"Sex (mature content obviously)"--A response

A friend of mine made a blog post earlier today that really got me thinking, and I really feel the need to blog a response to it, giving my own feelings about the subject. In her post on the ages-old controversial topic of sex (which I respectfully won't link to without her permission), she basically says that sex has nothing (or little) to do with love, rather it's about pure primal passion, lust, and desire. It's about the most basic of human wants--the satisfaction of our bodily desires. Sure, love can be involved, but when it comes down to it, sex is all about quenching our inner animalistic desires.

Okay, now I'm going to do what many people think is impossible--I'm going to defend sex as a representation of love and union, as well as sexual abstinence prior to marriage, without ever using the words "Jesus", "in the Bible it says..." or anything else of that nature. While I do believe those points to be more than valid, I do realize that an argument of that nature would be an immediate turn off to non-Christians, many who feel that there is no argument for my case outside of the rambling off of traditional Christian doctrine. Though my argument is religious at its foundation, it more leans towards our general spiritual natures rather than a specific religious doctrine.

Now, to the point--almost every living creature we can think of has sex. Why? It's very simple--they have to to survive. Because of this, each species has a hormonic drive to engage in sexual activity, otherwise the species would have disappeared a long time ago. As was stated in the post I'm responding to, humans also have this drive--this primal, animalistic drive to engage in sexual contact with a partner. The big difference though? For humans, it's fully and completely a choice. Animals have sex because of instinct--through evolution, they've become programmed to do it, otherwise they would not survive. Humans experience this very same desire but with one key, unignorable difference--the ability to choose to do it. Sex is not just something we do--it's something we choose to do, and that makes a world of difference.

See, I think there's three sides to every human being that are always in constant conflict. We can't deny the fact that we're animals who physically are of this Earth, and because of that we inheret characteristics of things of this world, such as sexual drive. But there's also another side to us that's unlike anything else in the known universe--the ability to rationally think and to make decisions and accept responsibility for them. Almost every one will agree with these two sides. But I would add on a third side--our spiritual side--the part of ourselves that is part of the larger scheme of things, which includes our conscience and our ability to make moral decisions. Either way, we have at least one side to us that is in no way related to this system of "instincts" on which the rest of the world revolves--and there's nothing else like it in this world. Our different natures are always in constant conflict--what one side of us thinks is good may not get another nature's approval. For instance, if we're in a supermarket and we're really hungry but have no money, our animalistic side will tell us to just grab food and eat it to satisfy our bodily need, but our rational and spiritual sides will tell us that it's wrong to steal something that belongs to someone else. Vice-versa, if we're giving up our time to, for instance, do grueling charitable work (like doing yard work for someone unable to do it outside in the hot sun), it will be satisfying to our conscious-driven side (knowing that we're helping another person), but our animalistic side will be telling us to get the hell out of there and go relax somewhere. So when it comes to sex, it cannot be argued that it is satisfying simply because it satisfies the desires of the body, because you're missing huge portions of what makes us human that could be going without satisfaction. Just because it's satisfying basic, bodily desires doesn't necessarily make it a good thing.

Now to sex in relation to marriage. I believe that marriage is important because it's the strongest commitment two people can make to one another. Marriage (like I discussed in a previous blog post), isn't just about living together and having a family, it's a total union between two people. A man and a woman are two parts of a whole, and marriage and sex are what ties them together. Never is this more evident than in their physical sexual organs, which are perfectly compatible with one another. In marriage, two people totally commit their lives to each other, and in the process, spiritually become one. Sex is the physical representation of the commitment made during marriage--two parts are literally coming together as one and creating wonders in the process. And a child created through marital sex is the physical embodiment of that union--at that point it's not even just two parts coming together, it literally is both parts as one. How can this unity be anything less than the greatest possible human representation of love for each other? Not only is the body fully physically pleased because of the physical touch and unity, but so is the spiritual nature because of the impossible to describe strength of the total spiritual unity between yourself and your spouse. Love is all about connecting and bonding with one another, and marriage and sex go hand-in-hand in creating the strongest sort of love possible--the lifetime commitment of love and unity between two people and the physical and spiritual embodiment of it. How can a union of this magnitude be described as anything less than love in it's purest form?

