Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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9 Reasons I Didn’t Like District 9

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I disliked District 9 from the start, but it took until about an hour in for me to reach the “I really might leave this theater” stage.

Mild spoilers, but not as many as the Rolling Stone review.

1. It’s a personal take on sci-fi, except we’re made to dislike the extremely unsympathetic protagonist very early on. A mid-flick attempt to humanize him (pun) didn’t work for me, as he only seemed repentant as a result of his torturous conditions and quickly reverted to being an ass whenever possible.

We’re left with only a vaguely personal connection to a shallowly defined alien sidekick and a well-executed CG tiny alien tot. (The best scene in the movie is when we first visit their home, and find the pair of them to be defiantly intelligent. Well-scripted and -played.)

2. The transition from documentary to omniscient perspective was clumsy – only made worse by continuing use of documentary devices, eventually leading to a transition back to documentary.

3. The documentary portion is too caught up in it’s tasteless racist (speciesist?) humor, and not interested in enough in its characters. Yes, we get it, subhuman treatment of non-humans is a lot like subhuman treatment of people that are different than us. Were you that afraid the theme wouldn’t play to the back row?

(That said, I did love the abortion joke. Most big summer flicks would never go there.)

4. The movie is gross just to be gross. Gore and splatter is one thing, but did we really need the constant vomiting, dripping, severing, and devouring of unsightly food? Again, gimmick in lieu of plot.

5. The major plot maguffin is a complete deus ex machina, which would maybe be forgivable if it wasn’t for all of the antogonists being completely fucking obsessed with the effects of said maguffin.

6. There isn’t a single good bit of dialog in the entire movie, which leaves the audience to be dragged along for the (yes, frequently compelling) ride rather than strongly engaged and eager to follow. They say “fucking” more than I say “awesome.”

7. Aliens are shown to be viciously strong, except where it doesn’t suit the continually contrived story.

8. The action set pieces just didn’t sizzle – lots of noise and wonderful effects, but the confrontations themselves were one-dimensional.

9. The exploding people trick was just done by Watchmen, though I think it was executed better here. Still, shock value was lost.

I’m in the minority to the tune of 80/20 per the TomatoMeter; the review I agree with most completely is Vancouver Voice:

It’s a bore. Blomkamp offers up an ugly world, poorly photographed. There is more debris, more smudged faces, more gore effects packed into this film than are conceivable in the worlds of, say, Ulli Lommel and Lloyd Kaufman. Worse, nothing happens in this film that the viewer can’t anticipate after the first 15 minutes. It’s mockumentary style is rendered inconsistently since there are scenes shot in mock style but to which the implied filmmakers couldn’t have had access. And, like most so-called science fiction these days, it is really a war story in scientific drag. … [T]he narrative eventually devolves into one of those long CGI fight scenes that at least a portion of the viewing public is finding repetitious and uncreative. The film is also achingly obvious in its political message.

Biggest plus? Constant subtitling, of both aliens and hard-to-understand humans. I’ve been watching movies with subtitles for over ten years; I’d watch every movie and tv show that way if I could.

breakfast of champions

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I’m awake at 8am, just like any other day of the week.

I briefly debated if I should eat some sort of special pre-jump meal, but given my general lack of stomach for breakfast it seemed like an unnecessary temptation of fate to eat anything unusual before skydiving. I settled on my favorite meal and number one comfort food, Special K Red Berries with Silk Soy Milk.

(ps: Why is it called “Red Berries” when it only has strawberries in it? Wouldn’t you say that strawberries are the red berry with the strongest draw? Like, “OMG, I’m going to get some red berries today, I hope there’s some strawberries in there!” Did some other cereal copyright “strawberries”? Anyhow…)

I’m also a bit torn about how to style my hair and what underwear to wear – two factors that are clearly not going to have a net effect on my jumping experience

A few months ago I was yelling at my mom for not having a living will. The most dangerous thing she does is perpetuate a three-decade long smoking habit. So, jumping out of a plane made me feel like a bit of a hypocrite for not putting any affairs in order.

(PS: No one, under any circumstances, should tell my mom I am skydiving. This is one of those occasions that justifies my blocking her on Twitter. If she finds out she will hit me with the Italian fear/guilt combo so fast and hard that I won’t even let the man strap himself to my back, let alone jump off of anything with him. Anyhow…)

On the off-chance I die today, here’s all that I could think of while I was brushing my teeth:

I don’t like coffins. I want to be disposed of in a green way where the earth can just reclaim me. If that’s not readily available in Pennsylvania I’d want to be donated to science – with the caveat that they can’t dissect or otherwise alter any of my boy parts, because that is just weird.

I don’t like funerals. We went to a beautiful wake for Wes’s father last year that was full of music and might not have mentioned the “G” man even once. I really liked that.

