As much as science fiction films are maligned for being the playground of geeks and fanboys, the genre has a pretty stellar track record when it comes to reinventing what we as an audience expect from the cinema. To those that saw them in their original theatrical release, films like Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Blade Runner are described as "experiences" more often than as "films;" drawing out the hyperbolic sides of people, phrases like "life-changing" aren't at all uncommon.

As soon as there's a generation of filmgoers young enough to have missed it, I imagine I'll be saying the same things to them about Children of Men.

Children of Men is a film in the dystopian tradition of 1984, Brazil, and Brave New World, presenting a vision of a future where everything has fallen apart. In the case of Children of Men, which is set in England in 2027, the trouble started in 2009 when humanity mysteriously lost the ability to have children. This left people without a future to worry about and without hope, and the resulting chaos appears to have brought about turmoil all over the globe (I say "appears" because we never leave England, though the British propaganda suggests that the English are doing better than most). England has remained above the fray by becoming a de facto police state, complete with armed soldiers in the streets and a network of internment camps for housing the "fugees," refugees from parts of the world that aren't faring as well.

Amidst all of the (well-deserved) praise for Judd Apatow's recent successes as a writer-director-producer, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that he's following a trail that was pretty well blazed by John Hughes twenty years ago. Like Apatow, Hughes made a name for himself by using a tight-knit group of collaborators to make a series of comedies that were at times slapstick, at times raunchy, at times high brow, and at all times built around a strong, essentially heartwarming story of personal growth.

Uncle Buck, Hughes' penultimate film, is a great example of this. John Candy, in one of his finest performances, plays Buck Russell, a proud bachelor that has built his life around having nothing and no one to weigh him down. After a family emergency, Buck is called upon to babysit his nephew Miles (Macaulay Culkin, at his most precocious) and nieces Maizy (Gaby Hoffmann) and Tia (Jean Louisa Kelly). He quickly gains the trust and love of the young Miles and Maizy, but teenaged neice Tia is old enough to recognize Buck for the black sheep that he is, and she intends to use Buck's stay as an opportunity to get away with things her parents wouldn't allow, especially with her boyfriend, "Bug."

In Bruges opened and closed here in the US without much notice. For all I know, it had a similar reception around the world. But for my money, it is one of the most interesting films 2008 has yet produced.

It begins simply enough, as a sort of fish-out-of-water buddy comedy with Ray (Colin Farrell), a streetwise Dubliner, suffering through his forced stay in Bruges with his partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson). Ray cannot bear the "medieval fairytale land" that is Bruges; Ken cannot seem to get enough of the place, with its historic churches and picturesque canals.

Following the killing of a priest in England (Ray and Ken are hitmen), the pair are hiding out in Bruges at the request of their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes). They're keeping a low-profile and generally trying to keep themselves sane in the sleepy tourist town. But what begins as a fun comedy of errors evolves into something much larger, as the characters develop from stereotypical tropes into full-fledged individuals, and the plot twists take the story into unexpected and thoroughly rewarding places. Much like a stage play (unsurprising, given writer-director Martin McDonagh's background as a playwright), In Bruges unfolds from a simple premise into a complicated ballet of dramatic irony and character study.