And it's not just the sex that's the full display of love for your spouse, it's also the sexual abstinence beforehand. What shows love for someone more than sacrificing something for them? In the case of abstinence, you're sacrificing your bodily desires in order to give the most important person in your entire a life a gift that's so special it can be given only once. How is this anything but love? So many people perceive virginity as something just for the taking, but what people don't realize is that it's an incredibly precious gift to be given. I think that people need to realize that it needs to be kept safe before it can be given as the greatest gift one could possibly give to another human being--the gift of oneself, totally and completely, in it's original, unblemished state.

So while yes, I will agree that sex is at least partially about animalistic desires, I believe it can be so much more than that if people understand what an amazing act it really is. It really is in the human-only choice of when and with whom to have sex that shows just how much love is involved. Sex can be about just bodily satisfaction, but it can also be about that and so much more--the physical embodiment of the total unity, love, and commitment between two people, total satisfaction for mind, body, and spirit, and the greatest gift one could give to another. I think I'll choose the latter, as I really believe that this is the type of satisfaction that could only be made in heaven.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (movie) review

So last night I got to see Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the Jerry Bruckheimer film loosely based on the 2003 video game of the same name. Now I have to say, I wasn't very sure how this movie was going to turn out. I am a big fan of the Prince of Persia video games (I own all four games in the "Sands of Time" series, including the newly-released "Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands"), and I've always felt that they were fantastic games but I never really saw them working all that well as a movie. The games, for the most part, stick to a pretty straight formula: do some crazy, gravity-defying acrobatics to get from point A to point B, solve a "push the block, pull the lever" puzzle, fight a huge hoard of bad guys, rinse and repeat. The plots of the games are engaging and interesting (especially the first one on which this movie is based), but for the bulk of the game the plot serves no real purpose but to give you a reason to go from point A to point B, keeping most of the interesting plotting at the beginning and end of the game. While this type of plot structure works great for a video game, where the focus is more on the gameplay itself, it doesn't necessarily translate all that well into a movie.

Luckily, Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Director Mike Newell realized this, and decided that it was better off to use the video game series as more of an inspiration than trying to retell their story exactly. While there are certain elements taken directly from the game (most notably the Dagger of Time), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time features an all new plot written specifically for the movie. While the movie doesn't break new cinematic ground by any stretch of the imagination, it definitely takes its inspiration from the best, and proves itself to be a very entertaining classic example of a summer popcorn flick.

"Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" takes place in 6th century Persia (which you may remember from your history books as being filled with white people with British accents who have developed technologies such as crossbows and hand grenades). The movie tells the story of Dastan (Jake Gyllenhall), a street orphan who was adopted by the good-hearted king of Persia when he witnessed him do a good deed for another boy in the streets one day. Though Dastan has no royal blood in him, the king holds him in as high esteem as his other two sons, Garsiv and Tus, and makes Dastan an official member of the royal family. Fast-forward a few years, and the Persian army is getting ready to invade the holy city of Alamut, lead by the legendarily beautiful Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton, who you may remember as Bond girl Strawberry Fields from "Quantum of Solace"). The leaders of Persia believe that Alamut is secretly forging large amounts of weapon (*cough cough* of mass destruction *cough cough*) and selling them to Persia's enemies. During the invasion of the holy city, Prince Dastan stumbles upon the mystical Dagger of Time. He is eventually accused of a crime he didn't commit, and is forced on the run from the Persian army, with Princess Tamina conveniently joining him.

