Warning: For the sake of enjoyment, don't let anybody -- even me -- tell you too much about the strikingly original new movie District 9. You've never seen anything quite like it. Then again, maybe you have.

Have you met anyone who is compassionate and caring--but who drops that warmth like a scalding-hot coffee cup when something sparks his unthinking prejudice? Has an unexpected event ever forced you to see life through the eyes of someone whose feelings -- whose humanity --- you've barely considered? Have you ever marveled at how quickly those who've been unfairly discriminated against can themselves become blindly discriminatory?

If you said "yes" to any of the above, you'll relate to District 9, a gripping sci-fi thriller that is this summer's most political popcorn flick. Not only does it boast secret government agendas, violent cultural clashes and brief, gory vaporizations, it's the perfect movie for an August in which "patriots" demonize and shout down their fellow citizens in the name of freedom.

The policeman, regarding the outraged professor, might have thought, "You were seen trying to force your way into a house in a pricey neighborhood that every local cop knows damn well to protect. I put my life on the line everyday -- and you dare to keep questioning me about how I'm doing my job?" The scholar, whose study of race has inspired books and TV documentaries, could well have been thinking, "You're a public servant paid by taxpayers to serve and protect me. Not only are you refusing to acknowledge an influential community member who proved to you that he'd entered his own home -- you're threatening to arrest me for being outraged!"

I can just see the men -- each certain he was the one being misread and devalued -- silently screaming: "Who the hell do you think you are?"

To explain the importance of Disney's first black princess in an Obama-fied world, I must go back to the late 1980s and early 90s. I'd split from my first husband, was raising two boys alone, and was worried about role models.