District 9

I'm actually kind of pissed off here... They held off releasing what turned out to be the best movie of the summer until the very tail end of the season — just when all hope seemed to be lost along came District 9.

No, District 9 is not a perfect movie. It's been incredibly over hyped by professional and shitty online reviewers for the past 2 weeks leading up to its official release date — being touted as "the most original sci-fi movie ever!" and "a thinking man's movie that will have you at the edge of your seat wondering what incredible twists will happen next." No, it's not very original (did the whole universe forget about the 80s' awesome Alien Nation?), and although it's got some twists, they're not The 6th Sense caliber plot-turns... but if you don't compare it to anything else, and ignore all the dick sucking going on about this movie, you will enjoy the hell out of it.

In case you've been living in a cave, District 9 is a film made by some South African guy whose name I don't remember, but it's produced by The Lord of the Rings' (and Meet the Feebles') Peter Jackson. It's all about how a giant alien spaceship came to Earth in 1982 and started hovering over South Africa's Johannesburg. Inside were found about a million insectoid-looking aliens that mankind started calling Prawns. They were starving, most of them were pretty dense and easy to push around, and they had some weapons on board that made things explode really cool-like. So we welcomed them to our planet, but made them stay in a concentration/internment camp just outside of Johannesburg called — you fucking guessed it — District 9.

We start the story over 20 years after they arrived on our planet. Inside District 9 the aliens live in slummy conditions. They've built shacks out of scrap metal and junk, and they've learned to love cat food like chihuahuas love tacos. Outside of District 9 an international alien watchdog association (called the MNU) is "managing" the aliens in the camp, and they're doing their best to reverse engineer the aliens' weapons technology which seems to be completely integrated with the Prawns' DNA — meaning only a Prawn can use the advanced guns and mecha.

Anyway, we begin the tale with an MNU agent named Wikus who leads a giant force of both paper-pushers and private army folk into the alien slums in order to get the Prawns to sign some papers that says they don't mind being relocated to the camp-city of District 10 which is further away from Johannesburg, and will be easier for the MNU to control. During this mission things go sour fast, and the humans and Prawns involved get put through a buttload of psychological and physical hell before everything eventually culminates in a vicious and destructive battle royale in the final half hour. You may think I just spoiled the whole movie-going experience of District 9, but I barely touched on anything that happens in this flick besides the basic outline. Trust me. I would not fuck you over on such a fun experience as seeing this thing relatively blind.

One of the many things that utterly blew my mind about this movie is that the whole 2-hour production was made for around $30-million... That's like $170-million LESS than Michael Bay's asstacular Transformers 2, and with special effects (not to mention a story) that put the Bay fail-tacular to absolute shame. I started believing that the giant, hovering, alien spaceship in the background of 1/2 of the shots in this thing was real within 5 seconds of seeing it for the first time. And the Prawns themselves? I started believing them as characters (and not CG creations) within 10 seconds. What this director did (that most American directors STILL can't seem to grasp) is he didn't make his CG-creatures constantly fidgeting or moving around in order to show the audience "Hey! Look at THIS thing! It's not real! We spent MILLIONS making it! LOOK at it! LOOOOOOK at it!" Instead, the Prawns act like real living creatures. Imagine that. Oh, and another thing American directors of big-budgeted summer movies seem to forget (which the District 9 people didn't) is to focus on PLOT and ACTING FIRST. Honestly, what the hell are they teaching in film school nowadays?

One thing I've talked about with my friends who've seen this movie is how the humans acted in it, and how they treated the trapped aliens in the story. Some thought it was completely wrong, and that our ethics would prevent us from experimenting on any invading creatures, just like we don't carve up humans for human testing anymore. I disagreed. For all intents and purposes, most of the Prawns were simply slow and almost mindless drones. They looked like insects, and were just so easy to disarm and boss around. If this happened in real life you KNOW a government or company like MNU would come along and use the Prawns to further weapons research, or to see if they could be raised as a cheaper form of cattle. And to drive my point home to my friends I brought up and quoted that one screeching lady who (unfortunately) watched the movie in my theater.

"They be BUGS, mothafucker! EWwww! Damn cock-a-roaches! Someone should oughta step on them with big mothafuckin' shoes!"

That pretty much sums up what I think global perceptions would be if aliens like these Prawns really did show up on our doorstep one day.

Oh, and to you mongoloids out there who actually think that after 20+ years of coexistence our linguists would not be able to translate the Prawns' alien language, and that it's preposterous that normal humans can understand the tongue, and the Prawns ours, despite not being able to speak it... You're shut-in morons. All of you. I can tell you that after 4 years of high school Spanish (and having not spoken it for over a decade) I can still understand slow conversations in the language, though I'd be a retard if I tried to join in any real discussion myself. And if you've ever worked in an international office for any amount of time (though I know YOU, dear reader, can barely cut it at your job at the local Wal-Mart, let alone get employed by a fast-paced Fortune 500 company with offices in Hong Kong, Madrid, and your momma's cooch... Maybe if you shaved the cheezy beard, cut off your mullet, and stopped scratching your lice-infested crotch every 20 seconds you'd have a chance...), you'd know that it's much easier to understand a language by ear than it is to speak it... And I'm willing to bet that you have no problem whatsoever at all with the whole Han and Chewie tète-à-tète, you hypocritical baboon's ass, you.

Other than that, I love how this was a hard-"R" rated sci-fi drama piece. Bodies blew up fantastically chunkily, and with great regularity throughout the whole show. I love how the actor behind the lead, Wikus, was completely and totally his character. I'd never seen him before (his first role ever), and so the man Wikus was as real to me as the spaceship in the background of most outside shots. District 9 is just a beautiful, space-insect-filled, cruel movie that I plan to see many times over.

So what'd I think of District 9? Interesting, violent, brutal, and fun. In the end I find that I have to give it 345 out of 369 Points of Prawny Probity. If you're squeamish, you're the only kind of person I wouldn't recommend this movie to. Oh, and you're a pussy. Go and see it anyway. It's good for you.

Oh my god! Kuni has many alien creature living in kitchen! Who knew?! Kuni feed alien Twinkie, Apple Jack, and many natto bits for hungry alien. Now lots more of the aliens come out to play with the Kuni! Rossman now calling Kuni home "District Puke on Floor 9 times." Alien friend make the Kuni feel better. Alien lay eggs in peanut butter, and nobody telling the Rossman when he make sandwich next time!

Yatta alien bugs!

Those dirty Nigerians! They just scammed my Kiffy-pooh out of $20,000, and now they're doing the same thing to those poor, confused, and gross aliens! Somebody ought to stop them. Didn't South Park have the US Navy blow up the Nigerian pirates and computer hackers once? Why don't we to that for real. I don't care if they entertain my brother with their trying to imitate the Monty Python "dead parakeet" sketch or something in order to try and weasel more cash out of suckers like my Kiff! This has got to stop! And how can they charge so much for just a can of cat food?! They are taking major advantage of the supply and demand condition in that camp... It reminded me of that time when I was in kindergarten and all I wanted for Christmas was a Cabbage Patch Kid, and some rat bastard bought out the entire town's supply and started charging four times their cost for desperate parents who needed to buy one for their kids... That was the best hunger strike I ever went on. Totally worth no electricity for a few months after my parents were forced to break the bank to get my my Jezebel Nottington.

It was a kind of gross movie, but okay all around. Lots of exploding people. LOTS. And somebody brought to my attention something about that Vickus character that I can't get out of my head now. They made the connection from Vickus to Michael Scott from the Office, and so help me God that's all I can see now.