Next time: promptly, please.

The prompter the refusal, the less the disappointment.
- Publilius Syrus (Roman author, 1st century B.C.)

After watching Immortel (ad vitam), Steenblogen and I made our usual pitstop at IMDb to check up on trivia, get a look at the soundtrack, etc. I don't know how familiar you are with the IMDb format, but at the very bottom of a movie's front page, there's a section called 'recommendations' or something. It's a "if you liked this movie, you might also like this other movie" kinda thing.

Well, for Immortel (ad vitam), IMDb users recommended Code 46 and, since we both like Tim Robbins we decided to give it a go.

While initially promising, this speculative riff on the nature of a truly globalized world--with an increasingly small gene pool and indescribably vast gulf between the haves and have-nots--descends into the worst kind of puerile misogyny in the third act. Personally, I'm bitterly disappointed at the wasted potential: the film is beautifully shot, acted well enough and set out with some lofty thematic goals that really raised my hopes. A cerebral science-fiction film that combines an art-house aesthetic with true futurist speculation is a rare thing (name three, I dare you) and I really wanted to like this movie.

Oh, and while I'll admit that it can be annoyingly effective, I do hereby declare a moratorium on the use of Coldplay songs to connote pensive sentimentality and/or melancholy in visual media. I like the band too, but enough already.

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As I'm writing this, Broken Social Scene's debut record, Feel Good Lost is weaving through its coda with the dreamy "Cranley's Gonna Make It" and it perfectly suits the closed, melancholy atmosphere of the office today.