64 replies to this topic

[opus]

The trailer for District 9 -- which is being produced by Peter Jackson -- has just appeared online, and it looks pretty cool. And here's the premise:

An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.

If you've seen any of Neill Blomkamp's earlier work, such as Alive In Joburg (which looks to be a precursor to District 9) or the "Landfall" short he made for Halo 3, then you know what to expect... a really skillful blending of CGI and reality that gives the film an almost documentary-like feel.

[incanus]

Is District 9 based on a book?

[opus]

Is District 9 based on a book?

I don't see anything about a book on the movie's IMDb page. The screenplay is credited to Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell.

[opus]

A new trailer has just been released. It reveals a few more plot details, and it has some pretty cool-looking mecha action to boot.

And FWIW, the movie has been rated R for "bloody violence and pervasive language".

Edited by opus, 09 July 2009 - 09:06 AM.

[opus]

Twitch says it's "Bloody well perfect".

[Peter T Chattaway]

Perfect, no, not quite. The first half-hour or so plays like a documentary, but then the film gives up that format and kind of becomes just a regular action movie, albeit a very well made one. And there are lots of, um, gaps in the narrative that may or may not be "plot holes". My colleagues and I were also debating whether the film should have included the final shot(s), which are certainly very effective, yet the film might have been better off without them. Might have. (Kind of like how the sheep sketch that was deleted from the beginning of Monty Python's Life of Brian is very funny, but you can understand why it was deleted from the final film, for narrative-flow or structural reasons.)

Superb performance by the lead actor, though. Plenty of great action. Very effective use of effects. And a very interesting subtext (when I explained the premise to my dad, who grew up in Zambia and went to university in South Africa, prior to seeing the film, my dad said it sounded less like a comment on apartheid and more like a comment on the recent flood of Zimbabwean refugees into South Africa; even stranger, I happened to watch a documentary on the Nigerian film industry and the themes of witchcraft and religion that permeate Nigerian films the night before attending the District 9 screening, and lo and behold, District 9 devotes an entire subplot to a Nigerian gang that has set up camp within the alien district and is interested in the magical properties of, um, alien stuff).

Anyway. Definitely one of the best sci-fi action films of the summer. While I don't think it's "perfect", I'd certainly be very happy if this movie found a broad audience.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Mike D'Angelo:

Joining the liked-didn't-love camp on DISTRICT 9. (64.). Fantastic lengthy setup, but I lost interest when it turned into a buddy movie. . . .
My review pivots on how it's basically the audience-friendly dumbed-down STARSHIP TROOPERS.

Fascinating. And I can certainly see where he's coming from, though I don't think I'd be as dismissive as all that.

[Overstreet]

but then the film gives up that format and kind of becomes just a regular action movie, albeit a very well made one.

A "regular action movie" and a "very well made one" are two different things, for me anyway. Being very well made raises an action movie above the norm.

You mentioned several things that are exceptional. Could you say more about what's regular?

Edited by Overstreet, 11 August 2009 - 02:35 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Overstreet wrote:
: A "regular action movie" and a "very well made one" are two different things, for me anyway.

Well, of course, in context, I am referring to two different things. I said the film becomes "a regular action movie" in contrast to its first half-hour, where it seems to be going the pseudo-documentary route -- with interviewees commenting on the action after the fact, and foreshadowing what's to come. It's kind of like watching The Death of a President, in that the film tries to keep you in suspense while, at the same time, playing like one of those documentaries that assumes a certain level of familiarity with the story. But then, after half-an-hour or so, the film starts showing you regular action that no documentary ever could have filmed, and it feels kind of like the filmmmakers just gave up, as far as their original concept goes. It's not like Citizen Kane where there's a clear line separating the newsreel from the drama; it's more like watching Cloverfield and then discovering, half-an-hour in, that the filmmakers changed their mind and decided to make Godzilla instead. And yet, at various points throughout the rest of the movie, the filmmakers continue to drop the odd interview clip or two into the proceedings ... so there's some inconsistency in the concept there.

The question isn't whether the parts are very well made; they are. The question is what sort of whole the parts add up to.

