Hey! I can review first-run movies occasionally!

This past Friday, Mia was at school, and Norah was at pre-school for the entire day. The entire day!!!!! We want to get her ready for kindergarten, so we're sending her to pre-school for the whole day once a week. That means I had most of the entire day to myself (about 10.30 a.m. to 2.45 p.m.) and nothing to do, so I went to the movies! Yay!

I checked out District 9 because why not? It's a pretty good movie, and now I'll tell you why! Here's the story: In 1982, an alien spaceship appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. The humans went inside and found that the aliens were more like refugees, with no leaders and no organization. So the humans created a refugee camp for them (called District 9) and stuck them there, partitioning them off from the rest of the world. Now it's 2010, and the humans have had enough - the aliens are scheduled to be sent to a new camp, 200 kilometers away from Johannesburg. Into this mess comes Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a bureaucrat of MNU, the corporation in charge of the shantytown where the aliens - derisively called "prawns" because they look like seafood - live. Wikus is tasked with getting the prawns to sign a waiver agreeing to the move - this section of the movie is weirdly humorous, as it's such a bureaucratic thing to do, even when you're dealing with aliens who don't sign their names (luckily, Wikus understands their language). As he moves through District 9, he comes across a hut where there's a strange vial that squirts out some strange black liquid. Before you know it, Wikus is becoming a prawn himself, and MNU wants to experiment on him, and he's ostracized from society in the same way the prawns are. Oh, the irony!

The movie quickly goes from social allegory/satire to action movie, which presents some problems, but not enough to ruin the movie, unless you're really into seeing a social allegory. Obviously, the director, Neill Blomkamp (a South African himself, hence the setting of the movie), is going for the apartheid parallel, but he doesn't go far enough with it. First of all, he never mentions that this situation existed in South Africa in the first place, leading me to believe this is some parallel reality world where it didn't exist (in 1982, of course, apartheid was still in full effect, so somebody might have mentioned it). He also gives us stereotypical Nigerians as villains in the movie, which made me a bit uncomfortable. The white villains are evil, sure, but they're just regular people. The Nigerians, with their witchcraft and cult of personality around their leader, seem as or more subhuman than the prawns themselves, which is odd. It's a weird choice for Blomkamp to make and somewhat undermines his idea of tolerance that underlies the movie. Of course, he doesn't want to push the apartheid parallel all that much because he's making an action movie, but it's still a strange thing to put in the movie and then ignore. Perhaps it would have been better to set it somewhere else other than South Africa so that the parallel wouldn't have been so obvious.

The "mockumentary" style Blomkamp employs for some of the movie works against him, too. He starts the movie this way, but quickly abandons it for long stretches before intermittently using it again. It's the same thing as the apartheid subtext - embrace it completely or ditch it. It doesn't seem possible to tell this story in a "mockumentary" style, and so when he breaks with that, it heightens the "movie-ness" of it even more, drawing us out of the story. I get what he was trying to do with the "mockumentary" style, as it adds a immediacy and also a claustrophobia as Wikus's life unravels, but it feels affected because he doesn't use it throughout. Again, I doubt if he could use it throughout, so it probably should have been abandoned.

Of course, I still enjoyed the movie. It's not great science fiction, mainly because Blomkamp is too concerned with making an action movie, but it's a good action movie, with far more on its mind than most. He gets a great performance from Copley, who begins as a weasel and really doesn't do too much to redeem himself. Even as he begins to change, he doesn't sympathize with the prawns all that much, convincing himself that if he change back, his wife will take him back (she won't) and all will forgiven (it won't). When he's confronted with a moral choice about helping the aliens or helping himself, he helps himself. It's a nice character arc, actually, because we probably wouldn't believe that Wikus would change so quickly. When he finally comes down on the "right" side (and of course he does), it's not necessarily because he completely sees the light, but because he decides it's the only thing he can do. Copley is very good in the role, which is interesting given it's his first movie (indeed, his first acting job).

District 9 is R-rated, and it earns it. The language, according to the rating, is "pervasive," which is as good a description as any. It's also very violent, as Blomkamp, when he decides to make this a complete action movie, shows that he can really do action well. The violence is sudden and devastating and extremely graphic, just as a warning. It's also very quick, as Blomkamp doesn't linger on the horror, in case you're wondering. Despite the fact that the turn toward action is a bit disappointing, at least Blomkamp does it very well!

