A bit late with my comments but it's been a busy couple of days...

EVERYTHING'S GONE GREEN
8/10
This Canadian film was written by Douglas Coupland, who's one of my favourite authors, and set in Vancouver (Go Canucks, Go!), my second favourite city (Melbourne's #1). I was raised there till I was 12, so that might have something to do with it. So, I was very much looking forward to this film that was meant to show Vancouver as itself. Due to lower costs of shooting, Vancouver is used a lot for filming of TV and movies and is shot to represent generic american cities. 21 Jump Street was shot there, so was Dead Like Me, and the Fantastic Four movie. The film itself was very 'Coupland-esque', so if you've read his books you'll probably know what to expect - not a huge action packed story, but more of a meander through the lives of a few characters. In this one, the lead character loses his girlfriend and his job in the first 10 minutes of the film, and the rest of the film deals with his new job, a girl he met who he's interested in, and about how the world's system of ethics is a grey area and how people choose to live their lives. There are lots of great shots of Vancouver's trademarks (which, like Melbourne there are few, if not none that are 'world famous' We saw GM Place (where the Vancouver Canucks play), the Science museum, Grouse Mountain, the Lion's Gate Bridge, etc. One of my faves of the festival.

SOMEONE TO RUN WITH
8/10
Every year I try and pick a one or two films out of a showcase that I wouldn't normally consider myself interested in. The Israeli showcase is one of those, and I've picked two films this year. I like to experiment with the films I see, as I might just find something that surprises me. This is one of those films - I really didn't know what to expect, but really enjoyed this. It's a bit of a journey film (not quite a road movie) about a boy who's trying to find the owner of a lost dog in his summer job at a pound. As the dog leads him around town, the film cuts to scenes from the recent past where the dog's owner, a young girl, has had some kind of experience of her own, and this builds the background story of what happened to her and the dog as we go. The boy becomes infatuated with finding the girl, almost to the point of obsession. The film could have been better, but could easily have gone so much more wrong. A couple of points were a little confusing to me, such as what the whole premise about the girl's living conditions were - she's a busker who sings, and joins a collective of other buskers who are ruled with an iron-fist by a pig of a man who is running them as a front for his business I think. But why, I'm not sure... Also, strangers seem to immediately know the dog when the boy comes to a new location. This is a labrador mind you, and not one with a giant 'I belong to...' tattoo on its fur, so how people come to immediately know that the dog that the boy is walking is the same dog they saw with a girl weeks earlier, I'm not sure. Anyway, it was an enjoyable film, and worth checking out.