Film: District 9

[axl blaze]

^ I wouldn't call it overt racism. this film was meant to be a satire on apartheid, so issues of race are obviously going to come in effect.

District 9 is perhaps one of the best sci-fi movies I have seen in theatres ever. it is so applicable to our generation. unlike the usual science fiction alien movies like Independence Day, I could actually see something like the scenario of District 9 go down.

District 9 is one of the most applicable movies to our generation. the movie's commentary on sociological and economic issues were spot on.

near perfect film. there are talks of a sequel already, which would be interesting.

 

[eon_blue]

I was fine with the transition from documentary ---> action film, until they got too carried away with it towards the end. The last fight scene with the main character (Vicrum was it?) in the robot suit and the main prawn against the army was a bit too kitsch for me. It was one of those "the bad guys can't aim for shit and the good guys always hit their mark" scenes that you usually see in campy superhero movies like most of the god awful batman or james bond films.

The first 2/3 of the movie was incredible though.

 

[sdripper]

You've got the catch phrase already, 'Epic Fail'.

And your reviews sound like they were written by one of the chicks out of clueless, so modern audiences will no doubt lap it up.

You're perfect.

well you are right, simple works. I mean comon, either it's simple to the max or you need a 10 page review critiquing every single detail, aspect,character, etc.

Wouldn't you agree?

And I guess I did kinda critisize more than give my opinion and rating, I think I will probably stay outa this forum lol, it's for the best most likely.

sigh, I guess my standards are jsut too high.

As in, Terminator 1 is a 12 out of 10

Terminator 2 is a 12 out of 10

Terminator 3 is a 2 out of 10

Terminator 4 is a 1 out of 10

They just do not make movies like they used to.

Hollywood garbage is the norm now, pump out a movie that makes the creators money, and thats that.

 

[L2R]

^ his sarcastic praise of your reviews are pretty spot on. in order to have an opinion worth a damn, some kind of elaboration or explanation is required to make sense of it.

this forum would suck if it were just filled with "movie rocks"/"movie suck" replies.....








..... that is becasue it would not mean anything. there would be zero content to stimulate conversation.

 

[TheDeceased]

Both District 9 and Inglourious Basterds were obviously films that the creators cared about a great deal and I'm not sure I see your point in comparing them to the (decline of the) Terminator franchise or suggesting at the end of your post that films these days are only made for money.

In my opinion James Cameron is, for lack of a better word, a bit of a wanker - and of all the films/directors you could chose as an example, I'm not sure why you would chose him. He makes extremely commercial films with very contrived characters. The 'John Conner' character in Terminator 2 was one of the worst teenage characters ever brought to screen. I'm not saying the film was bad, but it was flawed. To suggest that the first two Terminator films set some unreachable standard in terms of film or even just sci-fi is utterly ridiculous. Besides which, it's a different kind of film than District 9. The Terminator films (unless I missed something) are, like practically all of Camerons efforts, mindless action films.

On the other hand, as people have already said, 'District 9' used a science fiction setting as a very effective context to make a commentary about the state of the Apartheid in South Africa and racism/ it's consequences in general.

It would've been impossible to make the film without including scenes/dialogue that some overly sensitive people would consider to be racist. I understand that you could misunderstand the point of the film and interpret it as some sort of bizarre alien infested justification for the Apartheid, but it isn't.

They just do not make movies like they used to.

You're right. Both 'Basterds' and 'District 9' were refreshingly original.
Another solid point.

I wasn't being sarcastic about the film critic thing. And you're right - there are indeed only two types of reviewers. One writes a sensible, lengthy article outlining what they like and dislike about the film and the other mumbles incoherently.

Don't let me scare you away from this forum. We need some good mumblers here. Seriously.

 

[sdripper]

^ his sarcastic praise of your reviews are pretty spot on. in order to have an opinion worth a damn, some kind of elaboration or explanation is required to make sense of it.

this forum would suck if it were just filled with "movie rocks"/"movie suck" replies.....








..... that is becasue it would not mean anything. there would be zero content to stimulate conversation.

Well..ya, but I mean there isn't one serious "review" of this movie in thsi thread.
Just everyone half-hazardly talking about a part they thought was cool, or how much they enjoyed the movie.

So, upon further inspection it looks like I am alone in not liking the movie and so retorts followed my "review".

hmmm..maybe I am not being perceptive enough tho..perhaps someone wants to hear an in depth, detailed writing about the movie?? 8)

 

[TheDeceased]

We aren't film reviewers just fans so to expect anything else is unrealistic.

His point still stands.

 

[sdripper]

Both District 9 and Inglourious Basterds were obviously films that the creators cared about a great deal and I'm not sure I see your point in comparing them to the (decline of the) Terminator franchise or suggesting at the end of your post that films these days are only made for money.

