Mini Review: Section 9

Last night I got the chance to finally see Section 9. I had been wanting to see it for a while, since people kept asking me if I saw it and telling me how awesome it was when I answered in the negative. I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum in this review. The basic plot of beginning of the movie is that some aliens crash land in Johannesburg, South Africa and are cordoned off in ghetto camps, and generally treated like non sentient beings. The movie starts with a millitary group called the MNU trying to move them to a smaller camp further away from humans. The location is of course very intentional, and the writer/director is from S. Africa. They don't hit you over the head with this, and the apartheid is never mentioned, though it is enough that the viewers carry this in the backs of their minds as a connecting theme. It was an interesting movie, and I did enjoy it, over all it was a very good science fiction action movie, and more than that had a lot of "brain" to it, and things to think about. However, I thought there were aspects that were lacking. As someone interested in anthropology I was disappointed how little we got too little a look at the alien's culture. They like cat food for some reason, but there's no cultural reason why that'd be signifigent, and so just comes off as this quant thing thrown in. Also, I thought the main character was just a plain ass through most of the movie, and had a hard time connecting or feeling sympathy for him. Perhaps that was the point that I connected more with the alien. At first I thought it was just cluelessness but he appears pretty quickly to have no problems with outright genocide and mistreatment. I liked the sort of documentary style of the shooting of the movie, employing many "head cam" shots and interviews with people interspersed, and yet it didn't interfere with the action sequences and the story of the movie. Now that I've seen it, I agree it was a pretty great movie, and I recommend it. I was thinking that it may be interesting for people to try to develop a culture and history for this race of aliens. Other people interested?

Mini Review: End of the Spear

On the flght I read through "The end of the spear" by Steve Saint. I thought it was perticularly fitting since I was going to ecuador.

The story of his father was widely published throughout the world when he and four others were killed by the "Aucas", or Wodoni who they were trying to make contact with in the jungle of ecuador.

Steve Saint tells the story of his living with there very people who killed his father as a boy, and how the lives of a tribe that lived with killing and hate turned around. The story has humor and is deeply moving, and was a truely fascinating read.

I was also very fascinated as a sort of hobby anthropologist the description of the culture, and how outsiders did their best to fit in to such a different world. There was the opposite factor of wodani trying to fit into the culture of ecuador and america (which are fairly different from each other!) that is poignent, funny and fascinating.

Over all, it is very well written. I thought perhaps the time skips were a little confusing, but I figured out pretty quickly when it was supposed to be. I highly recomend this book, especially for those who enjoy biographies.

Writers Read

Being a writer should mean you are also a big reader, after all a writer's love of writing comes from their love of reading, and reading specifically in the genre they are writing helps informs them of good and bad examples of writing and what's cliche in that genre. (Though being a big reader alone doesn't mean your a good writer, I wish!)

I am a pretty big reader. I thought I’d share as a regular thing what I’m reading, and with some mini-reviews.

I just picked up, and am nearly finished reading “Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation”. I found it laying around the house the day after I decided to start this blog, and I thought I’d better read it, not really knowing anything about the author. I haven’t been able to put it down. It’s an excellent book, and Hewett is engaging in the way he writes. If nothing else he highlights the vital importance of the spread of information through blogs and how it creates competitions that keeps larger forms of media in line and creates checks against bias (of any sort) in the mainstream media.

Before that I finished reading a biography of the magician Harry Blackstone Sr, “Blackstone, a Magician's Life”. I thought the writing was pretty clunky in places, and not as tight as other biographies I had read, and to me read more like a reminiscence than a more studious biography (like for example, the excellent biography of Houdini “The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero” by William Kalush or “The Rasputin file” by Edvard Radzinsky which I both highly recommend.) , but it did have some good information and interesting tidbits about the man and the people that surrounded him. Those interested in the history of magic might want to check it out, though there are better magic biographies out there, and there may even be better Blackstone biography out there.