So the plot might not be the most original. But if you walked into a theater expecting a movie titled "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" (which sounds just like a 30s adventure serial) to be a wholly original, artistically-made film, than you're living under a rock. But Bruckheimer (who is no stranger to big-budget blockbusters) and director Mike Newell do a fantastic job keeping the plot moving and keeping it interesting the whole way through. Though you never feel like the heroes are in any real danger in the movie (if all else fails they can just hit the "rewind" button on the dagger), there is never a dull moment in the movie, so you never really have any time to realize that you've probably seen all of this stuff in many other big-budget movies before. The action scenes are incredibly well choreographed and paced, and the movie does a fantastic job of making sure that none of the action scenes overstay their welcome (something that director Michael Bay has yet to learn). The parkour stunts are all very impressive, and people who have played the video games will notice some nice nods to the Prince's move set from the game.

Many people questioned the casting of Jake Gyllenhall as the Prince, saying that he's too white to be playing a Persian prince. While yes, that is true, you have to remember that none of the characters in the video game are all that Persian either, and I think Gyllenhall does a fantastic job of translating the Prince's sometimes-arrogent yet still very likable personality to the big screen. I also think I'm becoming a Gemma Arterton fan--she is definitely beautiful, but she's much more than just Megan Fox-type eye candy, as Arterton is a fantastic actress as well whose performance stands up great next to Gyllenhall. The two are at their best when they're going back and forth exchanging smart quips with each other, but all of the "romance" scenes seem very forced, as I almost felt like many of their exchanges seemed more brother-sisterly rather than that of "lovers". Alfred Molina's character is always a joy to see on screen, as his modern-sounding rants about politics and taxes and his deep held love of ostrich racing are always funny.

I don't think it's fair to judge a movie on something that it's not trying to be. "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" doesn't try to be the next landmark movie--it just tries to be an entertaining summer popcorn flick, and in that regard it more than succeeds. It understands the limits of the source material, and constructs a story that is consistently engaging the entire way through. That, combined with some really cool stunts, clever humor, and a fantastic cast, definitely make this a great choice to go see on a Friday or Saturday night with a huge group of friends.

I give it 4/5 stars.

Who's going to be the villain in Batman 3? Ra's Al Ghul of course, because there really is no other way.

Recently, me and my friends re-watched both "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight", and there was some talk about the next "Batman" film. Now all we know about the third "Batman"film at this point is that it's rumored to be in the early writing stages; no official announcements have been made by anyone at Warner Brothers or Legendary Pictures. The most talked about thing by far for the next film is "Who's the villain gonna be?!?" It's almost the first question you hear whenever the third Batman movie comes up. Everyone seems to accept the fact that the writers would be stupid to bring The Joker back in, as no one could possibly match the performance of Heath Ledger, and anyone who tried would look like they're just copying him, kind of like Brandon Routh did for Christopher Reeves in "Superman Returns". Once we accept that fact, the names of all the most popular Batman villains, including the Riddler, the Penguin, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, etc etc etc start getting thrown out. But I really think that everyone's missing the big picture of this particular film series. If they are indeed keeping this series to a trilogy, the major villain in Batman 3 will be none other than Ra's Al Ghul (yes Liam Neeson's character from the first movie). It simply wouldn't work any other way.

Ask any Bat-geek out there, and they'll tell you that Batman has two great nemeses: The Joker and Ra's Al Ghul. These are the only two villains who have ever even come close to destroying not only Batman himself, but his entire world. In many ways, these villains are total opposites of each other. The Joker is sporadic, insane, and does what he does simply because he loves doing it without any method or thought to his madness. Ra's Al Ghul on the other hand, is maniacal, crafting, and does what he does to serve his extremist idealism. While other villains like Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, The Riddler, Bane, Scarecrow, Two-Face, etc. can be easily sympathized with, and really only do what they do because of greed or revenge, Ra's Al Ghul and The Joker are cold and heartless, and will stop at no end to achieve their goals, which makes them nearly unstoppable. They are in a completely different category from the rest of Batman's villains. You simply can't get any bigger than the villains in these first two Batman movies--any other villain would simply be a joke. And since any Batman writer would be crazy to even touch the Joker again with a ten foot pole after Health Ledger's incredible and nearly irreproducible performance, Ra's Al Ghul is the only villain who could finish the trilogy off with a bang after the huge scale of the previous two movies.

