I went into District 9 having only seen a single trailer. I was mostly excited about seeing a sci-fi movie that was reviewing well with mainstream film critics. I went in not expecting much, and walked out blown away.

It’s well documented by now that the movie draws thematic influence from South African apartheid–it’s also one element of the film that’s not easy to criticize. Director Neill Blomkamp’s idea of replacing one “other” with an extraterrestrial “other” gives him the ability to mine the veins of both segregation and otherness in general, but also the current American obsession with the notion of illegal aliens, but partway through the film I started wondering, is this it? What next? Thankfully an interesting story stems out of this interesting concept of segregation.

The aliens in this film are not the malicious, seemingly impervious creatures of other summer blockbusters like Independence Day. These aliens are refugees, stranded, in need of help. They are completely dependent on humans to survive. And when that happens, it’s only a matter of time before abuses occur. Instead of receiving that help, the aliens are put into what eventually turns into a slum in Johannesburg. The film calls into question the limits of human rights, and asks if these creatures, who are not from our planet, who do not speak out language, and who did not even ask to stay, are worthy of the same basic human freedoms that, when we think about it from this angle, we do not even afford to all members of our own species. Which, of course, is the question the movie pushes us to ask.

In spite of the tremendous script and the incomparable Weta Workshop special effects, the real revelation to me was the performance of unknown actor Sharlto Copley, who plays Wikus Van De Merwe, a worker for the multinational corporation charged with dealing with the extraterrestrial refugees, and our protagonist. His performance is nuanced, and several scenes showcased his dramatic range. The script required his character to go through significant progression, and Copley negotiated the role wonderfully. I loved watching him through the whole movie, especially the way he pronounced, “Fohck!” I fully expect that we’ll see more of him in the future.

The film follows a fairly standard plot, in which a member of one side of the conflict is introduced to and eventually becomes sympathetic toward the other (an over-simplification, I know, but I don’t want to have spoilers. You know, in case the four people who read this haven’t seen the movie). The movie blends elements of documentary film-making, intimate character drama, and all-out summer action in ways that, while narratively problematic (the movie blends documentary interviews with intimate character scenes, leading us to wonder exactly what we’re watching and who’s showing it to us), are incredible to watch nonetheless. But in an odd way these problematic elements did not detract from my enjoyment of the film–the themes and characters were so strong, and the action was so involving, that I was willing to forgive them. The simple plot was effective in conveying the manifold problems stemming from this alien immigration, and the documentary bits gave valuable context at key points in the narrative.

I’m having some trouble articulating what this film does so right, partially because it blind-sided me. I was expecting so much less from this movie, but nonetheless ended up seeing what may be my favorite movie of the year besides Pixar’s Up.

See it.

Pixar releases have turned into events. I think that each one has consistently been at least as good or better than the film that preceded it. I loved last year’s Wall-E, thought it was one of the best movies the entire year, and while my expectations for Up were as high as for any Pixar release, it still blew me away.

Up tells the story of Carl Fredricksen, who floats his house to South America on a network of balloons to keep an adventuring promise to his late wife. The strength of the narrative comes from Pixar’s consistent ability to blend humor and action with heart and pathos. They are craftsmen who are able to evoke myriad emotions with their tight, inventive writing and incredible animation.

Unlike other animation studios, Pixar puts the emphasis on the story first, and let’s technological advances follow that, but along with being narratively excellent, Up is also the studio’s best looking film to date. And in Disney Digital 3-D, it’s also one of the most fun to watch.

There’s a lot more I could say about the movie, but I don’t want to spoil anything. All I’ll say is this: go see it. Sit next to a little kid if you can. I can’t recommend it enough to anyone who loves good stories. Pixar obviously do, and each movie seems like a passion project. And the fact that they are so consistently good and so prolific is great news to movie lovers. Star Trek had been my favorite movie of the summer until today, and Up is going to be hard to beat, not only for the summer, but for the rest of the year to follow.

For the past three months, I’ve been working on a movie with my friends. It’s basically The Office, but instead of at a paper company, the characters work in Residential Life at UMM. Tonight, in the ORL conference room, people other than me, K, J, and my editor E, saw it, and all of them really seemed to like it. We got laughs in all the right places and claps at the end.

It’s been a very cool experience, from late-night conception as an idea, to watching the finished product for the first time last week, it’s been a learning process (I can’t imagine working on a feature, although they have more than one camera and more than none money), and, most importantly, an incredible amount of fun. While we were casting roles, I wasn’t sure if everyone would be up for it–even though we’re all CAs, I still often feel like I don’t know people all that well. But, much to my happy surprise, everyone stepped up, got excited, and delivered funny, funny performances. Sitting in the front row tonight, listening to the laughter (most of the cast was seeing it for the first time too) I felt proud of what we’d made.

If any of you readers are in Morris, you can catch it at the UMMy Film Festival on April 24.

So, snowed in today with nowhere to go, I finally had to opportunity to crack open my fresh copy of The Dark Knight on DVD. I’ve loved Batman my entire life–photos exist of me at four or five walking around in a black turtle neck, carrying a batman action figure, my makeshift cape billowing out behind me.

Anyway, watching it tonight got me thinking about icons, our touchstone mythologies that carry through to the next generations. There are films like Star Wars or The Godfather that introduce characters that become landmarks on the map of culture. And what’s interesting to me about the current state of Hollywood, and comic movies in particular, is the propensity of companies to constantly reintroduce, reorganize, reconstruct these iconic characters. In my childhood, Michael Keaton was Batman. Then Kevin Conroy’s gritty portrayal in Batman: The Animated Series became my standard. And now it’s Christian Bale. It seems as though each successive generations has had their own incarnation of the character to suit the tastes of that generation.

