There are several similarities between these two films. In both the villains are greedy, callous corporations and their mercenary armies. Both are tales of the meeting between humans and aliens. In both the main character eventually gets to see things from the aliens’ perspective. In both movies the main characters make video diaries. There’s even a similar war robot in both of them, that the operator rides inside of.
There are also big differences. What little humor there is in “Avatar” is feeble, whereas “District 9” is darkly hilarious. Since the plot of “Avatar” is completely predictable and the dialogue is the same macho banter that James Cameron has been recycling for over 25 years, the joy of the movie resides in the amazing planet that the advanced computer graphics have created. You must see it in 3D. When the aliens (the Na’vi) leap up onto their flying reptiles and soar through the vertical world of the forest, I felt a movie going exhilaration that gets harder to access with each passing year. “District 9” has no interest in visual beauty.
I should mention that the Na’vi look like 8 foot tall, blue, fashion models with Bambi eyes. The aliens in “District 9” look like human-sized bipedal crustaceans with short, waving tentacles on their faces, The humans call them “prawns”. The aliens’ interplanetary ship has broken down over Johannesburg and more than a million aliens have been herded into a squalid, refugee camp where Nigerian gangsters prey upon them.
Whereas the hero of “Avatar” is a paraplegic marine veteran who eventually gets to show his courage and intelligence, the hero of “District 9” is a self-satisfied corporate imbecile whose only distinction is that he’s married to the boss’s daughter. Of course, like all heroes, he changes along the way.
“District 9” is a very smart movie with the transgressive power of such genre milestones as “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and “Re-Animator”. However, those movies’ shock and awe was concentrated in the realms of violence and sex, “District 9” has larger ambitions. It’s dark satire is aimed at the ongoing toxic relationship between the First World and the Third World, but having said that, it’s really entertaining.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Bird watching
The Bureau Chief can watch birds out his office windows without rising from his chair, which is lucky since, given his non-energetic ways, he otherwise wouldn’t do any bird watching at all. And we are not talking about sparrows on the lawn (there isn’t any lawn). We are talking about Red-tailed Hawks, flying in lazy circles on the thermals, looking for small mammals to eat and huge Ravens, doing aerobatics in pairs this time of year. Apparently it’s the start of mating season.
There are also exotic looking migratory birds during this time of short days. Our uphill neighbors have a fig tree which overhangs our fence a little. It’s a magnet for the traveling fliers. I’ve taken photos two years in a row now. Get out your bird books!
These two are from 2008:
These two are from this year:
The sky is gray and the figs are less plentiful this year but the birds are more colorful. I have decided that this is not a metaphor for anything.
There are also exotic looking migratory birds during this time of short days. Our uphill neighbors have a fig tree which overhangs our fence a little. It’s a magnet for the traveling fliers. I’ve taken photos two years in a row now. Get out your bird books!
These two are from 2008:
These two are from this year:
The sky is gray and the figs are less plentiful this year but the birds are more colorful. I have decided that this is not a metaphor for anything.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
A Wonderfully Odd Shaped Object
Marcel Carné’s “Drôle de drame ou L’étrange adventure du Docteur Molyneax” (1937) is very odd indeed. The great director (“Les enfants du paradis”) directs a script by the great poet and fine screenwriter Jacques Prévert, with some of the best French actors of the time. Michel Simon, Jean-Louis Barrault, Louis Jouvet, and Françoise Rosay play a bunch of daffy Edwardian English people, in a crazed farce set in London, in French!
Hollywood has a long standing convention of portraying stories set in other countries with American actors speaking English. I found it quite amusing to see the French version of this, particularly given the incestuously tangled millennium-long relationship between the French and the English.
It took me a minute or two to get in sync with this convention and with the frantic pace and broad style of the film but then I went with it. It’s strange and very funny and has a black heart filled with fine 1930’s contempt for the Bourgeoisie.
It has a murderer who only kills butchers, an imperturbable Chinese mugger who steals flowers, a singing milkman and a narcoleptic reporter. Louis Jouvet is particularly good as a hypocritical Anglican bishop. His finest moment involves Scottish attire. I will say no more except that the DVD is available on Netflix.
Hollywood has a long standing convention of portraying stories set in other countries with American actors speaking English. I found it quite amusing to see the French version of this, particularly given the incestuously tangled millennium-long relationship between the French and the English.
It took me a minute or two to get in sync with this convention and with the frantic pace and broad style of the film but then I went with it. It’s strange and very funny and has a black heart filled with fine 1930’s contempt for the Bourgeoisie.
It has a murderer who only kills butchers, an imperturbable Chinese mugger who steals flowers, a singing milkman and a narcoleptic reporter. Louis Jouvet is particularly good as a hypocritical Anglican bishop. His finest moment involves Scottish attire. I will say no more except that the DVD is available on Netflix.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Richelieu
When Madame Le Chef and I were visiting friends in the Loire Valley in 2008, they suggested that we go see the town of Richelieu. Although I had heard of the famous Cardinal, I knew nothing about the town. Turns out the town was the ancestral home of the Cardinal and, at the height of his power, when he was running France for Louis XIII, he had a new town built on top of the old one. It was constructed between 1631 and 1642, which seems like pretty fast work for a whole town. It is walled, with a moat around it, and designed on a strict grid plan. Next to the town, Cardinal Richelieu built a huge palace, set in a correspondingly large park.
