姐夫的独宠

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

　　Olivia and The Clouds explores love's complexities through a Rashomon effect. Olivia, haunted by a past love, hides it under her bed. She trades flowers with this ghost in exchange for comforting rain clouds.

 沙漠里流传着一句话：天出血，人死绝。故事发生在旧时代的西北，这样一片沙漠地带，它讲述了一个爱情悲剧故事。年青的问九因乡邻间缺水争执而出逃在外，待回来时，曾与之心心相印的秀秀姑娘已被族叔迎娶，成了他的婶婶。水继续威胁着人们的生存，问九的族叔为富不仁，竟以空手能否从滚开的油锅里捞起铜钱来决定人们在绿洲的去留，他狠毒地骗问九替他捞起铜钱却又暗地加害问九。问九奋起抗争，砍死了族叔，被官府捉捕。牢狱未能囚住问九渴求自由的心。他一次次寻求机会越狱。数十年后，当问九逃出虎口，却又被沙漠里的土匪抓住逼他带路，对秀秀的爱情支撑着问九最后的生命，他再次出逃，挣扎着爬回自己的故乡。但黄沙已无情地吞噬了这里的一切，唯有刻着绿洲村的石柱还未被淹没。问九手抚石柱瞑目在这荒原上。荒原上，彩霞满天。天出血，人死绝。

　　所有人都以为，艾米（米拉·库妮丝 Mila Kunis 饰）拥有着幸福美满的婚姻生活——恩爱的丈夫，乖巧的孩子，优渥的生活条件，但只有艾米自己知道，为了维系这看似光鲜的表象，她的内心早已经精疲力尽。丈夫把所有的家务事都一股脑的甩在她的头上，在处理这些琐事的同时，艾米还必须兼顾着去讨好她周围其他的妈妈们。　　终于有一天，艾米再也受不了她的生活了，她离开了家庭，抛弃了丈夫和孩子，带着闺蜜琪琪（克里斯汀·贝尔 Kristen Bell 饰）和卡拉（凯瑟琳·哈恩 Kathryn Hahn 饰），两名同样受到生活疯狂压榨的家庭主妇，三人踏上了一条疯狂的狂欢之路。