I wanted District 9 to be a masterpiece, but I'm not surprised it wasn't, as it was made by a bunch of people with very little movie experience. What it is, however, is a fine action movie disguised as a science fiction movie with a conscience, and it certainly makes you think more than other summer action movies do. It's very gripping and tense, keeping you on the edge of your seat throughout ("We'll sell you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge!!!!!!) and featuring some very fine performances. If there's any justice in the world, it portends big things for its star and its director. And it's a fine way to spend two hours during the dog days of summer!

And if you don't believe me, Nik has reviewed it too! You can trust Nik!

Top Ten Day: My favorite science fiction books

In the wake of Arthur C. Clarke's death, I thought I'd list my favorite science fiction books. Yes, I started this post last week, but his death is still recent enough to make this relevant. So here they are, in chronological order!

1. Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut (1969). This is not only one of my favorite science fiction books, but one of my favorite books, period. It's very funny and very tragic, and Vonnegut comes up with pithy phrases that encapsulate so much horror. Vonnegut skips back and forth in time, as his hero, Billy Pilgrim, has become "unstuck" from time and is able to travel to any point in his life. We get the weird period he spends on Tralfamadore with Montana Wildhack, the porn star, and we get the horrific bombing of Dresden, but it never feels disjointed. It's a masterpiece, and I should probably go read some more Vonnegut, shouldn't I?

2. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974). It's been a long time since I read this, but it's still an excellent book, harrowing and tragic and a nice allegory about soldiers fighting wars they don't understand. It's probably not too big a leap to think that Haldeman was thinking a little bit about Vietnam when he wrote this. The main character is fighting a war against an alien species, and despite his tours of duty being relatively short, because of time dilation, he misses decades on Earth and finds that society has changed so much the only thing that keeps him sane is returning to the army. It's an exciting war book, which made my teenaged self happy, but at its core, it's a devastating examination on the effects war has on soldiers. I recently bought it - I really ought to read it again.

3. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle (1978). A Wrinkle in Time is better-known, but this, written about twenty years later, shows L'Engle's growth as a writer - it's far more mature, subtle, interesting, and powerful. Charles Wallace, the young boy from the first two books of this trilogy (A Wind in the Door is the second book), is now a teenager, and he flies a unicorn through time to avert a nuclear disaster. L'Engle introduces several characters from throughout time, linking everything together very elegantly, and the story becomes one of love through the ages and its power in overcoming evil. It's written for teens, as are most L'Engle books, but it's a book that adults can enjoy as well.

4. The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke (1979). I like a lot of Clarke novels, but this one is spectacular. An engineer conceives of a "space elevator" linking an island in the Pacific (it's called Taprobane in the book, but it's basically Sri Lanka, where Clarke spent most of the latter part of his life) to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. Vannevar Morgan believes this will allow spaceships to dock without using rockets to get off the ground, which is much more cost-effective. Clarke also tells the story of an ancient king, Kalidasa, whose drive mirrors Morgan's. It's a wonderful book, the kind of science fiction that not only offers a plausible vision of the future but also explores the human condition. Clarke often does this, but rarely with such aplomb. It's magnificent.

5. Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert Heinlein (1984). This was the first Heinlein book I read, and still remains my favorite. I've never been a big fan of his other stuff, although Time Enough for Love is quite good. Job tells the story of a minister who somehow switches realities, always with his newfound love, Margethe, by his side. He soon learns that it's a build-up to the Rapture, and when that occurs, he has to make a choice between his religion and his love. It's a fairly raunchy book (nothing too hardcore, but quite lewd nonetheless), it's wildly funny and very satirical. At its core, however, it's a nice love story.

6. The Messiah Choice by Jack L. Chalker (1985). This is, I suppose, not quite true "science fiction," in that it deals with demonic possession and a war against, well, Satan, but I consider it science fiction because of the vast telecommunication system that plays such a crucial part of the book, which in 1985 was still in the realm of fantasy. This is an exciting book, one that has a lot of nice Christian touches without being a Christian tract. Satan does indeed attempt to bring about the Apocalypse, but the hero has a more generic kind of faith than a true Christian one. Despite the fact that it's a ripping page-turner, it still manages to explore the problems of technology gone mad and how to stay human in an increasingly mechanized world. (It's also out of print, which kind of sucks.)

7. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams (1987). Dirk is one of my favorite fictional detectives, and this, the first book starring him, is marvelous - a mishmash of genres, with ghosts, aliens, time travelers, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge all playing important roles. It's very funny, in an altogether more mature humor vein than the Hitchhiker books (the first of which would have made this list, except I tried to limit myself to one book per author, and I like this more than the book that made Adams a superstar), and it's also an very interesting mystery. It's convoluted but, unlike the next book with Dirk (The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul), makes perfect sense once it's all explained (the follow-up still puzzles me a little). Adams returned to his cash cow after writing two Dirk Gently books, and of course died prematurely, but I do wish he had been able to write a few more.

