^ lol

I didn't spot that scene with the "ring". Oh well. Still great.

um, what? I can make no sense out of this.

B,
unexpected and fun, good but getting overrated

You know what's annoying? When people don't like a movie, automatically they say it's over-rated... Maybe you can explain it by saying you can't appreciate it's greatness?

I was greatly anticipating this film, and I was not let down. This film is constantly intense and suspenseful up until the very end; despite its cliche moments, the originality shines in the film. I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but this film was excellently done.

Grade: A-

How vague of you.

best sci-fi movie in years

A+

i hope D-10 comes out in 3 years.

Very good indeed. B+. Intelligent science fiction -- not just another SF action film which tends to be the norm these days. Recommended!

Sheesh!!!! District 9 is just a blatant rip-off of reality...





...but a what a brilliant rip-off/allegory it is! Not many movies funded by our dear corporate overlords are allowed to be this damn subversive!

YOW!!!












Amazing that this is even showing in Idiocracy theatres, you'd think most people would be immune to the political puppet show, to our decades old media hypnosis - - but it's really more than that...

District 9 is nothing short of the histale of the entirety of the human species.



District 9 is humanity verbatim ad infinitum.





out of

Read my reviews for Bandslam, TTTW, and The Goods and then tell me how vague I am. Thank you!

Sublime slice of Sci-Fi. I want one of those Alien "turn humans into curry" guns immediately!

sublime sounds bad but it means excellent.
how confusing.

It was quite a good movie actually.
I'd forgotten the synopsis and trailer so I went it with a WTH is this about?
But, yeah, it was well done and worthy of the praise it is currently getting.
Current grade stands at an A. It was a gritty movie, really. Some cliches, but forgivable and whole experience is pretty enjoyable.

.

I just watched the film today.

I have several reservations about it, some of which are fundamentally unfair if taken as judgment values against the film (they are not). But overall, this was a thrilling viewing experience.

The film is utterly disgusting. It's quite shameless and flippant in its dissection-oftentimes literally so-of the alien and human body, to an increasingly meaningless effect.

One of the most persistent problems with representations of violence on the screen (any screen) is that an increase in the violence and gruesomeness, unless masterly managed, results in numbness, desentization, and therefore in indifference. I know this is an obvious point. I think the violence in this film is so overdone that the aliens are dispossessed of all dignity. You cannot feel anything for pieces of flesh. The whole narrative involving the alien father and son seemed so utterly contrived to me, as did the one involving the main human character and his wife. Who cares if these pieces of jumbled flesh live on for another day or not? It's not as if anyone can accuse them of possessing an identity.

I was deeply offended by that brief moment where the voiceover mentions "interspecies sex" while a beautiful black woman is shown on screen (the interspecies bullshit could not be more unnecessary to the film overall plot. So useless). Even in a fucking socially conscious sci-fi film, women get the short end of it. There are no female characters in the film. The protagonist's wife is a stock figure, nothing more, and apparently, there are no women in any positions of power in the military or government in this supposedly diverse South Africa. As the film dragged on, it felt more and more like a film made by a bitter adolescent male who has read Existentialist philosophical works and has watched footage of Nazi death camps and rioting in Apartheid townships and elsewhere and feels the injustice but has no understanding of the functions of the human heart. There is no pity in this film, no compassion.

Two added notes: 1) Films that are critical of corporate greed are always hypocritical, by necessity. Few commodities will be as financially viable this year as this film will be, given its box office success. 2) Films about otherness that establish parallels between real-life human Others and non-human fictional Others inevitably risk being re-read as supportive of the very ideologies they wish to criticize. A bigot might go to this film, watch it, and come out thinking that his or her perception of the people he dislikes has been, in some way, validated because here you have, by association, an espousal of the notion that the Other is indeed a completely alien thing, that any contact with it is tantamount to treason and will divorce you from proper humanity. The protagonist turns into an alien and must reside among them, much like any person in America who was not purely white was shunned as being among the "Black folks." But that's not really a criticism of the film, or rather, a fair criticism, since it merely suggests what is true of any film: that its meaning is never wholly given by the filmmaker, but produced in cooperation with an audience that might read something entirely different into the work.

disagree

Even though Box is usually wrong in his view points, I love reading them. Quite fascinating!

