticism. It's visually stunning, the tone fits the band perfectly, and at times, it's a genuinely extraordinary glimpse of a very weird life.

It wouldn't really stand on it's own, there's not a whole lot for you here unless you're familiar with this band and have some interest in how these folks make a living. It is, however, a fantastic visual companion to their music in general, and Neon Bible in particular. Messy, imaginative, flawed and inspired, just like the album itself.

Speaking of which, the music is fantastic.

I'd never heard of it before either, but it was on TV in the middle of the night, and I copped Radha Mitchell's name in the credits. Radha Mitchell could make a root canal an engaging watch, bless her heart.

The story goes like this: Beth runs a diner and a motel on a desolate stretch of highway. She's a bitter loner, justifiably distrustful of the local authority and wildly unpopular with her neighbours. The only person who bothers speaking to her is the jealous hellbitch sending her hatemail. Her routine is broken by a scruffy, antsy stranger coming to the diner in a stolen car. Grateful for the interruption, and out of sheer bloody-mindedness towards the local lawfolk, Beth gives him a breakfast. She figures out that his agitation is closely linked to the fresh stab wound in his gut, but she figures this out just as more strangers arrive, this time a group of laid back surfers. Stranger #1 freaks out and threatens to kill her unless she hides him from the newcomers. Either the first guy or the second guys are nuts... which is it? What follows is sort of like... Duel, on foot. There's no background music, the desert locations are few enough to feel claustrophobic, Beth barely survives by only her wits and stubborn guts, and the questions just keep coming. Are the surfers a threat? Is the guy crazy? How did he get hurt? How come that fountain of gasoline looks so much like water, and how do three people and a stab victim brawl around in it without any irritation? Why is said gasoline so selectively flammable? Why does the local crazywoman hate Beth so much? Since when does Oregon have desert? But then it stumbles. After three quarters of a wire-tight, cat and mouse thriller, a major plot-point turns out to be largely redundant, and our characters get all MacGuyver on each other. It's a shame that the ending is so madly out of step with the rest of the film, but three quarters of a great film will do me fine, and Mitchell remains predictably and apparently effortlessly excellent, whether she's freaking out or fighting back.

I'm a hardcore defender of the average popcorn actioner, and I'm a sucker for Vampires and Werewolves, but suffice it to say that the first Underworld was so bad I was compelled to see this only out of morbid, masochistic curiosity.

The dialogue is bad, but they might have gotten away with it if everybody didn't take themselves so incredibly seriously. Every single line is announced with the sort of mighty import usually associated with pessimistic news from a trusted family Doctor.

The leads actually manage to have even less chemistry than the first go round, a pretty serious problem given that their relationship is supposed to be strong enough to transcend all sorts of terrible obstacles. And the sex scene is catastrophically bad - never before have attractive people made for such boring nudity. It must surely be remembered as one of the worst of it's ilk. Beyond Matrix Reloaded, maybe even on par with Showgirls.

The plot manages to be both incoherent and contradictory. Characters behave nonsensically and the plot holes open into plot maws with every increasingly laboured revelation. However, the streamlined pace compared to the first at least make this less irksome.

But for all that, it is a big step up from it's predecessor. The action scenes borrow even more heavily from Blade, but the action editing and fighting in general is much improved. The CGI is more convincing, and the stunts are better. Not worth seeing in the cinema, certainly, but for a last resort rental you could do worse. Equally though, there are much better films in this vein, Constantine or Blade both maintain a similar dark stylised look without so many po-faced speeches or dodgy plot twists.

Genuinely excellent. It's entirely deserving of every whisper of delirious praise heaped upon it. Far surpassed my expectations.

Honestly, I liked Braff from Scrubs, but I couldn't have imagined him to be this damn good at everything. The direction, performances and writing: all so nearly perfect. The end is overwritten, admittedly, but on top of the rest of the film, it doesn't matter at all. People keep comparing it to Lost in Translation - those people are wrong. It's a hundred million times better, and I loved Lost in Translation. And to top it all, Zach Braff has the finest music taste on the planet.

I'm a freshly converted Braff fangirl, and I hope he makes many, many more movies. And compilation tapes. And maybe writes a book. And takes up painting. And modern dance. It'd all be good.

Tremendously scary little short, very much in the vein of Silent Hill. Elegantly told, and absolutely terrifying. Kudos to all concerned, especially handsome vest bloke. Damn, I've let myself down again. Anyway, this is my favorite film short ever.

From its premise, this film sounds absurd. A troubled teenager starts seeing a big man-shaped bunny that tells him the world is going to end.

Yup. You read it right. However, this film is quite simply astonishing. Even if you don't understand it all the first time round, you know its makes sense...somehow. The giant rabbit, called Frank (but of course?)is one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen. The sense of impending doom and menace is just the right side of suffocating, but somehow it coexists happily along with sharply observed social satire, and philosophy.

