We went to see Children of Men tonight. It was really good, but so bleak and horrible and haunting that I don’t know if I could see it again.

It’s also the first time movie a movie reminded me of a video game. It wasn’t merely the dystopian/post-apocalyptic story and setting, which is common to video games like Half Life, Fear, and many others. It was the look and feel, the way we were given little clues to the back story, and the feeling of both engagement and inevitability.

The thing is, at least some of what made it remind me of a video game are things which made video games remind me of movies when I saw them in the first installment of Half Life a decade ago. I’m not really that big a gamer, I might play a game or two a year, and I’m not a big movie goer anymore, so it’s interesting that my frame of reference seems to have shifted.