DISTRICT 9: 10/10:
In a summer where nearly every single genre film was rife with idiocy and disappointment, Neil Blomkamp has come to deliver us from the Wolverines, Transformers, and C.G.I. Joes with his intense allegory DISTRICT 9. I went into the film knowing next to nothing about it, and the truth is so should everyone. Be surprised. Chuck your Tweeting cynicism out the fucking window and lose yourself in a hyper-real world presented by Peter Jackson.
i guess i'll say the set-up: in the mid 1980s, a large alien spacecraft settled in the airspace over Johannesburg, South Africa (DUST DEVIL just got a new best friend!!!). Eventually humans were able to cut themselves into the mothership, and found nearly millions of aliens, all of them malnourished, possibly sick and/or infirm. Beneath their stalled vehicle, a slum was built for the creatures to inhabit, so they would not mingle with an already overcrowded human populous.
The film has a lot to say, but doesn't bash you over the head with it. it lets the viewer make up it's own mind, presenting things as they are. It's a hard-hitting, matter-of-fact story where almost no one is infallible. It's bleak, but it has a heart, and lots of it. The characters are fleshed out beautifully, including the main alien. I really don't wanna give anything away.
It's funny, when i review a shamelessly commercial piece of cum-cake like REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, i write three and a half pages of verbalized hatred. But when i see i good movie, it's usually short and sweet. that's because with bad movies, people need to be warned. With good movies, they need to be seen. I can only hope DISTRICT 9 blows C.G.I. JOE: RISE OF COBRO out of the goddamn water this week.
And no... i won't be reviewing that thing. there is only so much my soul can take. after Wolverine, Terminator 4, and Transformers 2, i've officially thrown in the towel when it comes to the blissfully bland needlessly needy world of pathetic summer blockbusters. I think i've finally been broken. luckily DISTRICT 9 is slowly piecing me back together.
now for some cult;
COMBAT SHOCK: THIS IS GOING TO HURT / YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE
DRILLER KILLER without the art. ERASERHEAD without a radiator chanteuse. if Jacob had survived the Ladder, this is what he probably would have come home to.
Blunt. Ugly. A Nihilistic Skull Fucking from the demon cocks of an American Nightmare. This is a film that made John McNaughton want to slit his wrists. John McNaughton directed and co-wrote HENRY: PORTRAIT OF SERIAL KILLER. Buddy G's COMBAT SHOCK made the director of mother fucking HENRY want to end it all.
Can you see we're serious here?
Here's the skinny: a disturbed 'Nam vet Frankie struggles with life 15 years after he had been subjected to the horrors of capture at the hands of Charlie. A nagging wife, a moaning infant mutated from Daddy's exposure to Agent Orange, No job, facing eviction, owes a debt to local tuffs, best friend is a junkie thief. Frankie spends the day looking for work, waiting in line at the unemployment agency, and coming in contact with sub-scum of the sub-earth. Needeless to say things don't go so well, and it ends with blood.... ovens.... and sour milk.
This is one of the most benumbing films i have ever seen. Startling, bleak, and lost, at times the budget constraints show, but this ranks among one of the most torturous benchmarks in underground cinema history. A love letter to its time period... followed by a bullet in the guts.
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