The first thing I get whenever I bring up Ra's al Ghul as the villain is "No way! He's dead!!" If there's one thing that my movie-viewing experience has taught me, it's that you never believe that someone's really dead until you see a corpse, and even after that be skeptical. The last shot we see Ra's al Ghul in "Batman Begins" is as he slowly shuts his eyes as the Wayne monorail that he's on plunges off the tracks and explodes. Does that make him dead? Not in the least. "Always mind your surroundings", he constantly reminded Bruce in "Batman Begins". Do you think he could've been on that train for such a long period of time and not known the quickest way out if his plan had failed? He's one of the smartest men in the world, not to mention a master of almost every martial art known to man. I'm SURE he had a way out before it exploded. Not to mention that he had already faked his death earlier on in the movie: what's to stop him from doing it again?

And if the writers can't get creative with that, there's always one aspect of the character from the comics that wasn't even mentioned in the first movie: the Lazarus pits. Like the Biblical character they take their name from, the Lazarus pits are secret, mystic underground pits that allow Ra's al Ghul to come back to life if he's placed in them within a certain time after he dies. Because of these pits, he's been able to live for thousands of years (something that WAS mentioned in "Batman Begins"). I know the writers are going for more realism with this particular Batman series, but I don't think that this is much more far out as other concepts from the first two movies, such as the Scarecrow's "fear toxin". Either way, there are multiple angles that the writers could take that could easily (but not cheaply) explain how Ra's al Ghul is still alive.

Another crucial element of this series that makes Ra's al Ghul perfect for a return visit is his incredibly close ties to Batman's origins. This is the only Batman series (including the comics, the animated series, the 90s movies, etc) that credits Ra's al Ghul with Batman's origins. Who is a more worthy villain that someone who was responsible for the creation of the hero, and one that taught him everything he knows? Ra's al Ghul is not only physically able to stand up to Batman, but they also connect on a much deeper mental level. Also, I get the feeling that the writer's aren't trying to make these movies separate "adventures" of Batman, like the old movie series and animated series were. These movies seem to be more of a saga--they're THE story of Batman, not separate stories of his adventures. Because of this, you don't need a bajillion new villains in each movie, but Ra's al Ghul could represent the villain of the entire saga, like Emperor Palpatine is to Star Wars and Sauron is to Lord of the Rings. I really think it will be revealed that Ra's al Ghul was not only behind the events of "Batman Begins", but he also played a pivotal role behind the scenes in "The Dark Knight" and even in the early parts of "Batman 3". Ra's al Ghul is a master plotter and manipulator. What he did in Batman Begins was child's play compared to what he has done in other Batman series. I think that once the trilogy is over, you'll be able to step back and realize the big picture that Ra's al Ghul has been behind all along.

Also, getting Liam Neeson back will most likely be not much of a problem. It's more than likely that he won't appear till 2/3 of the way through the movie, as one final "revelation" that Batman needs to defeat. After the success of The Dark Knight, "Batman 3" is going to be a guaranteed multi-million dollar blockbuster, and I'm sure Liam Neeson knows this, even if he doesn't appear on any of the movie posters or teasers to try to keep it a secret as much as possible.

For these reasons and more, there is really no other choice for a major villain in "Batman 3". Sure we'll probably see one or two more "classic" Batman villains. Now that Rachel's gone, I'm sure we'll probably see Catwoman in the next movie to spark the romantic interest. But Catwoman isn't a master plotter or evil in any sense of the word: she just likes to steal things for fun. There's no way she could hold up a whole movie as the villain. There's simply no other villain that could send the series out with a bang and prove as much as a threat to Batman as either of the villains in the first two movies. Because of this, it's gotta be Ra's al Ghul.

[Update 03/12/10] In a recent interview with Christopher Nolan done in the Los Angeles Times about the new "Superman" project he's starting, he had this to say about the third Batman movie:

“Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story,” he said. “And in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story."

Also:

"Unlike the comics, these things don’t go on forever in film and viewing it as a story with an end is useful. Viewing it as an ending, that sets you very much on the right track about the appropriate conclusion and the essence of what tale we’re telling."

