DISTRICT 9, MOVIE REVIEW

Left: Is That an Alien Prawn I See?




MOVIE REVIEW: DISTRICT 9

On a GPA scale of 1 (low) – 4 (high)
District 9 is 1.3.

I’m no sci fi fan, but the reviews led me to believe this movie would be better—maybe even sci fi for grownups. It wasn’t.

The visual impact of aliens as giant shrimp was nicely comic and interesting for maybe ten minutes. The image of the space ship hovering was, for some reason, haunting; it felt like a god. The rest of the movie was typically dime-store moralizing and hyper action, accentuated by extreme gore.

I am baffled by the high ratings this flick is getting from the pro reviewers—its average on Metacritic.com is a remarkable 81.

By comparison, here, with their Metacritic.com average ratings, are some middle- or low-brow movies I could argue for, especially if you include popcorn. For more notes on these and others, see this blog, August 13.

A Perfect Getaway 63.
The Hangover 73
Funny People 60.

More serious films that deserve at least their high average on Metacritic.com are: The Hurt Locker, 94 (see my review here on July 28 -- a 3.98 movie) and France’s Summer Hours, 84 (which I have not reviewed, but would rate a 3.8).

TGIF.

But Seriously . . . Health Care, Town Meetings. Movie Bits.

Sunset Finch


After yesterday’s shenanigans about town meetings, let me be straightforward about health care for a moment. I always worry when we try to make everyone equally blameworthy or praiseworthy. In a subject or situation as complex as 300 million human bodies, equal responsibility will never happen. There are smokers and speeders and bungee jumpers and late-night revelers and parents who give their babies red meat or refuse to give them red meat . . . and there are plenty, plenty, plenty of the plain old unlucky. I've been there. Have you? Probably so. Maybe it's time we all drop the hysteria, study the material, do the best we can, forgive each other and pay up. Is that kind of thinking Communist or Christian?

And Mr. Gothpunker, I’m not forgetting you. I predict line-by-line analyses of your shenanigans in the near future (though I think I’m getting something of your drift about poetry, general culture, and elitism). I predict a return to highbrow topics over the weekend or early next week.

To lighten up for now, here are some random thoughts on movies.

I should have hated A Perfect Getaway but thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot violates or stretches all kinds of rules about manipulation and plausibility, but dammit, it's fun. And I'm afraid it badly, badly needs the big screen--some great Hawaii scenery that you don't want to squeeze into a TV, even your fancy flat screen. Don't quit on it after the first 15 minutes or so, where the characters are completely unlikable. Things change--maybe not likability, but just . . . things.

Recently, a friend asked what I thought about Judd Apatow’s movies. They sort of blend together for me, but I've enjoyed them all, at least as an excuse to have popcorn. Ditto The Hangover was a working definition of guilty pleasure. Even more so, Funny People, starring Seth Rogen (who else?) and Adam Sandler, who's usually not my favorite actor. Still, that movie had more substance than most Apatow films, though comedy prevailed most of the time.

Another pleasant surprise was 500 Days of Summer , which had a bit of an Apatow feel.

Go see a movie this weekend. Get out of the heat. Have popcorn. Be a minor sinner. Tell your intellect to shut up for two hours--nobody listens to reason anyway. Go to a matinee, so you don't have to tell so many people to shut up. Well, at least your odds improve. Have popcorn. Get butter. Then you're even with the bungee jumpers and NASCAR drivers in the health care game.