I really should be talking about Summer Storm, a rare Douglas Sirk film from 1944 that only has one small capsule review to represent it on IMDB. Instead, I feel like weighing in on District 9 which, as of this writing, already has 121 film critic posts, close to 400 customer reviews, and God knows how much else out there amassing itself to the IMDB ballyhoo. Adding to the craziness is the fact that you can’t have a party this size without breaking some chairs and tipping some bikes. Not that brawling film geeks can quite summon forth the fury of Altamont, but I still have to admit to being a tad bit mesmerized by it all.

When it’s this crowded and noisy, it’s hard to figure out who started what. By some accounts the first person to spill their beer and barf on the hostess was New York-based film critic Armond White. This was no surprise, really, as Armond pretty much does that at every party. He’s a contrarian who will pump his fist in the air for Transformers 2 and Norbit and then goes around the corner to take a piss on WALL-E and his friends. But this time, by God, he went too far – because at this party there were thousands of District 9 fanboys who had a grudge with him for ruining their films perfect pre-launch score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Rushing to his defense and to break up the fight was Roger Ebert, who knows a thing or two about suffering at the slings and arrows of outrageous reviews. Roger almost went for a full defense of Armond’s career, but when presented with a list of “Bad movies according to Armond” and “Good movies according to Armond” he took a step back and agreed with the mob that Armond was, in fact, “a troll.” But!!! Roger was quick to add that despite this his defense of Armond’s “specific review of District 9 still stands.” For more on that kerfuffle, go to:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/08/in_defense_of_armond_white.html

http://www.nypress.com/article-20206-from-mothership-to-bullship.html

At risk of sounding like that meek guy who ridiculously yells out “Can’t we all just get along?” (with the result usually being a hit upside the head by a barstool): Armond White’s claim that District 9 is “a nonsensical political metaphor” that furthermore “confirms that few media makers know how to perceive history, race and class relations” has merit.

Personally, I was transfixed by District 9, and this despite the fact that I can’t stand the obliteration of my senses by faux-documentary handheld aesthetics further muddied by the look of cheap digital media. That said, I was fascinated by so much of what appeared on the screen that I am still finding myself sorting through this whole bloody mess that puts extraterrestrials in barricaded slums. But first, a bit of obligatory background of the sort being rehashed everywhere else:

Director Neill Blomkamp was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and next month will celebrate his 30th birthday. From what I can gather, he was still technically a teenager when he started working as a 3D animator on the Stargate SG-1 TV series. Blomkamp and Jackson were supposed to collaborate on an adaptation of the Halo video-game, but when that fell through Blomkamp was able to push District 9 to the fore. Blomkamp co-wrote the script with Terri Tatchell and Jackson dipped into the treasures accrued from his wildly successful run of films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to give Blomkamp $30 million to use as he pleased. Chump change for Jackson, sure, and the film already grossed over $37 million on its opening weekend. Which goes to show that, yeah, it takes money to make money, so you might as well follow your bliss and employ thousands of people to render up a CGI playground to riddle with bullets and alien blastgun explosions.

Blomkamp’s bliss took a ton of cues from Jackson. Grotesque aliens, copious vomit, violent shenanigans leading up to an impressive scene involving a mother ship – these can all be seen in Jackson’s feature debut, Bad Taste (1987). Faux documentary with a comedic edge? Check out Jackson’s Forgotten Silver (1995). A bumbling protagonist? Again, a Jackson staple (pre-Lord of the Rings, of course, although Frodo kinda qualifies).

I here would like to tip my hat to Jackson for using his wealth and power to get behind a seriously whacked-out R-rated feature that harkens back to his very creative and uncompromising early career which churned out stuff so demented that he didn’t even bother to get a rating at all. There are other directors out there who built their careers in a similar fashion but now can’t seem to be bothered to leave the demographic safety of District PG-13 (Raimi, I’m looking at you).

Where District 9 really starts to get interesting is when it touches on the uncomfortable terrain of Paul Verhoeven and David Cronenberg. The former gave us allusions to Nazi atrocities that dared to show incredibly icky extraterrestrials as victims in Starship Troopers (1997), while the latter is famous for body-horror transmogrifications packed with social implications. Both are smart directors who aren’t afraid to challenge their audiences with intellectual ideas, and Blomkamp gets points for veering in this direction. Audiences are forced to experience some amount of empathy with the icky aliens by the two-pronged effect of having the bumbling human protagonist turn into one and by showing us a father/son team of extraterrestrials to root for.

But where many fans are talking about how District 9 is an intelligent science-fiction movie, Armond White strongly disagrees. For him, District 9 is “juvenile,” “ludicrous,” an “outrageously stupid idea (that) boasts comicbook logic” and, most damning of all, is full of “racist swagger” that “becomes careless agitation using social fears and filmmaking tropes Blomkamp and Jackson are ill-equipped to control.”

In the Spring of 1981 I visited Capetown, South Africa. Apartheid was still in effect. I’ll never forget the ugliness it created, or the slums that I visited. Blomkamps decision to make the slums of South Africa the backdrop to his story is as unconventional as it is inspired, and it brought back many haunting memories that I never expected to get jostled around by a science-fiction blockbuster. I’m also all in favor of the fact that Blomkamp is an equal-opportunity offender who positions most of the humans we see in District 9 as being petty, reprehensible, and/or vile. It almost feels like a level playing field. Almost.

But when Blomkamp brings in the Nigerian cannibals and prostitutes… well, that’s a bit of over-the-top camp that leaves me slapping my head and pondering how many steps forward were taken versus how many steps back. It is at this point in the party where I stop standing between White and Blomkamp and take a few steps of my own – away from this fray and to let the broken bottles fall where they may.