Busy weekend, saw a few films. Saturday night went down to Bar Open for a couple of pints with Pete. Then made our way over to St. Kilda to catch up with Duy for another beer.

'District 9' (2009) directed by Neill Blomkamp

Awesome sci-fi action film with a really strong storyline. One thing that I really liked about this film is that the main character remains flawed throughout, even when he becomes an action hero type figure. The characters have real depth. The journey in this film is gripping, emotional and thought provoking. It raises a number of issues about race, discrimination and how we treat refugees; using the sci-fi storyline as a way of approaching difficult topics. One of the most inventive sci-fi films I've seen.

'Orphan' (2009) directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Immensely creepy film. The performance of Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther is really disturbing. I couldn't help noticing that this film does borrow heavily from the film 'The Good Son'. A number of scenes explicitly mirror scenes from 'The Good Son' and the themes are pretty similar. However, 'Orphan' boasts a really neat twist that I didn't see coming. In fact, the twist serves to make all of the events of the film up to that point even more intense and creepy. It re-contextualises everything, which is what a good twist should do.

'War, Inc.' (2008) directed by Joshua Seftel

Bizarre film with no real sense of style that is basically very tedious. The plot is completely inscrutable and the tone is extremely quirky without being particularly amusing. I'm surprised I sat through all of it.