: You mentioned several things that are exceptional. Could you say more about what's regular?

An over-the-top bad guy or two, the ridiculous ease with which someone can break out of a top-secret high-security facility, that sort of thing.

[Tyler]

"Alive in Joburg" is a 6-minute film Blomkamp made in 2005, according to IMDB. It's clearly the inspiration for District 9.

Edited by tyler1984, 12 August 2009 - 11:05 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Roger Ebert comes to the defense of Armond White -- and good for him. The tyranny of the fanboy mob must be thwarted at every turn.

[Thom Wade]

Roger Ebert comes to the defense of Armond White -- and good for him. The tyranny of the fanboy mob must be thwarted at every turn.

He apparently withdrew his defense of White after looking over White's track record.

On Thursday night I posted in entry in defense of Armond White's review of "District 9." Overnight I received reader comments causing me to rethink that entry, in particular this eye-popping link supplied by Wes Lawson. I realized I had to withdraw my overall defense of White. I was not familiar enough with his work. It is baffling to me that a critic could praise "Transformers 2" but not "Synecdoche, NY." Or "Death Race" but not "There Will be Blood." I am forced to conclude that White is, as charged, a troll. A smart and knowing one, but a troll. My defense of his specific review of "District 9" still stands.

(though, he stands by his defense of the review itself as obviously stated at the end of the quote)

[Peter T Chattaway]

Nezpop wrote:
: He apparently withdrew his defense of White after looking over White's track record. . . .
: (though, he stands by his defense of the review itself as obviously stated at the end of the quote)

Well, that was the only defense I was interested in. I don't agree with White on this particular film, but he has every right to pan this movie, especially if he does so at least semi-reasonably, as Ebert still says he did. (I am intrigued, BTW, that Ebert was not aware of White's broader reputation. Ebert and White have both been at this for years, if not decades, and neither of them is particularly obscure.)

(I am also intrigued by the fact that Ebert has deleted the name of the "online friend" who alerted him to the controversy over Armond White's review. Was either he or she afraid that there'd be some sort of "guilt by association"?)

[opus]

Brett McCracken's review (may contain minor spoilers):

I suppose it’s an odd thing in a movie so full of heads being ripped off, bodies blown up, and fingernails peeled off, that above all else, District 9 made me think about love. But District 9 is an odd film, unexpected in all the best ways. It’s the summer’s biggest surprise.

This is a B movie of the highest order: gory, breakneck, funny/scary, and infused with political and cultural resonance. It’s the sort of 50s-sci-fi creature movie that makes portly, unkempt fanboys like producer Peter Jackson giggle with glee. Though in this case, pretty much everyone will be giggling with glee.

[Templar]

Looking forward to this. I'm kind of hoping it'll be the summer action movie that Rise of Cobra isn't.

[Peter T Chattaway]

FWIW, last night I e-mailed my dad this section of Roger Ebert's column:

I won't take your time here to list the parallels between this sci-fi popcorn movie and South African history. I briefly mentioned some of them in my own review, and will limit myself to pointing out the white hero's name, van der Merwe. Among white Afrikaners, that is a name as common as Smith or Jones. More to the point, it is the name used in a whole genre of ethnic jokes told by South African non-Afrikaners of all races. Van der Merwe is clueless and a very slow study, and that is possibly the point of the name's use here.

Ebert then goes on to tell a Van der Merwe joke. I asked my dad, who grew up in Zambia and went to university in South Africa back in the '60s, if this rang true for him, and today he replied:

Absolutely, I can tell you 20 van der Merwe jokes anytime. Clueless white supremacist.

So, there's a bit of subtext for you. (And, hmmm, just like my dad, District 9 director Neill Blomkamp now lives in Vancouver. Most of the special effects were done here too -- apparently Weta, Peter Jackson's company, was too busy with James Cameron's Avatar.)

[Templar]

Ebert then goes on to tell a Van der Merwe joke. I asked my dad, who grew up in Zambia and went to university in South Africa back in the '60s, if this rang true for him, and today he replied:

Absolutely, I can tell you 20 van der Merwe jokes anytime. Clueless white supremacist.

