Clint Eastwood has quickly become the tour de force of Hollywood, a director that any studio would love to have in the stable.  After Million Dollar Baby netted Best Picture and Best Director at the 2004 Academy Awards, Eastwood movies have become a staple at annual award shows. With how the Academy warms to biopic movies, this year’s Invictus will surely continue down the same path.

I remember reading Time for Kids in 1994 when Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa. It wasn’t until after seeing Invictus that I can begin to understand what Mandela has meant to South Africa and the rest of the world. By showing compassion and love to both enemies and friends, Mandela united a nation and region destroyed by decades of war, racial segregation, and apartheid.  Although only a brief portrayal of Mandela’s career, Invictus will allow American audiences to attach the deeds of Mandela with his name, which is already world renown

Invictus follows Mandela and South Africa’s preparation for the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Morgan Freeman (Mandela) is supported by Matt Damon in the role of Francois Pienaar, rugby captain for the South African Springboks. The film picks up the day Mandela assumes power, balancing a narrow fold by never becoming too political or too sports oriented. The plot focuses on how rugby contributed to Mandela’s diplomatic policy and how it contributed to stabilizing the divided nation.

Invictus, while not great, delivers a powerful message.  Eastwood certainly has amateur moments, such as shoving inspirational music down the throats of the audience. This was coupled with the fact that I found Morgan Freeman too identifiable. I was too often reminded of rough characters (like Scrap from Million Dollar Baby) that Freeman had portrayed in the past. This is a problem that biopic movies always face. Previous efforts like Ray, Walk the Line, Capote, and The Last King of Scotland were able to excel because they stared relatively unknown leads. Joaquin Phoenix (Johnny Cash in Walk the Line) and Forest Whitaker (Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland) believably portrayed their roles because they hadn’t starred in blockbusters or epics like Wanted and The Shawshank Redemption. Even with this, Freeman portrayed Mandela well and deserves the early Oscar buzz.  Damon was relatively strong, often carrying the rest of the unknown, South African actors who portrayed the Springbok rugby team. Eastwood continues his use of local actors: aside from Damon and Mandela, the cast is primarily comprised of South African nationals.

Invictus brings to light the horrible racial prejudice that still exists in the 21st century. I couldn’t help but think of Bobby Kennedy in the final moments, a man who might have been as important as Mandela had his life not been taken by a nameless, selfish individual. Kennedy mentions in his speech, On The Mindless Menace of Violence, “but we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.”

As I was taking a bathroom break after the movie I was approached by a middle-aged black man who asked me, “How is my white brother doing tonight?” If but only for a moment in time, we both recognized what we shared. Later in the parking lot I was asked by another black man if I could spare change for his car that had run out of gas. He said, “My friend told me that I would never get money from a white man.” I gave him my last dollar. I wasn’t trying to be charitable.  I was trying to help a friend in need.

Nearly two months before his death, Robert Kennedy would ask one thing. He closed his speech saying, “surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.” Mandela has taught but a fragment of the globe to view enemies with kindness, compassion, and clemency. I can only hope that Invictus will inspire a new generation of leaders poised to eradicate the disease of prejudice.  The art of cinema has a global outreach and ability to inspire that humanitarian or awareness groups do not.  Eastwood is obviously drawing on this ability to share with the world a story of conquering racial prejudice entrenched in apartheid and uprooted by Mandela.

Hollywood is certainly not helping people grow up.  It’s as though filmmakers are following children throughout their adolescence, into adulthood, and keeping them nostalgia free.  Hey, The Princess and the Frog is animated in the “timeless Disney fashion”, Alice in Wonderland is coming out pretty soon, and now we’ve got a sophomoric adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, directed by Spike Jonze and starring Max Records (as Max).  It’s nice we’ve got people like Spike around, otherwise we might forget everything.  Or wait…would we forget everything?  Is it possible that the impression I got when I first read Where the Wild Things Are is the one I want to keep forever?  No, it can’t be…

WWTA is a visual treat like it’s supposed to be.  No surprises there.  The cinematography is pretty lavish, repetitious (in a good way), and aesthetic, which makes you feel like you’re a significant part of Max’s world.  My eyes were all over the screen, and all over the Wild Things, which Spike Jonze decided to make animatronically instead of animatedly (fine by me, computer animation is generally superfluous [Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, anyone?]).  Visually, the filmmakers did an excellent job.  It’s a crazy world.  It’s a contrived world.  And it’s believable.

