Lots of movies... Ugly Truth, District 9, and Milk

You know it's been a while since I did a 2-fer at the theaters. With ticket prices hovering at $12.50, PNGF and I finally had time to do a 2-fer at the Union Square Regal theater. They've been eating our wallet for months, so I feel very good about it. The movies chosen? Ugly Truth and District 9. And I was a bit sad that we paid to see Ugly Truth and didn't give the brilliant District 9 its deserved money. (Note: PNGF panicked when some theater people came to clear the place for cleaning due to our 2-fer activity... and I remembered the awesome way I had developed to catch people like myself... anyway...)

I also finally watched Milk on DVD. Here goes.

Ugly Truth

Let's start with the romantic comedy. Um... as far as I can remember, everything was kind of funny but totally cliche. Yup, it's a romantic comedy. Sure, I'll recommend it if you are watching it with your gf. At least afterwards you can make fun of each other for 2 hours.

District 9

When I saw the previews, this seemed to be a sci-fi movie with scary aliens jumping around. I had no desire to see it. Then I read somewhere that it had a racial overtone to it. I was sold immediately. DAMN, the first 30 minutes of the movie completely blew me away with its documentary style of filming as well as the vague and cryptic reference to what was about to happen. The rest of the movie proceeded fairly predictably with enough special effects and moral lessons to keep me interested.

Our hero starts off as an officer responsible for evicting alients (against their will of course) due to the inability for both aliens and humans to live together. While polite, he clearly has no intention to let aliens stay. When one of the aliens questions the legality, our hero says "this one is a bit smarter, let me handle it." Yup... in the end, poor people always gets screwed (or killed). Anyway, our hero slowly turns into an alien, and through that process, slowly realizes he cannot go back even though he is human. Other humans immediately turn their back on "something" that is only partially different. The only place to turn was to his now best friend: aliens. Anyway, besides this discussion, there's also the usual angle at gangs taking control of the alien slums, govt agents looking for ways to operate alien weaponry, mass fugitives with no place to go (Ironically, in South Africa!), etc.

Overall, I thought it was an amazing "discussion" on how people discriminate against things that they don't know about - in this case, aliens - and act accordingly. Yeah, so it was a dark movie. And also highly recommended.

Milk

I remember when I watched The Wrestler, I commented that I really needed to see how Sean Penn was a better actor in Milk. I think it's a close toss up... with Mickey Rourke coming on top in my opinion. Penn probably got the nod because of the topic of the movie. Anyway, the movie was phenomenal all around even though I know what was going to happen. It's a great depiction of a movement driven by pure passion... not politics, not money, just passion. And eerily similar to the lessons of District 9. Also highly recommended.