That's... odd, given that the sub-text would seem to be almost the exact reverse, at least from what I can see in the trailers.

Edited by Templar, 14 August 2009 - 12:44 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Templar wrote:
: That's... odd, given that the sub-text would seem to be almost the exact reverse, at least from what I can see in the trailers.

I'm not sure what you mean. In the beginning, at least, the movie's Van der Merwe IS a pretty clueless guy, happily ensconced in a place of privilege (married to the boss's daughter, etc.), who cheerfully accepts the job of coercing these aliens into signing the forms that will legally allow the goverment to relocate the aliens to a new "district". If memory serves, he even remarks that he and/or his comrades have just committed their first "abortion" when they discover -- and destroy -- a hut filled with alien egg-pods that have been gestating without a license; there's no malice to what Van der Merwe says or does, and no real awareness of any sort of moral dimension to what he's done, just a sort of naive enthusiasm that he now gets to play cop, as it were. So it's very, very easy to think of him as a clueless supremacist -- albeit a human supremacist rather than a white supremacist. There is no hint in the film of racism, per se, since apartheid was abolished 15 whole years ago and we see Van der Merwe working quite happily with both white and black South Africans, etc.

[Templar]

I'm not sure what you mean.

What I mean is that the trailers seem to establish a number of plot-points that would seem at odds with a "white racist/apartheid" reading of the film.

1: The story revolves around an alien race stuck in South Africa

2: They want to leave, but are either not able to or not allowed to

3: They possess vastly more advanced technology than the natives

4: They are (apparently) used as labour to drive the economy, and generally exploited

5: Black South Africans don't like them (judging by the inclusion of the interview clip)

Now, I realize I may be reading far too much into all that, and the film may very well support a completely different interpretation, but just going on what I can see in the trailers, I tend to suspect that the film's plot is more of a veiled metaphor for Afrikaaner ethnic solidarity, what with the initially clueless Van der Merwe realising that "his people" (he receives alien DNA) are being persecuted ("I swear I had no idea they were doing this to you guys!") and (apparently) coming to fight on their behalf against the forces of "Multi-National United".

But again, this all based simply on watching trailers.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Templar wrote:
: What I mean is that the trailers seem to establish a number of plot-points that would seem at odds with a "white racist/apartheid" reading of the film.

FWIW, I agree that the film is not about WHITE racism or supremacy. Not textually, anyway, but possibly not even subtextually, either.

As I may have said already in this thread, when I told my dad about this story, he said it sounded less like an apartheid metaphor and more like a metaphor for the influx of Zimbabwean refugees into South Africa; apparently white and black South Africans alike take issue with the presence of all these "foreigners" on their soil. (This bit of possible subtext even rises to the level of text, sort of, when the film introduces a subplot involving a Nigerian gang that has set up camp in District 9.)

That being said, it doesn't surprise me that the Van der Merwe character in this film might represent a certain character TYPE, even if he is only speciesist and not racist. He really IS clueless, and he really DOES treat the aliens as inferiors (cf. the "abortion" scene), even if he puts the nicest face on it.

FWIW, another bit of possible South African subtext concerns District 10, i.e. the district that the government wants to move all these aliens to. At one point, someone says the new district isn't really all that nice and is more of a "concentration camp". As it happens, the term "concentration camp" was first used to describe the camps that the British built for the Afrikaners during the Boer War, just over a century ago. So in that case, the Afrikaners were the victims rather than the oppressors, and if there was any racism involved, it was between two different white races.

: I tend to suspect that the film's plot is more of a veiled metaphor for Afrikaaner ethnic solidarity, what with the initially clueless Van der Merwe realising that "his people" (he receives alien DNA) are being persecuted ("I swear I had no idea they were doing this to you guys!") and (apparently) coming to fight on their behalf against the forces of "Multi-National United".

Y'know, I don't think I've seen any of the trailers, so I can't comment on how they come across; but I am wondering now what you mean by a "metaphor for Afrikaaner ethnic solidarity". Would the aliens thus be stand-ins for Afrikaners rather than blacks (whether of South African or Zimbabwean origin)? Who would the aliens/Afrikaners be fighting back against, then?