If you haven’t seen Sita Sings the Blues, it’s the perfect thing to watch if you think Creative Commons is for people who can’t get a contract with a “real” production house, or that crowdfunding is for artists who aren’t good enough to get “real” sponsors. This is one of the best features I’ve seen all year. Of course it’s free, so you’re not risking any money, and I personally guarantee it’s worth your time. Do yourself a favour and download the best quality version your bandwidth can handle (i.e. not YouTube). Watch it when you’re in the mood for an intelligent, light comedy.

My favourite part is that Nina Haley is a self-taught animator, and she made the entire film at home on her Mac, using Flash and After Effects, and scanning in some hand-painted watercolours.

I was not all that familiar with the Ramayana before this, nor the music of Annette Hanshaw, but now I want to know everything about both.

Fish Story has absolutely everything I love in a film. I can’t really tell you what it’s about in a few simple words, (A) because that would be like trying to sum up Pulp Fiction in a few simple words, and (B) because I don’t want to risk ruining it for you. In fact, if you can get a copy of this movie and force yourself not to read the attached blurb or the synopsis on the back of the box, that would probably be best. Let yourself be completely surprised.

Just trust me, this one’s a winner. Definitely the best film I’ve seen so far in 2010, and even if I count all the films I saw in 2009, it would still easily be in the top five. Maybe even still number one.

IMDB (warning: if you read more than a sentence or two on this page the plot will get spoiled pretty quickly)

NETFLIX (again, be careful what you read, because you can’t un-ring that bell)

Last night I watched a film called 鬼域 (Re-cycle). This movie will mess with your head— I can’t recommend it enough. The Pang Brothers managed to recreate the exact look and feel of nightmares, mixed with a little bit of bad acid trip. It’s beautiful. And terrifying. I love the idea of there being a dimension where all the abandoned, discarded, neglected, and rejected things live. They managed to do creepy without corny.

And there was an excellent plot twist at the end.

Apparently there were people who complained that the film was basically pro-life propaganda, but in the end I think what the Pang Brothers said on that subject was sufficient— aborted babies were just one of about five zillion things that lived in the alternate dimension, but of course people conveniently ignore the other 4.99 zillion things when they see aborted fetuses and are determined to get their panties in a twist about it. Personally, had I not known about the controversy beforehand, the thought of it being pro-life evangelism never would have entered my mind. It was just a story about a woman struggling with decisions she made in her past… lots of decisions in lots of different areas of her life. It was also about the decisions other people made regarding her. Very complex film.

So many colour ideas: green, yellow, cyan, orange. Sometimes separate, sometimes paired, sometimes all together. A really, really beautiful film to watch.

If you’re looking for this film online, it can be a little bit difficult to locate because of the name. The transliterated title is Gwai Wik— you can view the IMDB page here, or add it to your NetFlix queue.