At heart, its a film about Donnie (duh). Donnie is troubled, as he himself admits. He's antisocial and sometimes violent, but he's also brilliant and insightful. He seems to be the only one to see through the local Dr. Feelgood, he's the only one to appreciate his English teachers doomed efforts to reach her class. He can negotiate time-travel theory and physics with ease, but he has trouble telling a girl he likes her. Despite his aggressive behaviour towards his peers, (and authority) it upsets him to see a girl being bullied. The Donnie we see burning down a buildings and swearing at teachers is the same Donnie who breaks down at the thought of dying alone.

Simutaneously monstrous and terrified, Donnie is as much a paradox as the film itself. Its funny...but not really a comedy. The ending is tragic....but not sad. It has time-travel...but its not really sci fi. It raises some interesting questions, and answers just enough to satisfy...but not enough to spoil a repeat viewing.

I saw this yesterday, and it bumped Citizen Kane from my top 5.

To enjoy it most, watch something awful first, before seeing how a film can be made.

One of the greatest films I've ever seen. Citizen Kane may be influential, but its not much fun.

Scott yearns to rebel against all of the restrictions imposed on him-by his mother, by his status as a Champion, and by the Dancing federation. But he's afraid to follow his dream- to dance his own steps, his own way. Through Fran, a beginner no-less, he learns that "A life lived in fear is a life half lived." But can he break free of his duty to his parents?

Truly brilliant. The characters are all so obsessed with maintaining their little world that they have become detached from reality completely. When Scott seeks to introduce a little freedom to the rigidly marshalled world, the other characters react like he just handed them dynamite. Little by little, Scott's small act of courage inspires even greater upheaval, letting Beginners dance with Champions, and the Audience with Competitors. And along the way, some of them might just redeem themselves.

Sounds a bit like an English essay, doesn't it? Sorry...

Having seen the Japanese version,its tempting to compare the two. But I prefer to think of them as two parallel stories in the same world. Which you prefer, is up to you. Honestly, for me, its this one.

It starts with your classic Slasher scene: Two teenage girls in a big empty house basically outline what to expect in the coming movie. But before that scene is over, its clear that this movie defies expectations. More than that, it manipulates them.

The imagery in it is really chilling. I'm talking insomnia inducing. Ever scene is surgically crafted to freak the hell outta you, and boy does it work. Our every fear is manipulated (long painful death, claustrophobia, bugs, being forgotten.) and I defy anybody not to be shocked at a particularly brutal scene involving a horse. The film looks unique, somehow washed out and hopeless, even in broad daylight.

The effects are well done, but just subtle enough so that you are never really quite sure. Did you see what you think you did? Did she really look like that? Did she make the right choice? And thats the beauty of the film. You're never quite sure about anything. The lines between the heroes and villains are very blurred. And the one time you are sure, you're then proved very wrong.

But the movie is really made by two scenes in particular. One, is the rightly lauded "Money shot", where the...villain, I suppose, appears. I saw it 5 weeks ago, and that still freaks me out. You have to see it to believe.

The other is the last scene: Poignant, moving, and somehow the most horrifying of the whole film.

Don't go alone. Or perhaps it would be best...

i've seen this show a few times by accident, and I have to say, I was well impressed. It's not deep by any means, but its more thoughtful than a lot of cartoons. Ro and Zeta have...chemistry? (Can you say that about a cartoon? Its almost what Roswell could have been. Very good.

Comedy as a genre is often overlooked as an art. Perhaps I am biased, but I think this film is possibly as close to Perfection as a Human can achieve. Each cast member is chosen perfectly, for the maniacally upbeat Mrs. Brady to the Oscar-cheated Jan. Sceptics may argue that it is a dumb film, but I argue that it is anything but. Witness the budding romance between Greg and Marsha, in equal parts titillating and sickening. Witness Mr. Brady's utterly incomprehensible moralistic speeches ("Children are like little people. Only younger" He declares earnestly.)or Roy, the modern day interloper as it dawns on him that he's tripping with the Bradys. And then there's Jan. Jan is one of the most incredibly wonderful characters ever scripted. All the best lines revolve around her. ("Please don't take my Mommy!" cries the youngest. "Take Jan!" suggests Marsha, to the agreement of the rest of the family.) I cannot convey the brilliance of Jennifer Elise Cox in that role. The George Glass storyline makes her simultaneously pitiful and terrifying. Or that walk. She can do it on stairs, while dancing...Jan has become my personal heroine, just for the driving scene. Breathtaking. Words can't express it. I can't make you love it like I do. To paraphrase, if you've seen it, you'll understand.