We can see this also in Daniel Craig’s James Bond. To someone like my father, Sean Connery is James Bond, or Roger Moore is James Bond. That was his first introduction to the character, and the one which whom he most strongly resonated. For me, it was Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan was the first Bond that I thought could actually exist in the world in which I was living; Connery, Moore and Dalton were great, but their world was a fantasy, an old postcard. And yet I find it interesting that all of the different actors bring something to their performances that is essentially Bond. Though there is a disconnect in chronology between the actors that play the character, somehow the character is still singular entity. For that reason, I think Bond will continue to be a viable screen character because he’s already undergone so many generational transformations that he will continue to be reconstructed into perpetuity. After Daniel Craig (who I love), it will be someone else.

That sense of timelessness, a longevity to a character is something that modern comic movies seem to be striving for, at least with their reboots. Some have been more successful than others. I think I am one of eight people on the planet who actually liked Brian Singer’s Superman Returns. It seemed to be a logical and not sacrilegious extension of the Christopher Reeve mythos I grew up with. He was updated, but not completely reinvented. He was still Superman. And I think that worked because there was such a gap between the films that the audience was able to maintain that suspension of disbelief; their imaginations were able to accept that these two men were the same character even if the actors were not the same man.

Others have been less successful. If I was one of eight people who liked Superman Returns, then I was one of three who liked Ang Lee’s Hulk film. My own love for it notwithstanding, it did poorly at the box office and even worse with the critics. Then last year Marvel pulled what was essentially a reboot and recast all of the primary roles and tried to take the series in a different direction. My major problem with the film was that it felt like it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a sequel or not. On one hand, it retold the origin of the Hulk, but on the other it treated a lot of the relationships (not notably that of Edward Norton’s Banner and Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross) as pre-givens, something established in the last film. It seemed to be playing more on an audience’s sense of nostalgia for the old TV show then even the Hulk comics. And unlike the distance between the Supermans, the distance between Bana’s Hulk and Norton’s Hulk was only a couple of years, and for that reason, as a reboot, I think it failed.

I think the reason reboots are so in vogue today is that audiences like origin stories (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, coming May 9 2009); we like seeing how things started, even things we’ve seen before in comics, or other movies. Which brings me to a paradox as a movie and comic lover. On one hand, I loved seeing Christian Bale’s Batman begin in the last film, and I loved seeing the consequential progression of his actions extending into this second movie. Still, while Heath Ledger’s Joker is incredible, I still have nostalgia for Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, and even Cesar Romero. And a part of me wonders how long this continuous reinvention of characters can continue. We’ve seen what happens when a movie series goes on too long (I’m looking at you Batman & Robin and Superman IV). I worry that Hollywood is in a cycle now where a story arch can only sustain itself over two, maybe three movies. And since movie’s take so much time and so many resources to create, those three movies may take ten years to make. After ten years, you have a whole new generation of viewers who want to be introduced to a character in a way that will allow them to connect to it. In the case of super-hero movies, they want a character that seems like he or she could actually occupy the space that they find themselves in. Every generation needs their heroes, but I worry that this trend will result in the same characters being recycled and reconstructed. In the case of Batman and James Bond, I think that reconstruction can work, and can result in some great films. But others, like the eventually third Hulk film, or the new Punisher movie, I don’t think will be nearly as successful.

So, that’s the biggest question I’m left with after watching The Dark Knight. Nolan’s vision is the Batman we have in the movies and in the pop culture consciousness today. And even if Christopher Nolan or Christian Bale do not come back (and part of me really hopes they don’t), someone, somewhere is going to make another Batman movie. He, and other heroes like him, are our modern mythological pantheon. They are woven into the fabric of the culture. They are not going away.

What will our heroes look like in ten years? What Batman will my children know? And will they care at all about the Batman that mattered to me?

Okay, so one of the things I always look forward to on school breaks is reading–reading where my incination takes me.  Reading for myself.  I’m the kind of person who, if I know that I’m taking a long trip sometime in the near future, will obsessively think about the books that I want to take with me.  Clothes get thrown in at the last minutes, but when deciding what books to pack, oh, that takes time.

I’ve been making mental lists of the stuff I would like to read over break–

• Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors
• Michael Perry, Population: 485
• Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
• Stephen King, Just After Sunset

Definitely a slant toward creative nonfiction and memoir–Burroughs and Eggers are two I’ve been wanting to read for awhile, and Perry was something I picked up recently–read all about that here.  Kundera because a reading group I’m in is going to be looking at that novel, and King because, well, I loves him.  Apparently after he edited Best American Short Stories last year, he got more interested in going back to his own short fiction, so I’m stoked to see what he’s come up with.  Early reviews I’ve glanced at seem to be generally positive.

Also fiending for some video games.  I can’t wait to check out Fallout 3 and LittleBigPlanet.  My friend PK told me that Fallout 3 is likely his game of the year, and I generally trust his judgement.  And LittleBigPlanet because, even after only playing an hour of it at NG’s house, I fell madly in love.  That little SackBoy stole my heart.

As far as TV and movies go, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dexter are all on the list.  Also, the return of Battlestar Galactica on January 16 cannot come soon enough.  After that midseason cliffhanger, man, I just want to eat it with a spoon.

I am charged with geek.