This seems right on target with what I said earlier in this post. The third film WILL be the end of the trilogy, and thus Nolan says that he does not want to "infinitely blow up the balloon" of the story. It's further evidence to suggest that he won't introduce any major new villains, and attempt to tie together what he already has in place. It seems that (like I said earlier) the three films are meant to be viewed as three acts in one larger story. Introducing some other major villain wouldn't serve this purpose, as it would only seek to drive the story forever forward. That's why I really think that Nolan is going to make the best use of the villains he already has, and since the Joker is almost positively out, that leaves us with only one major villain left: Ra's al Ghul.

Political correctness is not the reason for the season

I know this is an ages-old argument, but I really feel like I need to put in my two cents about "political correctness" around the holidays.

I'm back as a cashier at Stop & Shop for Christmas break this year, and as someone who works with customers all day, I'm almost obliged to wish them some sort of goodwill for the holiday season on their way out. And it got me thinking.

As you walk around almost any store, you'll definitely notice that the words "Christmas" "Hanukkah" or "Kwanzaa" appear far less than you would think. That's because the over-indulgent consumerist honchos that own all these major companies seem to be too scared to offend anybody, and instead stick everything that everybody is celebrating at the time under one, totally impersonal umbrella greeting, "Happy Holidays".

But really, how could you get more blatantly impersonal than wishing everyone who walks by you "Happy Holidays"? That's like wishing someone a great "existence". No other phrase could more accurately depict the consumerist focus of our holiday season than "Happy Holidays". It just shows that you obviously don't give a damn what holiday someone celebrates, and you're too impersonal to offer someone any insight as to what exactly you celebrate at this time of the year.

I don't celebrate "Holiday". "Holiday" to me means some sort of time off from work--a break or a vacation. While this may be true, it completely disregards the meaning of the season and why exactly I celebrate Christmas. Christmas to me is not just time off from school--it's a time to see family I don't see very often, a time to give presents to show our appreciation for each other, a time of remembering past traditions, and most importantly, a time to celebrate one of the most important events in human history--the birth of Jesus Christ. Calling all of this just a "holiday" seems a bit unfair right?

I would rather wish someone a "Merry Christmas" and have them correct me, saying for instance that they're Jewish and celebrate Hanukkah. Because at least at that point you've gained some deeper knowledge of the person and had a somewhat meaningful discourse rather than just some words that you throw at them on the way out the door that have little meaning for either you or them.

And most importantly, by saying "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukah" or "Happy Kwanzaa" you have revealed something deeper about yourself--that you are a Christian and celebrate Christmas, or you are Jewish and celebrate Hanukah, or you are African and celebrate Kwanzaa. It shows that you understand that there is some deeper meaning of the time of the year other than just buying stuff for people. I believe that Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanzaa share a similar spirit--that of being personal with those around you. Cheap, meaningless phrases like "Happy Holidays" do not adhere to the deeper meaning of any of these three celebrations, and the umbrella term of "Happy Holidays" just shows that this time of year means nothing more than the commercialism surrounding it.

Been a long time--AVATAR review

Okay guys, I'm super sorry for not updating my blog since September--the school year's been pretty crazy and I just never really got around to it. So I figured that now that Christmas break has started, I can kick things back into gear with a good ole movie review of a movie I saw at midnight last night. Ladies and gentlemen: my review of James Cameron's AVATAR.

First, a clarification: this movie is NOT...I repeat NOT based on the Nickelodeon cartoon of the same name. There is in fact a movie coming next year out based on the Nickelodeon cartoon entitled The Last Airbender. But this is entirely different. The original script for this movie was written all the way back in 1994 by writer/director James Cameron, only a few years after his smash hit and action movie revolution film Terminator 2 and only a few years before he created the current box-office record holder Titanic. However, Cameron decided to wait on actually making Avatar, as the budget would have been more than he could afford at the time and he felt that the CGI technology necessary to do the script justice just wasn't there yet. But a couple of years ago, Cameron felt that the time was finally right to make his masterpiece. Using some of the most advanced CGI and 3-D technology seen yet (more on that later), revolutionary filming techniques, and a budget of over $300 million, Cameron has finally brought his dream project to life. So just how good is it?