8. Liege-Killer by Christopher Hinz (1987). Hinz doesn't seem to be a big name in sci-fi, and that's a shame, because his Paratwa trilogy, which begins with this book, is fantastic. This is the best of the three, because the next two got a bit too esoteric. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but this book manages to balance strange philosophy with rip-snorting action, and the mystery of the book is compelling as well. The story takes place after Earth's nuclear destruction, when mankind lives on hundreds of satellites orbiting the dead planet. In the frenzy of technology before the end, mankind created the Paratwa, deadly assassins that are two separate bodies governed by one mind. They can function as independent beings or as a single entity, basically a killer with four arms and four eyes, making them very hard to kill. In this first novel, a Paratwa is awakened on the colonies, and two ancient Paratwa-hunters are revived from stasis to find it. Hinz makes trenchant points about genetic engineering and political machinations, as we learn that one of the ruling caste of the Paratwa - an Ash Ock - is living in the colonies and manipulating humankind, but he also makes sure that the book is a thriller. I absolutely love this book.

9. Xenocide by Orson Scott Card (1991). Card is one of my favorite sci-fi authors, despite his rather rightist political leanings. I met him once, in 1986, at the World Trade Center in New York. His Alvin Maker books are my favorite, but I can't think of a single volume that's better than any others, and they stretch the definition of speculative fiction into fantasy fiction anyway. Xenocide is the third book in a quartet that began with Ender's Game, which is probably his best-known novel. Xenocide is a far more mature work, however. It's a book about genocide and how human arrogance leads to destruction and how people need to overcome their basic instincts to co-exist. It's also a fairly interesting mystery, in that Ender must discover how the lifeforms on Lusitania (the planet at the center of the book) live. It's a nice balance, too, between the harder science fiction of Card's earlier work and the wildly esoteric stuff he does later in the final book of the series, Children of the Mind. I may not like Card's politics, but he's a very good writer.

10. Imajica by Clive Barker (1991). Imajica is a massive book, and to attempt to summarize it, even a little, would be pointless. It's the first (and so far, only) Barker book I've read (I own a few others, but haven't read them yet), and it left me breathless. It's a Quest novel, full of magic and sex and violence and ruminations on religion. It's often tough to follow, because Barker packs it with so many characters and worlds, but it's a wonderful experience reading it. If you've never read any Clive Barker, start here.

I see that in recent years I have tended to move away from science fiction a bit. It's not that I don't like it anymore, I just got interested in a lot of other stuff too. It's also hard to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to science fiction (like a lot of pure genre fiction). I mean, have you been to the bookstore recently and checked out the sci-fi section? Holy crap, it's huge! How can I tell what's good and what's not?

Anyway, what's on your list of favorite science fiction novels! Embrace your inner geek and let it out!

Arthur C. Clarke, 1917-2008

I'm sure you've probably heard already, but Arthur C. Clarke has died at the age of 90.

I was always a huge Clarke fan, which is perhaps not surprising. I'm male and slightly nerdy. It seems like Clarke's books would be much more interesting to men than women - I'm have no evidence that that's true, but it seems like it would be. He was my first favorite author - I first discovered him in the mid-1980s, when I was 13 or so. The first Clarke book I read was Rendezvous With Rama, and I quickly devoured more of his work: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, The Songs of Distant Earth, The Ghost of the Grand Banks, Childhood's End, The Fountains of Paradise, plus a bunch of short stories. I fell behind reading them when I moved on to college and discovered other great authors. Clarke kept writing, and he died with over 100 books on his résumé. I think Rendezvous With Rama and The Fountains of Paradise are my two favorite novels, but his books from the 1950s, '60s, and '70s are excellent. My absolute favorite Clarke works are two short stories - "The Nine Billion Names of God" and "The Star." (You can read them at those links - they're short!) Those are two of my favorite short stories by any author, by the way.

Clarke was a true visionary, and it's amazing to see how much of what he predicted seems possible now. Read an Arthur C. Clarke book today in tribute!

(This just in: Ivan Dixon has died at the age of 76. Dixon, of course, starred in Hogan's Heroes in the 1960s, but I occasionally see his name as the director of some Magnum, P. I. episodes. I always liked Kinch. He always seemed to be the most competent of the prisoners. LeBeau, Carter, and Richard Dawson were buffoons, but Kinch knew what he was doing, man!)