This Filthy World:  Yeah, concert films are tough to review, and a concert film is exactly what this Jeff Garlin-directed feature is.  Like any picture of its ilk, your enjoyment will hinge solely on your ability to appreciate the performer, since these flicks all follow the same formula: Camera A, camera B, crowd shot, back to camera A.  As far as the on-stage talent is concerned, I can't think of anyone (save perhaps Michael Moore) more potentially polarizing than the Prince of Puke himself, John Waters.

In World, Waters delivers an 84-minute one-man performance that lands somewhere between a stand-up routine and the topsy-turvy story of his career.  On a stage decorated with a church confessional and overflowing garbage cans, the provocateur chronologically takes us through each of his features, from 1964's Hag in a Black Leather Jacket to A Dirty Shame, which debuted right here in Toronto two years ago.  There are occasional stops to discuss his love of bizarro criminal trials, autographing used tampons, and spending his formative years with Divine and Mink Stole.

Like I said, it's a hit-and-miss kind of thing.  I'm a big fan of Waters (read the Planet Sick-Boy interview with the Pope of Trash here), and even though I've heard quite of bit of his show before, I still enjoyed it.

These Girls:  Once in a while, I see a film that I'm convinced is missing its last reel (or two).  These Girls is one of those movies.  It's a documentary, made by Tahani Rached, that briefly follows the lives of a handful of teenage girls who live on the rough-and-tumble streets of Cairo.  They fight and huff and sleep in trees or abandoned cars.  They even have babies once in a while.  But mostly, they seem terrified by things that Rached never shows us.  Things like abusive cops and rape gangs who are said to drag girls off to a shack to have their way with them for two or three months.  Granted, it was probably difficult enough to earn the trust of the girls, let alone their antagonists, but you can't make a movie about the Boogey Man without showing him at least once.

The breakout star of Girls is Tata, a semi-fearless, hyper-aggressive young woman who protects her more vulnerable friends like a dog with a meaty bone.  I couldn't help but think that some of her actions and stories were concocted to make her sound tougher in front of the cameras, but I could be totally off base.  All I know is that I'd love to see her as a contestant on America's Next Top Model because she seemed pretty enough, and also it'd be fun to watch her cut some of the other bitches on that show.  Speaking of reality television, Girls reminded me a lot of Sundance's City of Men, aside from the abrupt ending after just 68 minutes.

Antonia:  Ever wondered what it would be like to try to launch a four-woman rap outfit in São Paulo, Brazil?  Me, neither, but I saw a fictionalized version of it in Tata Amaral's Antonia.  The four young women start out as back-up singers for a popular group of boy rappers, and make the most of their one-song shot as an opening act.  But after each successful gig, something disastrous happens on the way home.  Something that ultimately reduces the group's membership by one.  And that kind of makes the big upbeat finale a little tough to swallow.  File this one under: Middling.

Out of the Blue:  The latest from Robert Sarkies is a recreation of the Aramoana Massacre in New Zealand in 1990, during which the resident of a small village went bonkers and started shooting everyone who dared appear in his range of vision.  Blue kicks off by showing the morning routines of about a dozen characters before Captain Crazy himself (we know he's mental because he's the only one wearing a hat) gets all unhinged and makes with the killing.  Minimally, he's a paranoid schizophrenic with a gun collection, and that's generally a recipe for disaster.  Also, he looks a bit like "Bucky" Phillips.  Probably smells like him, too.

When the shooting starts, there's a 10-minute segment during which I'm not sure I took a breath.  It was a realistic, real-time spurt of horrifying violence that made my armpits tingle as I watched children and the elderly gunned down like fluffy little animals on Wanted: Ted or Alive.  I'm not shaken by much, but Blue is put together really well and it spooked the hell out of me.  More than any stupid American horror movie in recent memory.  Almost more than An Inconvenient Truth.

King and the Clown:  I had fairly high hopes for this offering from Lee Jun-ik, which recently became the top-grossing film in Korean history.  It sounded like a cross between a more romantic (yet totally gayer) take on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hamlet's play-within-the-play The Murder of Gonzago, but ended up being more of a period melodrama than either of those things.

Set in the 16th century, Clown focuses on two street theatre minstrels (Kam Woo-seong and Lee Jun-gi) who perform racy numbers about the King's bedroom activity and corruption within his ministry.  This lands them in hot water...at least until the frantic and slightly batty King (Jeong Jin-yeong) catches a show and nearly busts a gut.  Despite warnings from his advisors, he asks moves the performers into his castle, where an unusual love triangle begins alongside the increasingly risque satires.  Maybe it was the lack of sex.  Maybe it was the Jeong's performance, which was jarringly over-the-top.  At any rate, Clown was a little disappointing.