District 9
The movie District 9 came up the other night at the pub. I am amazed to discover that I am still totally fascinated by it. 
It’s one of those movies like The Matrix or Big Fish that was just a really really good idea.
That they delivered such incredible results with a no-name cast, a meager budget (30M compared to matrix: 65M and Big Fish 70M), and it wasn’t filmed in the US just makes my sense of WOW grow.
Ideas in movies are hard to come by. Explosions, and sex are not. District 9 delivered a good idea. My friend told me he watched for 20 minutes wondering when the movie was going to start then he realized it HAD started. This would be a bit of a slam if he was suggesting it was very dull, or run of the mill… his point was that IT WAS REALISTIC. Considering half of the ‘actors’ were aliens, that’s quite a feat!
Now you take a movie like Mission Impossible where apart from the hi tech stuff and Tom’s uncanny ability to never really get hurt (Don’t get me started on how he was, in fact, the last Samurai.) the movie is supposed to be real. Yet, we leave the theater thinking, what a load of horse **** that is. It’s so fake. Or, even worse, we come out praising the special effects.
NO.
Movie’s should be really really good stories that are transcendent and (to get all Aristotle on your a$$) cathartic. We should be taken from the theater to another place and when we get there we should be challenged by the experiences we see and in the process learn about ourselves and become better.
District 9 delivered. Sure, there was quite a few explosions and a bit of gore, but they added to the story. Actually, given the (seemingly obvious) parallel with apartheid ridden South Africa I would suggest the scenes were quite tame compared to what actually happened there to real people. READ: not to aliens!
I actually saw the movie (the 2nd time) with my pastor and he came up with a whole Moses take on the movie. I personally saw more of a Jesus connection. (I’d explain why, but clearly I don’t want to ruin it for you.)
The other thing District 9 has going for it is that it’s cool. And cool counts for a lot in my books. (You’re either in the club or out on that one. There will be no explaining of it lest this become a jr. high school girl’s blog.)
I made a little musical tribute to District 9. It’s two videos down. The first vid is the trailer to the movie, 2nd is my tribute, and the third is a great imitation of the aliens by some guy I found on Youtube.
I hear District 9 will be out on DVD in time for Christmas so perhaps me fadder-in-law and I will have something to do when we’re not building a house for the dog.
My musical tribute to district 9.
Awesome Prawn (Alien) Impression here: 