Terry Gilliam‘s 1995 Twelve Monkeys went largely unnoticed by most of the cinema-going public, but contains one of the best performances of Brad Pitt‘s career and one of the best and most original performances in, at that time, Bruce Willis‘ career.  Also starring Madeleine Stowe, Twelve Monkeys is the story of a man named James Cole (Willis), a convict in the future who is drafted as a volunteer to go back in time to help restore his present-time.  Forgive me if this gets confusing, but it’s confusing to watch too, in a rewarding way.

This is a pretty original concept that is effectively put on-screen. In the very near future, this movie shows an in-progress apocalypse in which all of the world except the United Kingdom has fallen because women are no longer able to get pregnant. It’s refreshing that the film-makers make no effort whatsoever to explain why women can no longer have babies as it just forces the viewer to accept it as a possibility and just watch.

Christian Bale stars in this thriller depicting a dystopia in a future that is at least farther away than World War III in which society has decided to try to live without emotion of any kind for fear of the consequences of negative emotions. People are tranquil, but sedated, taking medications at regular intervals which almost imitate the ringing of church bells in the medieval period calling people to worship.

The Matrix: Revolutions is the final installment of the Wachowski brothers’ Matrix trilogy which, when viewed on its own merit is a remarkable action movie, but of very poor quality when considered in its proper role as the final episode of this modern epic. In Revolutions, which is set to take place immediately after the conclusion of The Matrix Reloaded (Widescreen Edition), Neo (Keanu Reeves) is in an apparent coma, having been imprisoned by a rogue program, somewhere between the Matrix and the computer network that lies outside of it.

The City of Lost Children was the second movie of Jeunet’s which I watched and was one of the first movies I sought out specifically because of the director.  It has since become one of my all-time favorites movies.  It can best be described as an adult fairy tale with vivid imagery of mechanisms reminiscent of Brazil, the ever-present Dominique Pinon, and American actor Ron Perlman.

This movie presents us with a surreal world that is specifically not placed within any particular place or any particular time.  The main topic of the movie is that a scientist named Krank (Daniel Emilfork) who lives on a floating laboratory with his family is not able to dream and is experimenting with a variety of methods, most of which are very questionable in their safety and very likely to harm their test subjects.

The scientist kidnaps children from a nearby unnamed city to study them and what makes them able to dream.  One of the last children to be kidnapped in this fashion is Miette (played by Judith Vittet) who has recently befriended a gentle giant named One (Ron Perlman).  The two quickly become friends and when Miette is kidnapped we follow the adventure of One through the fantastic sets and unimaginable worlds to save her from the scientist.