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DISTRICT 9 Review by Dean Haglund ....

THIS IS A FUCKING AWESOME MOVIE... but I knew that before i saw it.  

I have said, since my junior year in some screenwriting classes,  

that Sci-fi is perfect way of dealing with present day issues. For  

instance, Battlestar Galactica  had human suicide bombers blowing up  

Cylons and bingo, critics hailed it as greatest TV series ever!  So it  

looks like someone here took their old "socially relevant"  Anti  

Apartheid screenplay set in Soweto and turned it into a cool movie  

that is action packed and full of ideas.

 ....

Here is fresh idea #1: First contact with the Alien race is not a  

glorious white lighted, 3rd close encounter where all the abducted  

children come home again. Instead the aliens are a starving race of

bug-like things that eat tires, are addicted to cat food and are

generally  

considered a pain in the ass.

 ....

Fresh idea #2: The aliens don't do their research when they decide to

hover over Johannesburg, South Africa, a town with a spectacular  

history of dealing with those who are 'different' than themselves. For  

you kids who never went to college in the glorious late 80's, we drank  

AND made a difference with a boycott of that country to stop it's  

oppression of black people or something like that. I just remember  

that I would not buy my beer from a Shell Gas Station, and because of  

that Nelson Mandela was elected.

 ....

So 20 years after they arrive, racism and bigotry against these aliens  

abound and they are relocated to a Shanty town called District 9. All of

this you learn in the first THREE minutes of the movie. From there

things take off. And for once, I am not going to be Mr. Spoiler!  

You just have to see it.

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Peter Jackson, is the only name on the credits that anyone recognizes.  

Other involved were working on the HALO movie with Mr. Jackson that  

thankfully died on the vine and so he brought this to the table as a  

make-work project.  I am sure that everyone wanted to stay close to  

Jackson in case something else ramped up, so director Neil Blomkamp  

and  all the pre production staff took a pay cut, and deliverer way  

above their pay scale. Neil's only other real credit before this was  

as lead 3D animator for "3000 miles to Graceland" where I can only  

assume it was his job to paint some talent onto Kevin Costner.

 ....

Neil's shoots the movie in a documentary style that blends into a  

narrative fairly seamlessly, adding security camera footage to move  

the story forward at a healthy clip. Being from South Africa himself,  

he captures the mundane systemic racism that these Aliens experience,  

which, as I recall, was the main argument for why it couldn't change,  

the entrenchment of the entire culture. Thus, the 80's boycott of the  

entire culture, including rock stars that weren't going to "play Sun  

City"

 ....

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District 9 is a movie where you can finally use your useless degree in

international studies, poli sci or even worse, liberal arts, that you

wasted 4 years of getting in college instead of getting an MBA, (and

then  

bankrupting America and still collecting a bailout bonus on the  

backend... suckers) Now you can feel free, at every party from now till

the oscars, to go on and on about how “all political will is a mix of moral  

ambiguity and fascism” or “that it is inherently myopic to distribute  

relief aid to third world countries unilaterally instead of  multi  

linearly.” Please use at least two examples from this movie to back up  

your thesis so people will know what the hell you are talking about.            

And remember to footnote your sources.....