The town is still there and the park is still there but the palace was dismantled and sold off as building material in the 19th Century. Apparently it was not a political act. A real estate agent just wanted to make some money. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Except for cars and no merde in the streets, the town preserves its 17th Century appearance.
The Cardinal presides over the parking lot at the entrance to the park.
There are remaining outbuildings, gardens and canals but there does seem to be some huge thing missing.
The woods have vistas carved into them that are vaguely ominous.
The evidence of what was there.
The town is still there and the park is still there but the palace was dismantled and sold off as building material in the 19th Century. Apparently it was not a political act. A real estate agent just wanted to make some money. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Except for cars and no merde in the streets, the town preserves its 17th Century appearance.
The Cardinal presides over the parking lot at the entrance to the park.
There are remaining outbuildings, gardens and canals but there does seem to be some huge thing missing.
The woods have vistas carved into them that are vaguely ominous.
The evidence of what was there.
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Fall
At the beginning of the year I reviewed three films that were medium, but worth seeing, because they contained fantastic performances. “The Fall” is also medium yet worth seeing, but for the director’s extraordinary visual abilities, not for an actor's amazing performance. (Having said that, there is a very good performance by child actress Catinca Untaru.)
The director, Tarsem Singh, makes his living directing ads and videos but has done two features. “The Fall”, his second feature, was shot between other work, during a period of several years. He searched all over the world for places and structures that were visually arresting but not recognizable to the general audience. He succeeded. Supposedly there are no computer generated shots in the film although there must have been some practical effects.
The plot concerns a Hollywood stuntman from the 1920s who’s in a hospital with badly damaged legs because of a fall. He can’t get out of bed. He tells a story to a little girl who is in the same hospital with a broken arm, also from a fall, and who runs through the building, exploring it. The girl visualizes the story as he tells it and these are the amazing images that we see, including her wonderful confusion of “Indians” and “Indians”.
The story has some dark twists and turns but finally can’t equal the visuals. Still, they are enough.
The director, Tarsem Singh, makes his living directing ads and videos but has done two features. “The Fall”, his second feature, was shot between other work, during a period of several years. He searched all over the world for places and structures that were visually arresting but not recognizable to the general audience. He succeeded. Supposedly there are no computer generated shots in the film although there must have been some practical effects.
The plot concerns a Hollywood stuntman from the 1920s who’s in a hospital with badly damaged legs because of a fall. He can’t get out of bed. He tells a story to a little girl who is in the same hospital with a broken arm, also from a fall, and who runs through the building, exploring it. The girl visualizes the story as he tells it and these are the amazing images that we see, including her wonderful confusion of “Indians” and “Indians”.
The story has some dark twists and turns but finally can’t equal the visuals. Still, they are enough.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Anvil
When I first heard about, “Anvil! The Story of Anvil”, which is the name of a current documentary about a Canadian Heavy Metal band, I was struck by its title’s structural similarity to “kittens Inspired by kittens” which is a 1:32 minute YouTube video narrated by a very little and very energetic girl. It turns out there is more than a grammatical similarity between the two documents. They are both very sweet, and the sweeter of the two is the one about the Heavy Metal band.
It’s about a 30 year friendship, family, love, art, aspiration, failure and mortality. Hey, it rocks.
It’s about a 30 year friendship, family, love, art, aspiration, failure and mortality. Hey, it rocks.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
New Lands
Recently The Bureau has been more of a photo blog and less of a movie review blog. I predict it will soon lurch back toward reviews but in the mean time, more photos.
In San Francisco, in the last couple of decades, a new neighborhood has been created out of an emptied industrial landscape that stretches along the shore of the Bay south of King Street. It’s called Mission Bay/South Beach. Its two most notable landmarks are the Giant’s baseball stadium and a new campus for UCSF (the medical school for the UC system). We recently walked around the area.
A Richard Serra sculpture on the UCSF campus.
A relic from when this was a thriving shipping and industrial area.
The UCSF Recreation Center where Madame Le Chef takes swimimg classes.
Where Mission Creek emerges from under the city streets and flows into the Bay.
In San Francisco, in the last couple of decades, a new neighborhood has been created out of an emptied industrial landscape that stretches along the shore of the Bay south of King Street. It’s called Mission Bay/South Beach. Its two most notable landmarks are the Giant’s baseball stadium and a new campus for UCSF (the medical school for the UC system). We recently walked around the area.
A Richard Serra sculpture on the UCSF campus.
A relic from when this was a thriving shipping and industrial area.
The UCSF Recreation Center where Madame Le Chef takes swimimg classes.
Where Mission Creek emerges from under the city streets and flows into the Bay.
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