Last night I attended the new movie "V for Vendetta" which was produced by the same brothers who produced "The Matrix" movie series (among my favorite films in recent years).

The movie is based on a comic book (an intellectual sort of sci-fi book, not the kind for kids) and shows a futuristic Orwellian England, where a human health and security scare was used by the government as an excuse to take away people's personal liberties and confine their lives to curfews and censorship. Art, homosexuality and the Koran (among other things) are all illegal .

There's a certain fetish quality to many of the costumes, including the Guy Fawkes masked lead. This is not surprising, given that one of the brother producers has apparently taken up permanent residence with a dominatrix (i.e., to live a 24/7 lifestyle as one of her submissives). Strange stuff.

I would rate this movie as about an 8 out of 10. It's not "great" but is worth seeing if, like me, you're interested in alternative perspectives. My interest in the film was less in its being a parable of contemporary America and England under George Bush and Tony Blair, and more of an apocalyptic vision of what life might be life after a bird flu epidemic wipes out a huge part of the world's population -- a scenario that is not so far fetched as it sounds. In my mind, I also inserted a global warming catastrophe analogy, although that isn't actually part of this movie.

On second thought, maybe you shouldn't see this movie. I mean, with the Global War on Terrorism filling the media and Global Warming on the front cover of Time magazine, reality is already frightening enough.