My instinct is to write either far too much, or not nearly enough, in response to your note, and so I will likely write far too not enough.

When I made the observation that District 9 was like a video game, I have to admit, I felt very clever. However, when I applied the same observation to Avatar, I felt old, very old, like somebody who had completely missed the wave and was living in a world of black and white.

Movies, which tend to follow trends rather than set them, have always imitated the dominant cultural medium. I suppose the first movies resembled Vaudeville sketches, and over the decades they evolved to resemble Broadway musicals, plays, novels, TV shows, music videos, comic books, and now video games. There’s nothing shocking about this, or wrong, it’s just a predictable change in a cultural delivery system.

The Hollywood film factory is almost inconceivably commercial, and a movie is never in and of itself, the thing, but is usually just a launching point for a soundtrack, a Director’s Cut DVD, a sequel or a prequel, a ring tone, a spin-off TV show or a video game, amongst myriad other enterprises that are only accidentally connected to art.

First and foremost, my problem with District 9 was that it actually bored me. It referred to things rather than felt them, and I felt no connection to events on the screen. I couldn’t have cared less if somebody died. This is part of the video game aesthetic, I think. Video games are not one-off events. You’re supposed to play them again and again, and the creatures that inhabit them are constantly replenished. There’s no emotional loss in video games, (although there is tremendous frustration in having hard work undone), and ultimately it seems to be more about practice, than it does about play. But I’m getting way off topic, and into an area that I really don’t know very much about.

My prejudice when it comes to movies is for the lyrical and dreamy. I like space to wander and interpret, an opportunity for ambiguity. When it comes to movies, I’m not goal oriented. It’s all about the journey, not the destination, and in District 9 it was all fast forward all the time, and it didn’t allow the audience any opportunity to move any deeper than the surface upon which they were watching the film.

As far as Wikus goes, I will say simply that I am in very strong disagreement with you.

that is all.

On the bright side my wedding went quite well. I missed you but I’m glad you had your own smashing shindig.

Oh wait. You’ve always been a writer. But now you’re soundin’ like an AUTHOR….

ooooOOOOOOooo…

I wanted to comment moreso because the panicked napkin writing thing… I get that. Except I started a blog for it since I can never find a pen. It’s rarely anything profound, like the details of my next novel (which doesn’t exist), it’s more like, “I saw birdies on my way to work! Tra la la la la!” with the occasional deep philosophical question/mocking of people in power.

Your blog is pretty, in a manly “beth made this” sort of way.