HOT: Sunshine Cleaning, Classic Cinema, 9 Gordon St, Elsternwick

It's hardly a surprise that perenially sunny Amy Adams is the star of the movie called Sunshine Cleaning. But it's not all singalongs and pastel cupcakes - the film is about a former high school cheerleader, now single mum Rose (Adams) who teams up with her flaky, dope-smoking sister Norah (Emily Blunt with a very convincing American accent) to start an unusual business - a crime scene clean-up service. The movie is not so much about cleaning as it is about Rose's down-at-heel life, complete with dead-end affair with her former high school sweetheart, and the sisters loving and sometimes fractitious relationship. It's a funny, kooky and heartwarming film and I think everyone will relate a little to the dysfunctional Lorkowski family.

HOT: My Year Without Sex, Classic Cinema, 9 Gordon St, Elsternwick

Wow. In all my blogging history, I've never received such angry comments as those received in response to my NOT for Samson and Delilah. But if I'm going to open up HOT or NOT to anonymous commentators, then I know I have to be ready to receive (and post) dissenting views. Hey, even the Cannes International Film Festival jury disagreed with me!

However, I must admit I'm feeling a little defensive so I can't resist giving a teeny jab to my violently dissenting readers by saying that I really enjoyed My Year Without Sex, a new film by Australian director Sarah Watt. Yes, I managed to enjoy the story and relate to the characters even though I'm not Anglo Australian, married, don't live in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, didn't grow up playing or watching footy and I don't have kids, a mortgage or a brain aneurysm.

The film is a low-key, charming and funny film about the year in the life of a suburban, middle-class family. When the mother, Natalie (brilliant Sacha Horler), is diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, her husband Ross (still fresh-faced Matt Day) and two kids bravely continue living out the dramas and humour of the everyday - whether it's organising a makeover birthday party, the tooth fairy tipsily depositing her pokie winnings one night and conducting a pet funeral over the Western Bulldogs team song. The characters are likeable and believable and you come out of the cinema with a wonderfully warm feeling in your heart. A real pleasure.

HOT: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Classic Cinema, 9 Gordon St, Elsternwick 3185

It's not often that I'd say that a film adaptation is better than the book, but to my surprise that was the case for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

I really didn't like the book, mostly because I thought the protaganist Bruno was rather annoying and frustratingly dim about what his Nazi commandant father did for a living, and that the 'farm' next door was a concentration camp. So I didn't have any expectation that I would enjoy the movie.

However, in the film, the big wide eyes of Asa Butterfield managed to convince me that perhaps an 8 year old could be that innocent, even right up to the end (which I won't give away). Also, Vera Farmiga impressed me with her portrayal of his mother as she moved from pride to disenchantment to anguish.

Some reviewers have criticised the film for sanitising the horrors of a concentration camp, but I think director Mark Herman has achieved the right balance here, as the whole purpose of the storyline is that it is told from the perspective of a child who has the truth hidden away from him. Perhaps he is a useful symbolic counterpart for all those citizens of Nazi Germany who deliberately chose not to see or to know.