The film lacked during the points in which the filmmakers were required to fill in the gaps of the story.  You can’t make a full length presentation out of a double-digit-paged storybook.  They had two choices: enhance the symbolism or enhance the experience.  Spike went with the former.  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and he took the one most traveled.  I wanted bravery in the film, but instead I was treated to a confusing (and sometimes macabre) sequence of analogies, awkward and unnecessary character development, and a general feeling of repetition (in a bad way).

I need to elaborate on the “macabre” comment.  When Hayao Miyazaki makes a movie, it’s a kid’s movie with adult themes that are overcome by childlike innocence and simplicity.  This motif works.  What doesn’t work is to try to pull in an older audience (guilty!) by a) making a movie about a book we all loved as children and b) introducing awkward and inappropriate adult elements.  Do you think I want to see Douglas (voiced by Chris Cooper) get his arm ripped off?  Do you think I appreciate the sexual innuendos that make parents tell their children “I’ll tell you when you’re older”?  Do you think I appreciate Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) punching holes in the walls, breathing heavily, and reminding me of Tony Soprano the Wild Thing for an hour and half?  The answer to these questions is: no.  I want to see Wild Things.  I want to see childhood.

WWTA was like watching a peewee hockey game.  I want to root for my team, but they’re so bad and try so hard that I feel fatigued by the end of the experience.  I wanted to like the movie so much more than I did.  It might just be my fault though because a lot of my friends, a lot of people whose opinions I respect, enjoyed WWTA.

Well, because of those kinds of people, Hollywood’s going to keep going at it.  Pretty soon we’ll see film adaptations of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and (yet another) Peter Pan movie.  They had better make a film out of Everyone Poops before I forget how to do that too.

District 9, the latest film from Neil Blomkamp, is a blast.  A no-name cast and refreshing lack of Americana make D9 one of the best movies I’ve seen all summer, including Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Blomkamp and team don’t pull any punches: the movie is violent, vulgar, and brutally honest.  When we establish first contact with an alien race, there won’t be some sense of pervading planetary unity.  My money’s on a D9-situation.

The film begins with a bang.  Forced to accept that aliens have landed, the humans of South Africa realize that they don’t want them there; they’ve established a slum, which contributes greatly to the xenophobic character of the movie (e.g. segregation signs around Johannesburg, limiting alien contact with humans).  These aliens aren’t the glamorized extraterrestrials from movies such as Contact and The Arrival; they have little knowledge to share (willingly) and their ship has broken down.  They’re ugly and foul, yet they mean no harm.

Because of 20 years of political unrest, the South African government is forced to relocate the aliens.  The contract is collected by MNU (Multi-National United) and the eviction/relocation is fronted by the film’s protagonist Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley).  Once inside district 9, Copley discovers a cylindrical vial, which spits out a black paste onto his face.  He begins to change, painfully and slowly, into an alien, until he is discovered by MNU.  The evil, yet all too familiar, corporation needs this hybrid alien to activate the alien weaponry, which is only operable by those with the genetic make-up of the aliens.  Copley is valuable, yet expendable.  Instead of succumbing to the torturous procedure of genetic extraction, he escapes into district 9.

Copley is lost without a paddle until he discovers one alien who is working to restore the ship to its previous capability.  Unfortunately, the fluid that triggered Copley’s transformation is the key to resurrecting the ship, and to returning Copley to his original state.  Therefore, heand the alien, Christopher, must infiltrate MNU’s headquarters, where the remaining fluid resides.  They are inevitably successful, yet encounter many incredible trials, paving the way for a surprising and touching ending that will leave you wishing for a non-existent sequel.

I can’t stress the realism of District 9 enough.  Although the movie deals with extraordinary circumstances, the honest portrayal of human-alien relations is a refreshing take on an age-old genre.  Yes, we would exploit the aliens and their defenselessness, yes, we would unilaterally consider monetary gain from their arrival, and yes, some of us would hate them.  District 9 is an action movie, yet underneath is subtext which considers a realistic and brutally honest approach to first contact.  If science-fiction isn’t for you, consider District 9 a work of sociology.