Why does this guy…

remind me of this guy…

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Good science fiction provides a vision of the future that gives us a window into the present.  Unfortunately, for each Orwell there’s a dozen others who create a vivid future, but populate it with shallow characters, an empty plot, and either lack social commentary, or even worse, don’t even bother to make it subtle.  In an era when the V for Vendetta movie is lauded for not butchering the brilliant comic too badly.  Children of Men (read better reviews than mine here), which I saw earlier tonight, executed perfectly the way SciFi should, rather than how it usually does.

I was going to write a longer post, but it’s getting late, so here’s the gist of it:

• The sets are so detailed that during nearly every seen, you dart around trying to pick up on minor things by reading signs, newspapers, pictures, and anything you can.  For a lot of scenes, I wished I could pause the theater.  In the same vein, the future technology is in the realm of possibility.  The movie feels like it’s one step in the future, not a giant leap, so that you feel like their world is ours, just with slight differences.
• It had one of the best portrayals of violence I’ve seen in a movie.  Not because it was necessarily real (I wouldn’t know to judge), but because it didn’t feel cartoonish or excessive, and it was placed perfectly.  The violence made you hate violence - this was a fight you didn’t want to be a part of.   At the end (I’m trying to avoid spoilers), the combat made you hate war - and wish there wasn’t a similar one going on.
• Because it was tangential to the plot, and the world felt slightly different enough that you knew it wasn’t our own, Children of Men could criticize things like military occupation, attitudes towards immigration, political activism, police state, art, class differences, and so much more.  It made you think about them, it didn’t preach about them, and it was so subtle that you could enjoy the movie without noticing any of it.

There are other things that I know I’m missing, but I can’t stress enough how awesome this movie was.  So far, it’s the best movie I’ve seen in 2007, and probably better than any movie I saw in 2006.

Categories: Entertainment Media, Movies, Winter of Dave
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And I want to see Indians on the big screen portraying stories that aren’t centered around “being Indian” or being “Indian plus something else” you know? There’s Harold and Kumar which is like “hey we’re Asian and also we get high and eat burgers.” Then there’s Bend it like Bekham, which is like “I’m Indian and I want to fall in love, help!” Then there’s Monsoon Wedding, the Namesake is coming out soon, American Desi, and one more that I can’t remember the title to right now, about a college-aged Indian musician whose parents don’t understand him.

Sonia wants Indian movies to come to America.

Take the above paragraph, and replace “Indian” with “Jewish” and change the examples around, and you see another example of why I think second generation Indian Americans and Jewish Americans are dealing with nearly identical identity issues.

While I’m on the subject, Sonia’s blog is awesome.  Hidden in almost every post is a gem, in one or two sentences, about cultural identity that she doesn’t even realize she wrote.  The rest of it is fun stories about her goofy family that are entertaining even if you’ve never met them.

Categories: America, Entertainment Media, Immigration, Movies
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Watch Dogville or Fahrenheit 9/11 or even The Passion of the Christ and you get the distinct sense that you’re being congratulated for believing the right things. Rare is the movie that challenges your beliefs. Rarer still is the movie that tells you you’re a fat moron, and that you should be ashamed of yourself.

From a 2005 Slate Review of Mike Judge’s Idiocracy, which goes on sale as a DVD this week.

Categories: America, Entertainment Media, Movies
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