In my opinion James Cameron is, for lack of a better word, a bit of a wanker - and of all the films/directors you could chose as an example, I'm not sure why you would chose him. He makes extremely commercial films with very contrived characters. The 'John Conner' character in Terminator 2 was one of the worst teenage characters ever brought to screen. I'm not saying the film was bad, but it was flawed. To suggest that the first two Terminator films set some unreachable standard in terms of film or even just sci-fi is utterly ridiculous. Besides which, it's a different kind of film than District 9. The Terminator films (unless I missed something) are, like practically all of Camerons efforts, mindless action films.

On the other hand, as people have already said, 'District 9' used a science fiction setting as a very effective context to make a commentary about the state of the Apartheid in South Africa and racism/ it's consequences in general.

It would've been impossible to make the film without including scenes/dialogue that some overly sensitive people would consider to be racist. I understand that you could misunderstand the point of the film and interpret it as some sort of bizarre alien infested justification for the Apartheid, but it isn't.



You're right. Both 'Basterds' and 'District 9' were refreshingly original.
Another solid point.

I wasn't being sarcastic about the film critic thing. And you're right - there are indeed only two types of reviewers. One writes a sensible, lengthy article outlining what they like and dislike about the film and the other mumbles incoherently.

Don't let me scare you away from this forum. We need some good mumblers here. Seriously.

wow

Ok..take a look around. When was Terminator 1 and 2 made?
Thank you. The absolute EPICness of those films is largely because of When they were made.

This is refering to the special effects, filming ability/style, realism(basically second to none), etc, etc, etc

Flash back to the 80's, there is not one person I'd think, that can say anything bad about those films. They were something like no one had seen at the time, and they were huge. If only I could time warp and see them in theatre, as young'n!! phew, can only imagine seeing arnold punch through someones chest as an 11 year old lol :D

uhh...action packed? well, when you create a murderous cyborg that kills anything alive, it kinda would ruin the film for it not to be the most awesome action movie you've ever seen.

Jeez man, weren't you ever a little boy? mindless action film was the point, although it was anything but mindless. amazing story backed with realism that is unmatched.

hmmm..i digress

"On the other hand, as people have already said, 'District 9' used a science fiction setting as a very effective context to make a commentary about the state of the Apartheid in South Africa and racism/ it's consequences in general."

Ya, sure. That part was great, one of my favorite things about the movie. Really kept the perspective.

"Both District 9 and Inglourious Basterds were obviously films that the creators cared about a great deal and I'm not sure I see your point in comparing them to the (decline of the) Terminator franchise or suggesting at the end of your post that films these days are only made for money."

Oh no doubt. It's jsut too bad that their dreams couldn't be realized in an "overall" epic film.



The idea was soo cool , I was soo looking forward to District 9


"You're right. Both 'Basterds' and 'District 9' were refreshingly original.
Another solid point."

One of the few good things I could say about them both

Original. Typically movies today are anything but original, so I didn't hate these 2 soo much because they were quite original

I was able to enjoy these movies, it's just it was hard to keep the monster from rearing up inside me and flaming them to the ground.

sigh..those damned previews!! exciting me all the time, i swear i need to go back to when i turned my head and plugged my ears anytime a preview for a movie comes on lol

And they show the entire movie now! For the last 10 years, previews have started showing a clip from EVERY scene of the movie...does anyone else HATE that??

 

[sdripper]

We aren't film reviewers just fans so to expect anything else is unrealistic.

His point still stands.

I guess so, huh?
Maybe you shouldn't have singled out my post in the first place then, fellow fan.

 

[L2R]

i agree with your point on trailers. they do shit me with their misrepresentations. i saw a really quick tv spot for this which didn't show much and nothing else before seeing it. i had no idea and was blown away from start to finish.

 

[TheDeceased]

I 'singled out' your post because you, without any explanation, described a fantastic film (especially for a directoral debut) that is getting a lot of unfairly bad reviews as an 'epic fail', but then you went on to contradict yourself so I forgive you.

I didn't at any point suggest that mindless action films don't have their place in the film world. You misunderstood me. To repeat myself, what I was saying is: the Terminator franchise is a strange example to bring up. Blade Runner or Alien Nation might have made sense, but Terminator is just weird. However exciting it may have been for you as a pre-pubescent boy to see Arnold fist someone through the ribcage, it's not that relevant, you know?

Also, I'm not sure that Terminator was all that realistic... second to none?

Jeez man, weren't you ever a little boy?

No actually I was born as a fully grown man... split my mother right in half.

Flash back to the 80's, there is not one person I'd think, that can say anything bad about those films.

Most of the kids I grew up with thought that John Conner was an absolute douche... but the rest of the film was wonderful.

it's just it was hard to keep the monster from rearing up inside me and flaming them to the ground.

