At the movies: Metropolis: The Giorgio Moroder Reconstruction.

You don't often get a chance to write, at length, about the Giorgio Moroder Reconstruction of Metropolis. So when given that chance, I said "Yes, more please..."

Playing two shows only at The Belcourt on Tuesday, the 25th.

At the movies: District 9.

After being consecutively blindsided by two stinkers which tried to excuse their own craptitude by meekly saying that escapist explosive-oriented toy-generated spectacles were their own reason for existing, audiences will find the pleasures of District 9 to be a buffet of everything a moviegoer could want.

It’s a SciFi action film with awesome guns and great creatures, it’s an allegorical examination of national responses to otherness (that the film is South African in origin is rather remarkable, though at no point is the word Apartheid ever mentioned), it’s a deadpan funny mockumentary (a colleague calls this aspect of the film “The Office, but with aliens”), it’s a foreign film with a hefty portion of subtitled alien or Afrikaans dialogue, it’s a hero story of a middle-management corporate lackey (the exceptionally good Sharlto Copley) who gets put in the middle of an untenable situation and overcomes his own prejudices (and even learns a few lessons) while at the same time expanding his own definitions of the world, it’s a gory Cronenbergian nightmare of alienation from one’s own body (and sometimes the alienation of one’s head from one’s body), and it’s a political issue film as well.

If you took I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, The Fly, Alien Nation, Sarafina!, and Robocop, then Brundleflied them together, you might get District 9, but why take that chance. Director Neill Blomkamp (and Executive Producer Peter Jackson) have made something that, while fulfilling all obligations of the summer blockbuster (including precocious brilliant child character- though he has multiple mandibles and a chitinous carapace- and a love story derailed by betrayal) still manages to give the audience a more expansive experience.

It’s like watching a social interest documentary, a grindhouse splatter flick, and a family drama all at the same time. And if by its end, the film feels almost exhausting, it has a style and ambition that is to be lauded. If nothing else, there’s now no excuse for filmmakers to say that big summer cinema has to be brainless.

At the movies: The Day The Earth Stood Still 'O8

A new take on Robert Wise's 1951 Sci-Fi classic about extraterrestrial intervention in Earth's burgeoning nuclear arms race, The Day The Earth Stood Still has been reimagined for contemporary audiences and issues, with Keanu Reeves taking over for Michael Rennie as alien spokesbeing Klaatu and Jennifer Connelly in the Jennifer Connelly role of empathetic female presence.

Tackling a beloved classic is always a risky step; video store walls and Netflix queues are filled with the wreckage of contemporary remakes of Hollywood evergreens, most of which serve no real purpose other than cashing in on a well-known name or concept or piece of iconography. Director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) has some mighty big shoes to fill, as Wise's career covered everything from space opera (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and ghost stories (The Haunting) to musical stalwarts like The Sound of Music and West Side Story. Granted, today's audiences expect different things from their mopvies than people did in 1951, but it's hard to retain any sincere optimism when one finds out that Fox (a studio who has a rather spotty record with genre material over the last few years- X-Men 3, Babylon A.D., Alien vs Predator 1 and 2, I'm talking to you, specifically) is involved.

But the big surprise is that The Day The Earth Stood Still isn't a big mess. It's got some very effective moments, a great central conceit (Keanu Reeves as alien spokesthing is inherently great), some decent effects, and a complete refutation of the Independence Day school of alien encounters. The most interesting thing that this new version brings to the table is in casting Will Smith's son as the pivotal human who must learn to evolve beyond xenophobic jingoism and become a truly civilized being.

I'm hoping that Derrickson has made a film that will change some minds and shake up some sensibilities, as the 1951 original did. It's certainly a step up from Emily Rose, and it's better as a remake than it has any right to be. Not essential viewing, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's trying...