Monstro and I have of late been embroiled in what for us has been a first-run movie-watching frenzy. A couple weekends ago we went to see “Avatar.” Then, tonight, we watched our Netflix of “District 9.”
District 9 is a much better movie than Avatar: here's why. SPOILERS (and probably typos, it's late) AHEAD.
District 9 starts the way you're always told to start a film in a beginning screenwriting class, but the premise is stripped down so as to be rendered completely unimaginative. A guy who would be the last guy you'd ever think would be in such a situation. Hell, it's security and “documentary” footage. How could anyone be sucked into such a boring premise told so stiffly?
[(that “such a boring premise” began with a Freudian “suck” in the first draft)]
Then we see what the humans are doing: incineratingly creepy medical experiments, evicting the other aliens from their tin shacks into a tent city, general all-around grossness. It probably helps this American that the host country is South Africa — even without the Apartheid influences, the Johannesburg language and geography is foreign. Makes it easier to take when you see the big, honkin', mothership that's been hovering over the city for more than two decades.
The hero is everyman. The Enemy Mine is a brilliant aerospace computer scientist; his son is bright and respectful and can be sent ahead to “run the binary sequence,” which are the top three reasons to have a kid. District 9 makes it easy to root for that side of the table, especially when those on the bride's side (literally, the hero is married to the daughter of the Bigbad Corp's executive leader) are gun-toting concentration-camp doctors.
I mean, come on. You're gripped. You're not even bothered by the blatant sequel foreshadowing. “When are you coming back? THREE YEARS! WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO BE? District 10!”
Then, there's Avatar. And I'm not here to dis on James Cameron, because Lord Knows that man can make a movie, and 'Aliens' was what passed for a religious experience in my junior-high days, and you can shut up about Sigourney Weaver, because her performance in 'Working Girl' was the pinnacle of bossy selfish bitchdom, and now that she's 60 there's no flies on her, nuh-uh.
But first, there's the lead guy; kind of a Mark Wahlberg but legless. And they don't let you forget that for an instance. The wheelchair should pull residual checks, you see it nearly more than the man IN it for the first 30 minutes. It's the world's first inanimate object to chew scenery.
Sergeant Wheelie (no disrespect: it's Cameron's vision) has a twin brother, except he doesn't anymore, a scientist who got killed while I was watching the “please turn off your cell phone” cartoon. Seems Marky Mark's the only one who can fuse with the alien harness force, or something about their central nervous systems, whatever.
Then there's the heartless, tough-as-nails military commander who's really in charge, even though the corporate-but-no-longer-pipsqueaky Giovanni Ribisi thinks it's all about the Benjamins.
And Zoe Saldana is smokin' hot and looks good in blue.
The whole movie is so pedantic that it's like Cameron won't be satisfied until the length of his political agenda is pressing right up against your gag reflex. But it's hard for me to cheer wholeheartedly against a military complex that has arrived to suck the native natural resources from the land — it would have been better to turn the military into private security for Chevron or some such — damn the natives, and it wouldn't be so hard maybe if the bad guys weren't all Americans.
At the end of all the stuff that happens, legless guy is going to die so he can permanently inhabit his alien form. And I'm supposed to be all, “Yay, he's not a human anymore, but he can walk”? It's too much of a conundrum. No Oscar for you (except every single special/visual effects award, which should be renamed from the Oscar the James Cameroney)!
On down the list:
“Up”: I haven't seen the first 15 minutes of this film, because Monstro doesn't want to be the first one to scar Lex irreparably emotionally, but I've seen the last 80 minutes twice and you know what? Not great.
“Up in the Air”: The Academy isn't going to give Jason Reitman an Oscar yet, not until his dad directs “Ghostbusters 3.”
I haven't seen 'The Hurt Locker,' but it won the British Oscar, and a producer got pinged for emailing “vote for my film!” to his address book, so I don't think the Academy's going to give it Best Picture over here.
“Precious”? I'm thinking not.
“The Blind Side” vs. “District 9”? Don't make me laugh; even though The Blind Side appeals to the part of me who is dying to adopt a Haitian orphan, it's not going to be the 2010 Best Picture.
And there are at least thirty-seven other “Best Picture” nominees this year, but I don't know who they are so who cares?
When you get down to the nitty-gritty sweepings of the late-night-movie usher, it's Peter Jackson's “District 9” vs. Quentin Tarantino's “Inglourious Basterds.” Anyone with eyes can tell you that by the Fu Manchu on Brad Pitt's chin, it just ain't Tarantino's year. (Maybe if he'd spelled at least ONE of the words right. Quentin, you auteur terrîble. When will you ever learn?) Motormouth sez: DISTRICT 9 FTW!
Yeah, I liked District 9, but I think it had problems. One: too many red herrings (who was supposed to operate the ship?, why were the aliens starving? why did the aliens never think to use their weapons to steal some catfood? Why was everyone so concerned with weapons for 20 years that only the aliens could use). The movie continuously says, “we don't know why…” and it's supposed to cure all the mysteries, but you know what? I don't know why either…and the things I don't know ought to be obvious. They weren't the kind of mysteries that drive a plot–they were the kind that indicated sloppy writing. Tell me why the heavilly armed aliens let their children get slaughtered in a scene that I think is a great reason NOT to like the hero no matter what. Plus, I think Avatar is hard for Americans to watch becuase they're Americans–and for no other reason. Earth finds a planet and starts stripping it of its natural resources despite the fact that they don't really understand how the natives work. I kept thinking, they've ripped off Jorune (google it, if you'd like), and everyone else kept saying, “it's the Iraq war.” Looked as much like Cortez to me as anything else.
For me, the problem with Avatar is that you can't make a movie like that anymore without forcing the audience to watch it like a Rorschcack test. Lord of the Rings was about Nazis, you know, nobody bothered to bring politics into that. So, you have this problem where Americans watch the movie and can't think about anything other than THEIR problems, which seems to me like their being hounded by their own sense of guilt, not Cameron's. Nonetheless, I agree, it shouldn't win. The point of a movie like Avatar is to let you escape (the main character gets to escape being a parapelegic), and in that respect, it doesn't. I'm sure that we can all insist that it was Cameron's point to force a political message, but then I can't tell what that message is, exactly. Do I feel more guilty watching Avatar because of my country's environmental stance or its desire for endless war over oil.