I got that impression from you. If you hadn't called two films 'Epic Failures' (you use the word epic a lot btw) within the space of a couple of minutes, then I probably wouldn't have been so harsh... you appeared to be a bit of a troll. Perhaps I was too quick to judge. I'm just kind of sick of people exageratting their dislike for films on the internet.

Can you name a better Science Fiction film or World War II film that came out this decade?

Can you name three (of each)?

My point is that they aren't Epic failures. There may be aspects of them that you don't like, but to call them shit films... and racist films (I'm sure that Tarantino would be horrified to realise some people think that there are racist elements to his Nazi Spaghetti Western flick in which a group of Jewish psychopaths go around beating german sculls in) is just kind of stupid... No offense.

In terms of misrepresnting films on ads, I read an article where the Weinstein's explained their reasons for doing so. I can't be bothered finding it now, so I'll paraphrase as best I can.

They said that they were under enormous pressure and that their company is in a dire finanicial situation. They also stated that a lot of films were unexpectedly failing at the Box Office (probably at least in part due to film piracy) and that the films that did well were concept films. Given the amount of money they invested in 'Basterds' and how important it was to them, they had to ensure that it did well. The way to do that was to advertise it like a two and half hour bloodbath, in order to get the younger Tarantino demographic audiences to flock to the cinemas... and you yourself basically admitted that is what you wanted to see.

So essentially they lied because the masses don't want to see a long, weird, subtitled Tarantino flick. They want to see a bunch of nutjobs bashing in sculls from credits to credits.

Like it or leave it, this is the unfortunate state of the film industry and we (or at least some of us ) are contributing to it.

After taking this into account and thinking about it a bit, I don't mind the misrepresentation. As long as it gets films made that would otherwise be mindless Terminator flicks.

Again, I'm not saying there should be no mindless rib cage fisting films, but there needs to be a balance.

 

[TheDeceased]

BTW, I apologise for basically calling you a mumbling idiot.

I've come to realize that I can be a bit of an asshole sometimes.

 

[EJ]

A bit? lollanons. You are essential though.

I do think Blade Runner would've been a waaaaay better pick than either Terminator movies to make a point though. If it's about special effects and all that, Blade Runner holds up remarkably well today and both Terminator movies are aging fairly fast. That's pretty significant when you consider that Blade Runner came out 2 years before Terminator and 9 years before T2. Remarkable movie.

 

[Pander Bear]

fwiw, I think Terminator has aged considerably better than Judgement Day.

 

[sdripper]

hmmm

Speaking of ripping your mother in half..8)

 

[TheDeceased]

Nice comeback.

Can you name a better Science Fiction film or World War II film that came out this decade?

Can you name three (of each)?

Seriously I want to know what you consider to be better examples of both genres, because frankly I'll be amazed if you can come come up with many - if any... and if you can't, then how can you consider the films to be failures?

Step up to the challenge, Jimmy.

I do think Blade Runner would've been a waaaaay better pick than either Terminator movies to make a point though. If it's about special effects and all that, Blade Runner holds up remarkably well today and both Terminator movies are aging fairly fast. That's pretty significant when you consider that Blade Runner came out 2 years before Terminator and 9 years before T2. Remarkable movie.

Yeah, I love Philip K Dick. If you haven't done so, read some of his novels. I reccomend 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch'. Apparently Terry Gilliam is going to make an adaptation of "The World Jones Made', after he's done with Parnassus, if you care to believe the rumours.

 

[Lane]

Can you name a better Science Fiction film or World War II film that came out this decade?

I can name a few Sci-Fi (of this decade) that are on par with D9, in my opinion.

Primer, Sunshine, & Children of Men

I would, in no way, say these three surpass D9. Nor would I say D9 surpasses them. But I enjoyed all 3 as much as D9. I could easily rank all four in my Top 20 favorite Sci-Fi movies of all-time. A couple might even break my Top 10.

Now for WWII in this decade. I can only think of The Pianist. Again, I wouldn't say it's better than Basterds. They are both excellent movies.

 

[TheDeceased]

Nice suggestions. I haven't seen Primer. I must check it out... (just added it to my ever-expanding list of films to see)... Here are some more good Sci-Fi flicks of the decade:

K-PAX (2000)
Solaris (2002)
Code 46 (2003)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
A Scanner Darkly (2006)

I'm not sure which ones I would rate as better or worse exactly (than D9), either. I don't like ranking films that are so inherently different against each other. I was just trying to get sdripper to admit that it's one of the top 10 films of it's genre in the past decade.

On the other hand I couldn't think of any WWII films that I would even begin to compare to Basterds. I forgot about 'The Pianist' and am yet to watch 'The Reader' but have heard good things.

 

[Finder]

Off-topic, but Primer is one of my favorite movies of the last 5 years.

 

[L2R]

yes, td, you MUST see primer asap.

D9 wasn't as exciting the second time. The ending is still great though.