Birthdays
Mila Kunis b. 1983 (Oz: The Great and Powerful, Ted, The Book of Eli)
Zack Whedon b. 1979 (writer/singer, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog)
Halle Berry b. 1966 (X-Men, Catwoman, Cloud Atlas)
Brannon Braga b. 1965 (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Alexei Panshin b. 1940
(winner of 1969 Nebula for Rite of Passage)
I never saw Catwoman but I do like the costume. The consensus is it was the only good thing in the movie. Many happy returns to all.
Movies released
District 9 released, 2009
I did see District 9. "White hot hate" sums up my feelings nicely.
Prediction: In 2010, District 9, the camp that has held the aliens known commonly as The Prawns for 28 years, is being forcibly evacuated
Predictor: District 9, released 14 August 2009
Reality: Technically, this is a future from an alternate timeline, since there wasn't a public encounter with aliens in 1981. I disliked the movie for many reasons, not least of which is the Nigerians are cast as the criminal bad guys who control drugs and prostitution in District 9.
To my mind, there are some alien races humans would have sex with voluntarily and some that are out of bounds. The Prawns fall in the second category, like the creatures in Predator and Alien and Mars Attacks! But in Blomkamp's mind, Nigerians would stoop to this level for money. Can you say "white privilege"?
Put together scientifically implausible, dull, derivative and racist and you get one of the worst movies of the century so far in my book.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
Another prediction from H.G.Wells' The Shape of Things to Come.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
Jebus.
ReplyDeleteMore pneumatic tubery.
Some futures never die. None of these genius billionaires are getting us any closer to flying cars, are they?
DeleteUseless bastids.
Catwoman was pretty bad and Sharon Stone was the worst part of it.
ReplyDeleteI kind of liked District 9, actually. I mean, once you've suspended disbelief for huge interstellar ships breaking down completely, necessitating a total abandonment, what else is there that's implausible?
ReplyDeleteBut the Nigerian thing, I always kind of viewed as a nod to the apartheid history of South Africa, and the thing about sex with Prawns was presented as a hearsay thing from the white folks, I thought that was more of the casual racism that was being shown, in a "THOSE PEOPLE are little better than animals, they would have sex with aliens! THAT'S how bad THEY are!" I thought he was showing how a heavily racist society would treat stranded aliens, even if it was ludicrously heavy handed. (Alien Nation treated it similarly, if more nuanced)
I guess we'll have to wait to see how he does with Elysium....
DeleteFor my many reasons for disliking the film, there is this blog post I wrote four years ago.
http://lotsasplainin.blogspot.com/2009/09/district-nine-worse-than-cloverfield.html
(Note: R.F.S. is my own personal acronym for Rock Fucking Stupidity.)
Well, that was entertainingly foul-mouthed. I didn't get a real sense for how you feel about the movie, however....
DeleteI guess I am inured to the decades of crappy sci fi movies. I don't disagree with any of your criticisms to any great extent. I think we could argue the racist aspects of the movie; I don't see how they are different from Alien Nation, except the Nigerian aspect, which seemed natural-kind-of to me. South Africa is a country with even trickier race relations than America.
DeleteI still like the story about Wikus' travel from a casual bureaucratic racist to the object of his racism. It's a pretty good parable.
As far as scientific implausibility, how does it stack up against using a Powerbook to destroy an alien armada? I mean, I love my Macs, but come ON.
I'm glad to have the discussion, ZRMcD. As you may have seen on my blog, Karlacita! defended the movie and she is my sister, still on my Christmas list and everything.
Delete1. "No worse than Independence Day" is not a very high bar to clear. As I joked when the President was part of the fleet in space, "Who is the ranking official still on Earth? I think it's the stripper."
2. I saw Wikus as much better and kinder than the people around him. Then again, I had nicer thoughts about Tony Soprano than most people I know.
3. As I wrote in the blog post, if The Prawns aren't part of the economy and live on garbage, how can criminals make a profit exploiting them? That is at least as big a plot hole as a disabled ship floating for 28 years while clearly contained in our planet's gravity field. In movies about magic, gravity doesn't have to act properly. In sci-fi, it really does.
4. The Magic Potion that makes the ship work also turns Wikus into a Prawn. That is off the charts implausible and I was already pissed.
While I always think I am right about my opinions (and who doesn't?), I am often not with the majority. Besides my dad, I don't know anybody else who left E.T. pissed as hell and spitting bullets.
I've never actually watched E.T. Too cutesy by half.
Deletebspencer has a min-review of Elysium at LGM. Sounds like Blomkamp didn't do any better with a bigger budget.
ReplyDeleteYeah, a lot of the reviews went with "not as good as District 9", and that's good enough for me to give it a miss. Might watch it on Netflix if very desperate.
DeleteThere's a lot of desperation material on Netflix, at least the streaming movies.
DeleteDon't I know it! Tonight, if I can't come up with a better idea, I'm going to watch another episode of Lost Girl or Continuum, weak examples of Canadian Hot Chick Sci-Fi. (Strong example: Orphan Black.)
DeleteIs my life a sad thing? Res ipsa loquitur, bitchez!