The answer: simply amazing.

I don't even know where to begin, but I guess I can start talking about the plot. It is certainly a very complex plot that I won't spoil for you, but just to give you the gist of it, Avatar takes place in the year 2154 on the fictional forest planet of Pandora, where an alien race (the Navi) reside. However, humans from the outside world are deeply interested in accessing some sort of extremely valuable mineral located under Pandora's surface, and the Navi living right on top of the largest deposit of the mineral on the entire planet. Using a breakthrough scientific technology, humans have begun creating "Avatars", which are bodies made up of a mix of human and Navi DNA. They have developed a technology that allows humans to actually shift their consciousness into these Avatars, allowing them to live inside these bodies and more easily interact with the natives. The story follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), an ex-U.S. Marine, who is assigned to become one of these Avatars and go into the dense forests of Pandora in order to discover what it will take to get the natives to relocate so the humans can access the mineral deposit. However, not everyone agrees with the science community's diplomatic policy: the Military, led by Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), is all in favor of simply wiping out the Navi in order to gain access to the deposit. Without giving too much away, Jake Sully, as an Avatar, is in a race against time to fulfill his mission for the humans, but on the way discovers new things about the Navi, the forests of Pandora, and himself.

It really is an incredible story and is done extremely remarkably. It has close ties to stories we've all heard before, including everything from Pocahontas to the U.S.'s westward expansion to the Iraq War. And it's really one of the only thing that you can fault this movie for: the simple fact that we have heard this story a million times before and it is fairly predictable. But it's really hard to not like the movie because of this fact, as the story is so incredibly timeless and relevant to us today. Though the movie has an obvious bias, it never feels like it gets too preachy, and it really does hold your interest the whole way through, even if you can probably guess what is going to happen.

Now let's talk about visuals. This certainly isn't a movie that you can just brush off the visuals on; the visuals are a MAJOR component of the movie. It's so easy to see why such an incredibly high budget was needed to make this movie. The CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) is easily the most advanced seen in a movie yet. The entirely CGI jungles of Pandora are so incredibly lush and lifelike you'd swear it was a real place (that is, perhaps until you witness the awe that is Pandora's floating mountain range). But where the movie really makes HUGE leaps is with the entirely CGI Navi and Avatar characters. The creatures are so lifelike, their expressions so accurately portraying every last drop of human emotion, that it's hard not to think that these creatures really exist. The way they move and act doesn't look so obviously fake like the billions and billions of other CGI creatures out there. This is the leap that CGI in movies has so desperately needed since it began being used in the mid-90s. We're going to look back and laugh at the so obviously fake CGI that existed prior to this movie. It's really no surprise that such a leap came from James Cameron--after all, the T-1000's morphing ability in Terminator 2 was one of the first major examples of CGI used in movies.

And after seeing Avatar in 3-D, I'm totally convinced that it's the ONLY way to truly experience this film. As one of the first feature films to be fully FILMED in 3-D using special cameras that actually capture depth, it really really delivers. This definitely isn't the gimmicky 3-D where it's blatantly obvious that many shots were catered to making you go "woah!" when you see it in 3-D. Cameron just tells the film the way it should be told, and uses the 3-D effect to greatly enhance it. It really makes it feel more like you're looking out a window into the vast Pandora forest rather than simply viewing it on a flat movie screen. The depth provided by the 3-D is simply stunning. The movie really comes alive in 3-D, and working together with the incredible CGI effects, really transports you into the world of Pandora. I honestly think I would be really disappointed viewing the movie in normal 2-D now that I've seen all three dimensions of it.

The acting is all top notch too. Worthington's character is a really likable guy, and you can really see and entirely understand the conflict he's going through. The villain is also someone that you really really hate by the end of the movie. All of the other actors, including the voice acting and motion capture work done for the Avatars and Navi, is all absolutely top notch.

