America Loves Dead People

Caught a fleeting glimpse of the wall-to-wall coverage of the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

Why does his tenure, albeit long, in Senate deserve this coverage?  One news station literally had video of a Kennedy dog (named ‘Splash’, I believe).  I left the room before I presume they began to interview Splash.

Even Michael Jackson’s death coverage may have been more deserving of this circus-level coverage.  At least his death was a bit of a surprise and under dubious circumstances.  Haven’t we all been on Ted Kennedy Deathwatch for about a year now?

I would have preferred if Robert S. McNamara have received this sort of send-off.

Actually, I would prefer if no one ever received this sort of send-off.

… and the cow goes moo

District 9: Worst movie about race since Crash

I’m about as pessimistic as can be about Hollywood features in general, even when they garner near-universal acclaim like District 9 — the very mediocre Slumdog Millionaire comes quickest to mind — so maybe I only have myself to blame for setting myself up for this disappointment.

But hot fuck, was I offended by the rank stupidity of District 9.

Even by Independence Day-level summer sci-fi blockbuster conceits (big splosions, bravado, and black and white divisions between good and bad, blue-collar miners installing nukes into an asteroid to save the world, etc., etc.), District 9 tests the limits of plausibility within the first few minutes of the film.

Aliens coming to the Earth and, in an interesting change from the standard fare, NOT blowing up the White House?  Fine.  Great, even.

Aliens coming to the Earth as refugees, able to transport a million of their kind to another occupied planet and getting stuck with apparently only 1.5 members of the race having the sparsest trace of intellect (actually, have 1,000,000+ depicted-as-retards aliens, and 1.5 super geniuses)?  That’s just silly.

Huddled masses of refugee aliens being put into internment camps on Earth, and somehow having being allowed to bring their weapons and whiz-bang-super-robots-that-only-aliens-can-operate with them?  Holy fuck, man.

I’m trying not to spoil too much of the story, but these are all key factors in the foundation of the story and certainly do not approach the logic required of science fiction, hardly come close to the amount of reason required of a summer popcorn flick, and barely meet the standards of the horror franchise “[Once Profitable Horror Franchise]… In Space!” movie-making (think Jason X, Leprechaun In Space, among I’m sure countless others).  And at least in horror movies like those, there are tits by the end of the first hour.  And even the appearance of said tits are better explained in Leprechaun in Space than the appearance of Alien death rays in the camps.

If District 9 were supposed to be a simple popcorn feature, you could almost condone the suspension of disbelief required (thankfully, most of your disbelief need be exercised in the first half-hour or so.  Sadly, that is when the movie is creating the ridiculous world in which its characters are to exist for the next 90 minutes.)

But District 9 — from what I could glean from the buzz, effectively-discrete marketing, and early reviews — was supposed to be much more than that: A fantastical science fiction movie like Blade Runner, that intended to entertain as well as provide some thoughtful illustration of all-too-real issues we face today, and seem likely to continue to face at the limits of imagined time.

And here is where it fails most unforgivably:  District 9 provides no observations worth repeating that could improve the understanding of conflict over race for anyone over the age of twelve.  Thankfully, the filmmakers provide enough innuendo and imagery to reach even members of that demographic.

First, the villains:  Every single unforgivably bastardy character in the film (and there are many) are white, and bald.  That’s right.  Skinheads picking on poor aliens, expressing absolute uncaring towards Aliens being treated to concentration-camp conditions, or even describing how much they relish administrating the tortures directly.

The imagery of the concentration camps (think a garbage dump densely laden with shacks build of refuse) should easily trigger sympathetic feelings, staged in the especially relevant South Africa, no less; but I felt nothing.  999,998.5 Aliens in the film are depicted as violent, dim to the point of actually being an insult to the real ‘prawns’ which they are disparagingly referred as in slang, drug-addicted, and even lacking in the barest sense of community with their own, or shared understanding of the predicament of their entire community.  When [heroic stuff that we can all pretty much guess, but I'll try to avoid spoiling] happens, it is not due to broader sympathy engendered among humans, or some sort of understanding by even one human, or a rising up of this apparently spacefaring race in unity:  [heroic stuff] takes place only because of the 1.5 non-retarded members of the alien race and the one selfish human.

The remaining 999,998.5 members of the Alien race are literally depicted less sympathetically than the trash in which they reside.  Was that the purpose of the film?  Was that the message?  That even in a species comprised largely of trash, there are maybe 1.5 members per million that are worth not making delicious cocktails out of?

It’s either District 9 was a really bad movie about race, or I’m just way too racist to sympathize with any of their touch-feely, alien-loving arguments.

Oh, and by the way, to those who wonder about the 1.5 smarter-than-your-average-prawn Aliens and don’t mind a bit of a spoiler?  Two words:  Super Baby.

Jesus Anakin-in-The-Phantom-Menace Christ.

… and the cow goes moo