District 9

Part hilarious mockumentary, part apartheid commentary, part body horror film, part Mechwarrior shoot-em-up, part alien space opera, part coming-of-age story. All modern sci-fi masterpiece. This film also features an iconic CGI shot of an alien mother ship hovering ominously over downtown Johannesburg, raises more questions than it answers (in the best way possible), and for a sleek few hours, makes us simultaneously loathe and ponder the nature of the human race.

So, Twilight, man. What’s up with that? Here comes the most embarrassing confession I will ever make in this column: I went to see New Moon this weekend. Yes, opening weekend.

It’s not (quite) as bad as it sounds. It was a sociological experiment, of sorts. I went to observe me some tweens, and to see what this sexy glittering vampire business was all about. Also, for the lulz.

Only here’s the thing. The audience? It wasn’t all tweens. There were some grown ass people there, unabashedly wearing “Team Edward” shirts and shushing gigglers (me) like it was their job.

Ask yourself: Was I one of the fawning multitudes that rushed to a theater last Thursday before midnight to see The Twilight Saga: New Moon? If the answer is yes, slap yourself audibly.

Second question: Was I surprised at all that the movie sucked? If the answer is yes, you’re probably one of those people who gets surprised when it gets dark at night. (Alaskan natives are the only ones excused.)

Here’s one for you: What has three Academy Award nominees, buckets of pus, blood, guts, marrow, tissue, puke and bile, self-referential CGI bullet points, young stars discovered by Greg Mottola, a very original and thankfully less-than-serious take on post-apocalyptic films, endlessly quotable and profane dialogue, obscure (and hilarious) film references, the best celebrity cameo of the year (and possibly film history) and a title in common with the cheesiest nonexistent horror theme park ever? Battlefield Earth 2, directed by Quentin Tarantino? No. The answer is: Zombieland.

I thought I knew the game. Slasher flicks don’t usually stray too far from the prescribed formula, relying on our pulses to fake entertainment. So I figured I’d review one for The Sun, make some dipshit jokes about boobs and blood, and be on my way. But I swear, Sorority Row is like staring in a mirror. It probed the darkest corners of my soul, had my emotions swinging from one extreme to the other, and easily made my top ten list of the worst movies ever made.

The newly-renovated Cinemapolis theater in downtown Ithaca continued its pattern of excellence last week when it premiered The Cove, winner of the 2009 Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. The Cove was only shown at two locations in New York State — and Ithaca, being the wonderful eco-friendly hippie-fest that it is, had local activists who conspired to premiere the film and to hold a follow-up discussion. You’ll all be sorry when you leave Ithaca, just you wait.

In 1957, reacting to the devastating potential of Soviet missile armament, President Eisenhower pressured Congress to pass The National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which funded curriculum changes in public schools, particularly in math and the sciences.

According to film-collector and restorer Skip Elsheimer the increasing resources allocated by the NDEA, the fearful demand of Americans for educational videos and the abundance of film equipment left over after World War II encouraged small, goal-oriented groups to produce highly focused educational films.

Ten years later, people everywhere are still quoting the sharp dialogue and witty one-liners of Mike Judge’s first feature length film, Office Space, but the only thing people in Ithaca may remember about their trip to the theater on Saturday to watch Judge’s newest flick, Extract, was how loud and excessive the two people in the middle row laughed throughout the entire film. Sure the movie had its funny moments, but none deserving more than a chuckle. Certainly not the hysterical laughter the middle row was providing them. No, Extract won’t go down in history as one of the worst movies ever, it will just become one of those “forgotten” movies that get subconsciously passed over in Blockbuster.

The horror … the horror. Lo and behold, famed director and screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola has laid an egg: he calls it Tetro. Carrying the tagline "Every family has a secret," Tetro is Coppola’s second "amateur-again" film after Youth Without Youth. Tetro is Coppola giving himself second chance, his personal spurning of Hollywood and its fakeness, unoriginality … one could give Hollywood a bad name a thousand times over. At age 70, Coppola has left living room legends Apocalypse Now and The Godfather trilogy behind him, and has purposely regressed his budget with the intention of rediscovering what it is that made him apply to L.A. film school.

This summer marked the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, considered a pinnacle event in American popular culture and the latter half of the 20th century. The festival was billed as three days of peace and music, and featured numerous musical groups from Jefferson Airplane and The Who to Jimi Hendrix, CCR and Sly and the Family Stone, all of whom — amidst rain and upstate New York’s humid summer weather — played to 500,000 people on a 600 acre field. No concert like it had ever been attempted, and the name Woodstock to this day is synonymous with the 1960s, hippies and the Flower Generation, as well as a lofty bar for live music events and culture-changing phenomena involving massive numbers of young people.