Movies I've watched recently, OR Attack of the cute, bumbling jerks.
Since Thursday, I've watched three really good movies that I rented from the library. However, I'm only going to talk about two of them because one of them is Casablanca, which I've seen before, and about which I can say nothing new (except that I love it).
The other two films have one thing in common: they are both about bumbling, likable jerks who do really boneheaded things. Other than that, they're wildly different.
Warning: This contains MAJOR SPOILERS for both films.
First up, we have...
The Informant!
When my mom, my sister, and I got ready to watch this, I remembered the trailers for this film, and I expected a goofy comedy with a downer ending about a nice, sweet idiot who tried to expose his company's secrets to the government and either failed to do so because of his incompetence or succeeds in doing so but ends up taking the fall for the big guys (sort of like the contestants in Quiz Show).
I think I was mostly wrong. I don't think I even knew it was based on a true story until my mother told me.
Even then, I thought it was just going to be about blowing the whistle on Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and their ridiculous use of high fructose corn syrup (which is seriously insane). I thought the protagonist, Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) was just sort of a dorky window into the conspiracy.
Mostly wrong again.
It turns out that from 1992 to 1995, the highly-intelligent-but-socially-inept Whitacre was trying to blow the whistle on price fixing that ADM was conducting with its competitors. While this seems all noble, it also turns out that Whitacre was a pathological liar who embezzled either $9.5 million or $11.5 million from ADM while he was working with the FBI to expose the company's secrets. He basically dug his own grave and got some eight years in jail, while his bosses only got three years. Whitacre's biggest problem seemed to be that he could tell when other people did something wrong, but he had no real moral compass of his own. I really, really hated how he screwed over and blamed the two FBI agents he worked for because they seemed like actually decent people (it did not help that said FBI agents were played by Scott Bakula and Joel McHale). He also drove his poor lawyers insane. Even as he tried to come clean, Whitacre kept lying about what he did exactly and how much more he really stole. He ended up being diagnosed as bipolar, but even that didn't make his actions seem condonable or more sympathetic. Also, we watched it a second time and realized that we could catch him in his lies.
As for this being a comedy, only Whitacre's wonderfully random narration (including everything from polar bears' hunting techniques to a long anecdote about a Renaissance Faire) was the only hilarious thing in the film. Everything else was pretty serious. Not as serious as say, The Godfather, but don't expect some sort of R-rated comedy like Office Space with added conspiracies and FBI agents.
That said, this was very well-acted and well-put-together film. I loved Marvin Hamlisch's musical score (which was also somewhat comedic), and the cast was really, really strong. Matt Damon did an awesome job as Whitacre, and my mom and I were surprised that he didn't get an Oscar nomination for it (though I think he got a Golden Globe nom). My only problem with the film is that the protagonist starts out seeming so sympathetic and then turns out to be something of a jerkass.
Oh, and I totally added this film as an example on TVTropes' Never Trust A Trailer.
On to that other movie about a likable jerk...
District 9
Wikus van der Merwe is this dorky, jerky bureaucrat who is happy to do his job forcing the buglike Prawns out of their slum (the titular District 9) and into something he later says is "like a concentration camp" outside Johannesburg's city limits (District 10), until he sprays himself in the face with some of the aliens' "fluid" and starts turning into one. He doesn't truly sympathize with the Prawns until pretty late in the movie, but I sympathized with him even before that. Maybe this is because Sharlto Copley is so fokking cute, but really, in the two scenes where Wikus receives a call from his wife, I just wanted to huggle him. I know his intentions were pretty selfish for the majority of the movie, but I think if I suddenly ended up with an alien arm, I'd probably set out to reverse the process, instead of focusing on the aliens that everyone treats like scum. I never saw Wikus as particularly evil, just well-meaning but very incompetent and ignorant of the Prawns' reality.
That said, if Wikus van der Merwe is the film's protagonist, then Christopher Johnson is its hero. Christopher is an intelligent, noble, and caring single parent who works hard to help his community and to provide his son, C. J., with a good home, despite living in the most terrible conditions you've probably ever seen.
Did I mention that Christopher Johnson is a Prawn?
Yes, that's what I loved about this movie. This is only the second film I've ever seen where aliens who come to Earth aren't evil invaders (the other film being Cocoon). These guys actually get a certain amount of dignity (as they should, since it's a metaphor for Apartheid). They've clearly acted out, but that's obviously because they've been oppressed, forbidden to interact with humans, and addicted to cat food, among other awful things. They're not just stupid or evil, but more rounded as a species, which I think a lot of sci-fi films forget about. Human-looking aliens (like Superman and the Doctor) don't count.
Take C. J., for instance. He is probably the first alien child I've seen in any sort of media that...behaves like a normal child. Like when Wikus has to find a place to hide and he runs into Christopher's shack, he asks C. J., "Do you want to play hide-and-seek?" and C. J. says, "Yes! Yes!" He also asks Christopher if they're going to go back to their home planet, and it's so sweet how Christopher doesn't want to burst his bubble, saying (basically), "No, we're going to District 10, and it will be better than here." And then Wikus bursts that bubble. But before that, it was genuine parent-child interaction. Among insectoid aliens. Christopher and C. J.'s scenes were probably my favorites, and I wish they'd gotten a couple more. Also, it was endearing when Wikus tells Christopher to "Remember your boy, for fok's sake!" when they attacked the corporation, MNU.
I think I'm going to have to watch this again in order to see if I missed anything, because I feel like I only got part of it.
This movie got me to thinking about how landing in a particular city would change how a group of aliens were treated. So here's a quick list of how other cities might receive the Prawns or other similar aliens:
New York City: There'd be a ton of fanfare at first, but that would degenerate into treating the aliens as something else to yell about at everyone.
London: Fodder for a Doctor Who episode.
Los Angeles: Two words---"reality show."
Miami: They'd eventually become part of the local color, probably by introducing their native music.
San Francisco: Basically the same as Miami, only with a special Appreciation Day for their culture and maybe a parade. (Suggested by visiblemarket.)
Chicago: They would learn to play baseball. This is the only way the Cubs would ever win the World Series.
Washington: Congress would work overtime to figure out the aliens' rights and legal statuses. This would happen quickly mainly due to proximity. Eventually, an alien would be elected mayor.
Cardiff: Fodder for a Torchwood episode.
Tokyo: Many, many, many things. They'd introduce their technology to large corporations, and it would be marketed almost immediately. The vending machines would get wackier. Also, there'd be lots of manga and anime fodder.
St. Louis: The spaceship would be placed in Forest Park, where it would become a tourist attraction. The aliens would gather in a neighborhood between Dogtown (Irish) and the Hill (Italian), and they would eventually open up many restaurants featuring their native cuisine. They'd even develop a new type of pizza that's appetizing only to St. Louisans.
...I think I need to write that last one.