Arty sci-fi movies

I saw Code 46 last night. Although it is marketed as a sci-fi flick, it is really a love story with sci-fi elements. The movie is shot in the langurous way so popular with arty sci-fi (Solaris, Blade Runner, THX-1138), so you get long brooding shots of faces and cities. I think this works better on the big screen as it lets you drink in the visuals. On the TV it just seems slow and plodding. Anyway, the movie postulates a environmentally wrecked Earth, where the areas outside cities are mostly desert and are populated by an excluded underclass. The well-off don't have so great either. If you have sex with someone who has a genetic match greater than 25%, (with extensive gene-modding, apparently a common problem) you get whisked off to a clinic where the memory of the sexual encoutner and the embroyo are eliminated. I wish the movie would have spent more time on these elements of the story, but it primarily follows Tim Robbins' and Samantha Morton's doomed love affair, which reminded me of a less interesting Lost in Translation.

Clash fans will want to see Mick Jones as a boozy karaoke singer belting out "Should I Stay or Should I Go." That was the highlight of the movie for me.