Overall, Avatar really is a spectacular movie. I really feel like this movie is very comparable to Cameron's original Terminator: a plot that isn't entirely original, yet it just works so well because of the incredible new take on it, combined with some fantastic visual effects. Cameron has already stated that he plans on making sequels if the movie does well in the box office, and it's really one of those movies that I would be totally okay with there being a sequel for. If Cameron DOES make a sequel, I really hopes he does what he did with Terminator 2 and create a sequel that combines an entirely original concept to all of the amazing things done in the first movie to create a movie that will be the standard to which every other movie in the genre is held up to. But for now we have Avatar, which is an absolutely incredible movie in it's own right that may not completely change the way in which movies are written, but will most certainly change the way in which they are presented.

I give it 4.5/5 stars.

Movie Review: Inglorious Bastards

So tonight me and my friends decided to go see a movie.  We were tossed up between two movies:  Inglorious Bastards, which I hadn't seen yet, and District 9, which judging from my review, I really liked.  We decided on Inglorious Bastards.  Let's just say I wish I saw District 9 again.

Inglorious Bastards is definitely not a bad movie in the traditional sense of a bad movie.  The characters are interesting, the actors are great, and the idea definitely has solid background.  But the style of the movie and scenes are just so all over the place that what could've been a great idea is just made into a boring mess of a movie.  

By far the biggest problem with this movie is that it has a SEVERE case of identity crisis.  Before I walked into the theater, I was expecting a comedy.  I sat down expecting to laugh, and was completely thrown off by the horribly tragic first scene, in which a tiny little farmhouse in Nazi-occupied France is visited by Nazi officers because of suspicions of a family of Jews hiding out there.  It's not that the scene isn't well done--the dialogue and acting are all spot on, and it's actually builds up quite a lot of tension.  It's just the furthest thing from funny; not in one of those "all the jokes are falling flat" type of way, but because this scene is supposed to be completely serious.  Then the next scene takes us to Brad Pitt making a bunch of dumb jokes as Lt. Aldo Raine, who is leading a group of vigilante American officers in France who are out to kill and scalp the Nazis.  Then it goes back to a more serious drama about one of the girls who escaped the Nazi attack in the first scene and is trying to rebuild her life as a French citizen.  The movie just can't decide what it wants to be.  There are way too many scenes when I was trying to figure out if I should be laughing or not.  Some scenes are dead serious, some are totally comedic, and some are a poor hybrid of both.  I just didn't know what to make of it.

"Inglorious Bastards" is kind of a misleading title, because we only actually see the Inglorious Bastards and their associates for less than half the movie.  There are two major plot lines that run throughout the movie and meet at the end.  The first is about Lt. Raine and his group of Inglorious Bastards bent on the killing and scalping of Nazis.  The other is a drama about the girl who escaped in the first scene, who has just been put in charge of premiering a new Nazi propaganda film at her cinema.  But this isn't one of those movies that cuts back and forth between the two story lines.  Instead, it gives us these two stories in huge chunks.  It'll spend a half hour or so on one story, then a half hour or so on the other, and it goes back and forth until they eventually meet at the end.  However, the movie focuses so much on one story that you almost completely forget that the other even exists until it comes back to it again.  Also, both stories are filled with so many ridiculously boring dialogue scenes that just feel completely unnecessary or dragged out far beyond what they need to be.  And like I said, it's not that the characters aren't interesting, it's just that there are so many scenes that just feel so unneeded.  

However, the final scene (the last 20 or so minutes of the film) is so wonderfully paced and plotted that you almost forget about the messy bore that was the rest of the movie.  ALMOST.  The last scene really leaves you wishing that the entire movie was like this.  Unlike the rest of the movie, the last scene is great at mixing both humor, seriousness, and suspense.  I almost wish that I had just walked into the movie at the beginning of this scene--I would've liked the movie much more.  As it stands though, a great ending cannot make up for the fact that the rest of the movie was so poorly paced and edited.

