Castro (2009)

2009 | Argentina | Alejo Moguillansky | ★★★★

Alejo Moguillansky's discomfortingly entertaining, Becket-inspired Castro is an absurdist existential comedy-thriller, featuring nonsensical plotting, incongruous scoring, and game perfromances from Edgardo Castro, Julia Martínez Rubio, Esteban Lamothe, et al.

---

"Four characters are looking for a man called Castro, but we don’t know why. For some mysterious reason, Castro is running. He has left his life behind, and survives by hiding in a room in a small city. He is basically alone, but someone has appeared in his life, Celia. She is young, beautiful, and sometimes cruel." TMDb

Wake Wood (2009)

2009 | Ireland | David Keating | ★

David Keating's poorly crafted Wake Wood is an ineffective Irish horror film, featuring an ill-fitting score, poor editing, unconvincing dialogue, and strangely lacklustre performances from a surprisingly well assembled cast, which includes Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle, and Timothy Spall.

---

"Still grieving the death of their only child, Alice, a young couple relocate to the remote town of Wake Wood where they stumble on a group of villagers practising Pagan rituals. They soon learn that this ritual has the power to bring back the dead, and would allow them three days with their beloved daughter. They agree terms with the village leader (Timothy Spall) but then far bigger questions loom... what will they do when it's time for Alice to go back? Will she go back peacefully? Or are there more sinister forces at work?" Momentum Pictures

Symbol (2009)

しんぼる

2009 | Japan | Matsumoto Hitoshi | ★★★★

Matsumoto Hitoshi's hugely entertaining, utterly bonkers Symbol is a wild, abstruse Japanese comedy, featuring wacky, colourful imagery, unfathomably fun plotting, and a cartoonishly full-blooded central performance from the director himself.

---

"In the central tale, a Japanese man wakes up alone in a brightly illuminated white room with no windows or doors. When he presses a mysteriously phallic protuberance that appears on one wall, a pink toothbrush materializes from nowhere, setting in motion a very strange series of events. And now for something completely different: TV comedian turned director Hitoshi Matsumoto and his hilarious, oddball, upside down approach to popular filmmaking. One man (Matsumoto!) is trapped in a room; another, a Mexican wrestler, starts his day. Only pure ingenuity could connect them together." Mubi

Moon (2009)

2009 | UK | Duncan Jones | ★★★★

Duncan Jones's beautifully crafted, BAFTA-winning Moon is a smart, quietly moving piece of existential science-fiction, featuring a thought-provoking script, excellent production design and effects, and a great performance from Sam Rockwell.

---

"Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is nearing the completion of his 3-year-long contract with Lunar Industries, mining Earth's primary source of energy on the dark side of the moon. Alone with only the base's vigilant computer Gerty (voiced by Oscar-Winner Kevin Spacey, 1999 Best Actor, American Beauty) as his sole companion, Bell's extended isolation has taken its toll. His only link to the outside world comes from satellite messages from his wife and young daughter. He longs to return home, but a terrible accident on the lunar surface leads to a disturbing discovery that contributes to his growing sense of paranoia and dislocation so many miles away from home. Moon is an engrossing, intelligent sci-fi thriller that ranks with genre classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey." Sony Pictures

U Be Dead (2009)

2009 | UK | Gwyneth Hughes | ★★

Starring David Morrissey, Tara Fitzgerald, Lucy Griffiths, and Monica Dolan, Gwyneth Hughes's U Be Dead is a sporadically engaging but generally mediocre TV thriller based on a true story, featuring uneven performances and bland photography.

---

"A doctor and his girlfriend are stalked by a woman who claims to be in love with him. Meanwhile, the man falls in love with a younger woman. Based on a true story" TMDb

Ocean's Tortola (2009)

2009 | British Virgin Islands | Camroy Peters | ★

Camroy Peters's Ocean's Tortola is a relatively ambitious but decidedly amateurish Caribbean crime film.

---

"An organization by the name of Artimus Global goes after a police commissioner who is hunting them down." TMDb