In a summer filled with shitty popcorn flicks whose budgets could buy small countries, District 9 is a breath of fresh air. I must admit that after leaving the theater District 9 was completely different than what I portrayed it to be based on the information and trailers I had seen, but it’s not entirely all bad.
The film is very fast paced, and Neil Blomkamp does a great job of getting you hooked very early on, and then with expert editing refuses to let you get bored, let alone think. This is a film where the only emotions you will feel are: shock, anxiety and quite possibly nausea. What was most surprising to me is how action intensive D9 is. When the second trailer was released, we caught glimpses of some very cool alien weapons in action, and the feature film does not let viewers down. Before I elaborate on the action, let me discuss the films synopsis, without spoiling anything for potential viewers that may be on the fence about paying to see this movie.
The movie takes place in 2009 in Africa. Aliens arrived in a huge mothership 20 years earlier. Their ship ‘broke down’ and they were stuck inside the ship. So we ‘rescued’ them because they were literally dying of illness and disease inside their ship. This is a story about a private organization called the M.N.U. who goes into where the aliens (or Prawns as they are referred to in the film) live which is District 9, and move them outside of the city to District 10.
All I can say is things go horribly wrong, and that’s all the plot details that I will release.
This movie had a budget of roughly 40 million according to the releases, and it looks way better than almost any CG heavy film I have ever seen, including Star Trek. It is also very, very gory. I’m talking mutilations, decapitations, and flesh covered walls galore!
Everything visually about this movie is top notch, and believable. The acting is good enough, the film score is adequate however, I was wanting a film with no score like Cloverfield because of the documentary style of filming. The sound effects are amazing. The Prawns sound great and original, and their weapons sound completely bizarre and original.
The film does suffer with one major flaw in my opinion. Neil Blomkamp never commits to a true documentary style film, and I think it really disconnects and confuses the viewer. The film is constantly shifting from docu style handheld, the to overhead security cam, to 1st person videogame style cam, then to classic cinema style, and I did not like that at all.
On top of that, the ‘big but’ I mention in the title is this: we learn nothing. Walking out of the theater, I have no idea who these aliens are, why they are truly here, what their culture is like, and why the hell they didn’t just whip those weapons out in the beginning and annihilate us. Now it should be noted, that the film shows humanity hating the aliens, and treating them like cockroaches. In one scene our lead actor is shown flamethrowing a nest of baby aliens, and laughing about the sound they make while they are burning. But yet these Prawns live in pure squalor and allow us to treat them like shit, even sometimes shooting them on sight. But for whatever reason they also have mechanized fighting suits that are as big as tanks, and have a slew of weaponry, yet we don’t even see one in action until the climatic finish to the film.
Alas, I will let it slide for this film, and why you may ask? One word: sequel. There is definitely a sequel coming, and maybe even a trilogy. All in all, I praise it highly for being so fucking original in an era of reboots and remakes, and movies based off of childhood toys from the 1980’s (Ballzac movie anyone?). This movie is like nothing you have ever seen, I promise that. It is wonderfully entertaining, and will assuredly be the topic of conversations in the weeks to come. Just go see it. This is one that needs to be seen on the big screen.

Where did this movie come from?  I can honestly say, I heard absolutely nothing about this film which was released July 11th of 2008.  Outlander is a movie directed by Howard McCain (who? exactly).  It’s a film about a man who crashes to Earth from space in the year 790 AD.  He drops from the sky into a Viking riddled Norway, and he also brings a present. A Moorwen.  It’s a wicked dragon, griffin creature from another planet, and it likes to decapitate and rip guts out of humans.

Outlander is a pretty bad ass sci-fi film.  It runs nearly 2 hours, and the action is heavy and bloody.  Jim Cavaziel is the star (A Thin Red Line, The Count Of Monte Cristo, and Passion Of The Christ), and definitely holds his own as the lead.  I personally feel this dude is HIGHLY underused in Hollywood, as he is an extrememly talented actor.