In the end, Inglorious Bastards is a two and a half hour mishmash of a movie that easily could've been condensed into an hour and a half or shorter movie that was either a comedy or a serious drama loosely based on historical events.  You just can't go from scenes showing Nazis graphically butchering Jews to Brad Pitt acting like an idiot.  It's a shame too, because the very interesting characters and great acting in the movie had so much potential.

I give it 2/5 stars.

And if you want to see a good movie about the events of World War II that can blend humor and seriousness, look no further than the 1997 movie "Life Is Beautiful". 

Movie Review: District 9

District 9 is for us today what movies such as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" were for the 1950s.  Like those movies, "District 9" unquestionably a social commentary, and it does a fantastic job of driving the point home and giving us a great movie experience at the same time.

The movie feels like it's really divided into two parts.  The first half is done in an extremely convincing mockumentary style.  While many other movies in the science fiction genre may have done something like this, not too many have really dedicated this much time to it. *Minor spoilers--but nothing not shown in the trailer*  The mockumentary explains how, in the early 1980s, an alien mothership from an unknown planet came to a stop over a South African city.  Humans waited for months for the alien invasion to occur, but nothing happened.  Finally they decided to break into the mothership, and what they found were tons of freezing, starving aliens.  The aliens were taken and put into an internment camp (District 9--basically an alien slum) where they were treated very poorly and hated by humans.  The company Multi-National United (MNU) was put in charge of the aliens.  The mockumentary follows MNU field operative Wikus van der Merwe, almost thirty years after the aliens first arrived, as he attempts to get the aliens in the internment camp to sign an eviction notice in attempts to move them to another camp away from the city population, District 10.  While on this mission, he discovers an alien chemical tube which he accidentally sprays himself with.  The contents of the tube...well you're just going to have to see the movie to find out...

The documentary-style film done in the first half of the movie is extremely convincing, with nice shaky amateur camera work from the cameraman following van der Merwe, and other visual sources (including security cameras and home movies).  They also include numerous interviews with different people involved with the alien internment, which really brings the documentary to life.  It's all very convincing, and doesn't make the alien internment seem far fetched at all.  The social commentary about real life slums and the treatment of people in them is always clear without being too over-the-top.  The acting is all top notch, even if all of the actors are relatively unknown.  The entirely CGI aliens are also very believable, and the movie does a good job of making them feel almost human.  On a side note, Star Wars fans like myself will be quick to notice the erie similarities between the alien race from District 9 and the Geonosian race from Star Wars Episodes II and III, not only in the way they look, but also in their language and speech (Coincidence?  Or is George Lucas pulling strings around the science fiction genre?  You be the judge). 

The movie takes a sharp and fairly unexpected turn towards the second half, from sci-fi mockumentary to sci-fi action movie.  I was admittedly very nervous when I realized that the movie was going in this direction, as this could have easily completely ruined the awesome setup of the first half of the film.  Luckily, I was not in the least disappointed.  I can't say too much about it without some major plot spoilers, but I will say that the action is absolutely top notch and always intense.  These are action scenes that make you sit up and pay attention, not lean back and sleep.  It is also perfectly paced, as not one action scene drags on so long that it gets boring, unlike the CGI noisefest from earlier in the summer that was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  I wouldn't believe I would be making this comparison before I saw the movie, but I actually think that District 9 succeeds more as an action movie than Transformers, and District 9 has so much more going for it outside of the action.

This is one of those movies that's really hard to say a lot about without spoiling the plot, which is probably the main reason why I found that most people really had no idea what the movie was about before walking into the theater.  But believe me when I say that this movie has all the makings of a true science fiction classic--social commentary, almost believable plot and characters, and an intense, somewhat disturbing ride the entire way through.  This is unquestionably one of the best, if not THE best movie of the summer, and something that is well worth the price of admission for anyone above 17.  It's thought provoking and mildly disturbing in all the right ways, and delivers a solid action movie on top of all of that.  

I give this 5/5 stars.