If I get killed doing this I blame Drew’s cancer.

I didn’t get to far past that, because (a) I don’t think I’m going to die (and would like to keep it that way so, please mom, no calls), and (b) I was really hungry for that bowl of Special K.

I’m going to go take a shower now, and mull more over the hair and underwear dilemma.

not-so-prompt prompts

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In my Google Reader I have a tag called “PROMPT” that I affix to posts that made me think or feel something that I might like to share on CK.

I’ve discovered that prompts are best served fresh – ideally I should be writing a post about that intangible thought or feeling within a day or two of having it.

There are presently prompts on my list from as long ago as September. That is scary. It is sitting in the way of me being prompted to tell you about new thoughts or feelings. I need to flush out all my prior prompts so I can post about prompts promptly when they prompt me.

Let me see if I can string some together in a way that makes sense to us both.

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Spezify is a visual search engine, but that doesn’t mean what you probably think it means. Spezify searches the web for text, photos, and social media mentions of your search term, and arrays the results in a collage on your screen. It’s a great way to catch a quick snapshot of a person, place, musical artist, or brand. See what it has to say show and tell about crushing krisis or Philadelphia. Link via Fresh Arrival.

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The imitable Maggie of Mighty Girl posted about her husband’s project, Typekit. Typekit seems to still be in a closed alpha, but the gist of it is that it allows you to dynamically embed text in any font onto any webpage, regardless of if you (or the end user) has that font. You can follow the development on the Typekit blog.

In my humble opinion, Mighty Girl continues to be one of the definitive personal blogs on the internet.

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Geekadelphia (an excellent blog) recently posted a mammoth interview with J. C. Hutchins. Hutchins parlayed the net-success of his podcasted 7th Son trilogy into a publishing deal and subsequent tangible book. Said book – Personal Effects: Dark Art – comes complete with an intricately crafted alternate-reality game component that expands the narrative far past the boundaries of the book. Probably the next piece of fiction I will read, and setting the bar high for the next evolution of the novel.

(PS: M. Hutchins dropped by to comment less than twenty minutes after this was posted. Nice to see his publishing deal hasn’t changed his net savvy :)

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Matthew Sheret (who I found via Warren Ellis) is a writer and photographer with an intriguing list of projects. I am fascinated by his recent post This is a Souvenir, in which he details writing songs for an imaginary band, and how he’d like to take it a step further and have an imaginary record label.

I love that sort of thing – a simulacrum of the footprint left by actual media, but in the absence of said media.

(Speaking of Ellis, I enjoyed his dissection of what it means to be a “digital magazine,” and how that ought to be different from a bells and whistles flash interface with whosits and whatsists. His point (and mine)? You can change the method of delivery, but “magazine” should still mean “magazine.” But, can “newspaper” still mean “newspaper”? Compare to a recent Conversation Agent post about what happens when your local paper goes entirely online.)

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Lane is a remarkable photographer I have been a fan of for a long time. Today she posted an unreal photo of a rainbow seen over the New Mexico desert. Recently she volunteered with Review Sante Fe, a local photography exhibition. She posted a sampling of RSF photographers, and their work was uniformly amazing.

Now that Lane is back in the US I need to buy a print from her.

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I saw what was perhaps my first double rainbow ever a few Saturdays ago on the way to E’s show at The Saint in Asbury Park. It was so close it seemed like we could drive right to the end of it.

The Happinomics of Magneto

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Today on the bus an attractive, muscle-bound, black man was sitting across from E and I rocking to an unknown sort of music. He was wearing a muscle-shirt version of this Magneto t-shirt.

I turned to E and said, “That guy’s shirt is awesome.” She nodded in agreement.

Then I motioned to the man to take off his headphones.

“Your shirt is awesome.”

“You know who it is?”

“Magneto!”

“Yeah!”

We chuckled at each others fanaticism. He replaced the headphones in his ear and I went back to talking to E.

He smiled until we got off the bus.

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Happinomics is an Ad Busters article about how small changes to the way we interact with the strangers around us can make us tangibly happier. In their example, the interaction is talking on the bus.

holiday tsunami

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Funkin’ Donuts update: Elise has arrived to appreciate a beet donut, as have a charming pair of older women eating the Fourth of July lunch special.

And suddenly it is hurricane-crazy rain outside. The rain is all you can see in any direction – up the road or over the mountains.

Both of us walked here from the farm, but I have the upper hand, as I am wearing swim trunks.

Unfortunately, I don’t drive, so me walking back to the farm in my swim trunks really only helps me, and it doesn’t help me to get back here with my guitar to record a “Live @ Funkin’ Donuts” video-cast.

Meanwhile, I still have a lot more Vermont milkshakes to drink. I need to get started.