There’s not much to analyse about this film.  It’s dark, well shot, well acted, great sound, good score, full of action, and straight ahead.  It’s a solid rental, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I had no expectations going in, because honestly I had no idea what the hell this film was about.  If you are stuck on your choice for movie night, I highly recommend this, and I would probably watch it again, so it’s a decent addition to your film collection as well.  To further add to this, I’d like to state that the director, Howard McCain has also signed out to help write the new script for the upcoming Conan reboot.  Jim Cavaziel is rumored to be playing the role of William Tell.

This movie gets the Red Dwarf award: Bloody good

Growing up, I was a pretty big fan of Japanese animation films. I was always fascinated by the attention to detail in the art, as well as some really intelligent science fiction plots depicted in some works.
The director of The Sky Crawlers, is: Mamoru Oshii, who in the United States is most famous for directing the animation classic: Ghost In The Shell. That movie has a very complex plot, and it took me several views to truly grasp the meaning of the film. In my defense I was also much younger when I watched that movie.
The Sky Crawlers is a gorgeously animated movie. There is a fantastic display of traditional Japanese animation art, seamlessly fused together with utterly jaw dropping computer animation. The basic plot of the film is about an alternate time on Earth(year unknown), where two large corporations employ private Navy’s to battle for control of the sky’s. Although we the audience never know why. It is an ongoing war that has and possibly will never end. Enter our main character who mysteriously lands at a small naval base with no recollection of his past, and assumes the role as the bases ‘ace’ pilot, although he really doesn’t understand why he is so skilled in the cockpit.
The film is wonderfully put together, and does run a little over two hours, however I was thoroughly engrossed within the plot nearly every minute. Let me state that this movie is not action intensive, however, the dogfight scenes are some of the best direction I have ever seen in any film regardless of it being an animation. I do not easily got engrossed with action sequences but after each fight scene, my eyes were slightly burning because I knew I had not blinked. They are that good, and again, the attention to detail is baffling. There is one scene in particular where a dogfight is happening in the pouring rain and the drops are pounding on the planes canopy while in flight, and then the camera cuts to a shot away from the plane, showing it while slicing through the rain creating mist contrails.
The foley sounds are also noteworthy. Being that this is a completely animated film, the sound design team did a most excellent job of immersing me in this world. Everything from a machine gun erupting from a plane, down to the howl of wind sneaking in under a window, is masterfully done.
The vision for this film is brilliant. The plane design is slightly steam punk (google it if you don’t know the term), and I love how Mamoru Oshii created this futuristic setting, and then dressed it with architecture, clothing, weapons, and engineering straight out of the mid 1940’s.
The only flaws in this film, are some of the English dub work. The version I saw was in Japanese with English subtitles, (I’m hardcore like that). However, whenever there would be scenes of flying, they would break from speaking Japanese, and suddenly begin speaking horribly broken English on top of English subtitles! I have no idea why Mamoru Oshii did this, but I took it only as a slight grievance. Also the music is pretty poor for such a visually appealing movie. Kenji Kawai is credited for the score, and I recognized his ’sound’ as being the same composer on Ghost In The Shell. I was never moved by the music, and felt that the dogfight scenes should be exploding with riveting orchestration, but instead was treated with hollow sounding electronica music. I was very disappointed in the music.
All in all, I highly recommend seeing this movie. I do realize that it has been out for sometime, but I felt it necessary to write about it, because I feel few people in the States have seen it, and if you appreciate art, and a good plot, then this film is well worth two hours of your time.
I have no interest in any Dreamworks animation, but I do like most of Pixars films, and despite this being a much more adult themed film, certainly shadows nearly every project either of those two powerhouses have put out.
DIRECTING: 4.5 out of 5
ANIMATION/CINEMATOGRAPHY:5 out of 5
EDITING: 4 out of 5
PLOT: 3.5 out of 5
ACTING/VOICEOVER 2.5 out of 5
FILM SCORE: 2.0 out of 5

TOTAL: 21.5 out of 30