Wrong.

(...but what delightfully fancy language you use!)





I gotta tell ya, District 9 really surprised me in it's relationship to outmoded political thought too! Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the theatre, I ended up being bombarded with neo-classical existentialistic crap like this. Even though I saw it over a month ago now, in the distant twinkle of August, it only just now came to me as I was walking down the boulevard next to my local coffee shop. The depths to which the director sinks here is a monument narcisstic ennui! To say that it's an underestimate of the verity of this scenario, is itself an underestimation - - it is Kubrickian in it's misrepresentation of the reality herein involved. And then, didn't I go and dig into an underutilized corner of my cortex and find a nugget of unvarnished you-whotitude. It was there waiting to be discovered and I only just realized that the scope of this picture is modelled on the original schema of The Maltese Falcon (not the Humphrey Bogart version). It is all laid clear for anyone with half a wit of sense to see - - the origin of subconscious wishes, the foundation of alien tropes, the roots of science fiction weather representations on extra-solar planets - - Yep! - - it's a monumental ironic coup... If only if all films were this transparent in their drive for goodness and light. What a world we'd share! But I digress, I must return to the main thrust of my missive: the shocking manner in which District 9 was purveyed upon an unsuspecting public. Honestly, it's just madness that such a travesty is permitted in our so-called free society. Why would the producers receive permission from the theatre companies to purportedly screen their product unseen? Who was in charge of this? Why did it slip by the corporate media watchdogs? Where were the interests of the powerless in our democratic society? When will the retribution ever commence?

It all certainly bears witness to the fact that logic has become an outmoded means of reasoning nowadays. It is situations like this District 9 debacle which illuminate the background and allow the foreground to drop to the literal ground. It is a shining example of hierarchy debunked and deflowered in the cause of a wisdomectomy. We shall henceforth walk forward with pride and hope for the future mornings when we shall be free to saunter, nay lope towards the rising sun of certitude. We will take wing as a flock of true believers and fly the seemingly random patterns of the predator escaping species we have become. Not until the last telephone wire, nor the last fiberoptic communication cable have been sullied will we rest. This is a clarion call to action to everyone who has seen District 9 - - do not be misled - - this is the time to move! Resort to retort, if need be. Don't allow yourself or your compatriots to be silenced. Speak, whether you have been spoken to or not. Reply globally. Bring your words to the table and speak with your mouth full. It's not rude when it's in the service of a cause as critical as the one before us all. Send forth thy vowels and consonants in a neverending flow that shall rise to be a tidal wave of verbiage! Talk the talk...

Without this type of resolve, this problem will only fester and continue to get worse until we have to amputate the withered limb. But if worse comes to worst, be strong and bite down on the proffered wad of cloth, while the surgeon goes about his work. For even then shall we hobble forth in our righteous quest. If need be, we will drag forward our devastated remains in a neverending crawl towards ultimate victory.

Rest no more, fellow KJer's - - don't let this District 9 situation be repeated ad infinitum with future film enthusiasts. Without us all focusing our psychic energy on the goal before us, we will perish. It is the final turtle in the stack. One false move and it all topples. Keep your balance and we will all be the upright citizens that we know we can be in the perfect World of King James. Fight the good fight, dig in your heals, and go with the flow-ers.

I believe Box is using the "How to discredit the rhetoric of Rage Against The Machine" line. I'm afraid thats the first review I have read from you Boxy where I disagree with almost every point.



I'm glad Makeshift isn't here right now!

Also you mention the supposedly diverse South Africa as if you are unaware of the fact its a rather corrupt shell of the old Mandela idealism. And who is to say the Alien father is not also a type of female, in fact the aliens seem to be utterly sexless considering you never see them engage in any type of sexual act (bar the photoshop picture where they are receiving rather then giving so to speak) and their appears to be a lack of identifiable genitalia. Dare I say it is Alien racism on display Boxy!

