Children Of Men

Last night I saw Children Of Men starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine. It was bleak, grim, depressing, violent. I loved it. I've always dug the apocalyptic, dystopian sort of movies (The Stand, The Day After, Threads), and Children Of Men is the best of its sort that I've seen in ages. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También), Children depicts the 2028 world's descent into chaos after no child had been born in 18 years, due to all the world's women being struck infertile by a mysterious virus.

The flick opens with the terrorist bombing of a London cafe and the next two hours are a grim march of police beatings, refugee camps, and tank vs. bazooka battles. There's none of the gee-whiz gadgetry of typical futurist movies, technology seems to have stopped advancing when the babies stopped coming. There's a couple of annoyingly unanswered questions in Children Of Men, but I strongly recommend it.

Related: It's always bugged me that Threads was never released in the US. It was shown once on PBS in 1985 and that's the one time I've seen it. There's a Zone 2 (European-format) DVD, but of course that's useless to me.

For New Yorkers: The Clearview Cinemas, bizarrely located in the Manhattan Mini-Storage building on 1st Avenue and 62nd Street, is just about the crummiest place to see a movie in Manhattan. Not recommended.