I never found the violence numbing at any point either simply because of the utterly destructive nature of it tends to overload the human brains ability to compartmentalise. Movies have to a certain degree trivialised "mundane" death like shotgun but when I see somebody or some alien on screen literally explode like a firecracker the massive punch of it is just impossible to ignore.



I'm afraid I consider that criticism to be abit of a cop out. You are using vague terms in an attempt to make the statement correct by proxy. I mean if I wanted I could take this statement and say The Shawshank Redemption re-affirms that all black men are dangerous criminals since Red spent 40 years inside. Or that Die Hard showed Americans can never trust evil Europeans...................ok I'm taking the piss with that one abit but still!

If you pushed me for criticism's I found the entire Nigerian voodoo black magic angle to be rather silly. Plus the main player says fookin hell way to much!

For anybody who enjoyed the Action scenes in D9 this is an interesting video, very similar in style I think. Made for only $500 if you can believe it.

Apparently there's already a sequel planned for this film. Any chance that has to do with the money this film is making?

Let's recap:

All financially viable films are hypocritical examples of corporate greed regardless of their message.





I gotta tell ya, District 9 really surprised me in it's relationship to outmoded political thought too! Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the theatre, I ended up being bombarded with neo-classical existentialistic crap like this. Even though I saw it over a month ago now, in the distant twinkle of August, it only just now came to me as I was walking down the boulevard next to my local coffee shop. The depths to which the director sinks here is a monument narcisstic ennui! To say that it's an underestimate of the verity of this scenario, is itself an underestimation - - it is Kubrickian in it's misrepresentation of the reality herein involved. And then, didn't I go and dig into an underutilized corner of my cortex and find a nugget of unvarnished you-whotitude. It was there waiting to be discovered and I only just realized that the scope of this picture is modelled on the original schema of The Maltese Falcon (not the Humphrey Bogart version). It is all laid clear for anyone with half a wit of sense to see - - the origin of subconscious wishes, the foundation of alien tropes, the roots of science fiction weather representations on extra-solar planets - - Yep! - - it's a monumental ironic coup... If only if all films were this transparent in their drive for goodness and light. What a world we'd share! But I digress, I must return to the main thrust of my missive: the shocking manner in which District 9 was purveyed upon an unsuspecting public. Honestly, it's just madness that such a travesty is permitted in our so-called free society. Why would the producers receive permission from the theatre companies to purportedly screen their product unseen? Who was in charge of this? Why did it slip by the corporate media watchdogs? Where were the interests of the powerless in our democratic society? When will the retribution ever commence?

It all certainly bears witness to the fact that logic has become an outmoded means of reasoning nowadays. It is situations like this District 9 debacle which illuminate the background and allow the foreground to drop to the literal ground. It is a shining example of hierarchy debunked and deflowered in the cause of a wisdomectomy. We shall henceforth walk forward with pride and hope for the future mornings when we shall be free to saunter, nay lope towards the rising sun of certitude. We will take wing as a flock of true believers and fly the seemingly random patterns of the predator escaping species we have become. Not until the last telephone wire, nor the last fiberoptic communication cable have been sullied will we rest. This is a clarion call to action to everyone who has seen District 9 - - do not be misled - - this is the time to move! Resort to retort, if need be. Don't allow yourself or your compatriots to be silenced. Speak, whether you have been spoken to or not. Reply globally. Bring your words to the table and speak with your mouth full. It's not rude when it's in the service of a cause as critical as the one before us all. Send forth thy vowels and consonants in a neverending flow that shall rise to be a tidal wave of verbiage! Talk the talk...

Without this type of resolve, this problem will only fester and continue to get worse until we have to amputate the withered limb. But if worse comes to worst, be strong and bite down on the proffered wad of cloth, while the surgeon goes about his work. For even then shall we hobble forth in our righteous quest. If need be, we will drag forward our devastated remains in a neverending crawl towards ultimate victory.

Rest no more, fellow KJer's - - don't let this District 9 situation be repeated ad infinitum with future film enthusiasts. Without us all focusing our psychic energy on the goal before us, we will perish. It is the final turtle in the stack. One false move and it all topples. Keep your balance and we will all be the upright citizens that we know we can be in the perfect World of King James. Fight the good fight, dig in your heals, and go with the flow-ers.