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| Kate |
 Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:06 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 1397
Location: Pacific Northwest
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Marc wrote: DISTRICT 9 is a terrific sci-fi B-movie in the spirit of films like The Terminator, Assault On Precinct 13, Road Warrior and Dawn Of The Dead. Highly recommended for fans of intelligent, speculative, action flicks with a smattering of splatter.
Saw it tonight and am in agreement. Engaging and fun, for the most part. I think it devolved towards the end and became mainstream, but still enjoyed it. |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:26 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Billy........I wish you could be my memory for me.....How about Ellen Page for Veda? |
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Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:57 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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Kate,
I think DISTRICT 9 had to go out with a bang....which is to say, it had to deliver the goods in a way that audiences are accustomed to. Up until the socko ending, it is such a darkly intense film which demands that the audience settle into a certain groove that is so unlike most summer blockbusters that if it hadn't given us a payoff at the end it might have sent people to the exits in an extreme funk. I found the last half hour of DISTRICT 9 exhilarating in the way that ALIENS was exhilarating. Remember Sigourney going up against the "bitch"?
By the way, DISTRICT 9 is exceeding all expectations at the box office. This is going to be huge. Word of mouth will keep this in theaters for months. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:22 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Befade wrote:
Billy........I wish you could be my memory for me.....How about Ellen Page for Veda?
What a great idea! All I could think of was a pre-meltdown Lindsay Lohan, about the time of Freaky Friday. She would have been really good, but Page would be sensational. |
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| Kate |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:13 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Pacific Northwest
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Marc wrote: Kate,
I think DISTRICT 9 had to go out with a bang....which is to say, it had to deliver the goods in a way that audiences are accustomed to. Up until the socko ending, it is such a darkly intense film which demands that the audience settle into a certain groove that is so unlike most summer blockbusters that if it hadn't given us a payoff at the end it might have sent people to the exits in an extreme funk. I found the last half hour of DISTRICT 9 exhilarating in the way that ALIENS was exhilarating. Remember Sigourney going up against the "bitch"?
By the way, DISTRICT 9 is exceeding all expectations at the box office. This is going to be huge. Word of mouth will keep this in theaters for months.
Sorry all - I have whited out the minor spoilers.
Marc,
I suppose you are correct. You certainly get sucked into it. It really was so dark and so well done. Spoiler: I liked the mockumentary style, how you know up front, bad things are gonna happen to Wikus and the utter fear that he feels during the bathroom scene was terrifying. End Spoiler. So tense, I really dug it. |
Last edited by Kate on Mon Aug 17, 2009 2:53 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:15 pm |
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| I think some spoilers are called for in some of these District 9 posts. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:05 pm |
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Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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I saw District 9 yesterday. It's a very powerful drama and a great sci-fi story, although I'd classify it more as "Soc-Fi" - Sociology Fiction - more about cultures and psychology than technology. In fact, the best sci-fi is really 'soc-fi', if you examine it, and District 9 draws from a great tradition of the best soc-fi/sci-fi writers like Clarke and Heinlein. Those guys placed normal people in opposition to abnormal races, inventions, planets, whatever, and let the sparks fly. The film takes a really fresh look at the concept of alien/human relations, and spices it with some great action and suspense. It's a low budget winner.
Honestly, Kate's previous post is hardly a spoiler, since it's pretty damn obvious that bad things are gonna' happen. |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:09 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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| And I'm disappointed that a director for the ages, Francis Ford Coppola, comes out with his first written & directed film in 35 years and no one seems to give a shit. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:14 pm |
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Location: Houston
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| Probably because we suffered through the many post-Apocalypse Now movies that precede this one. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:16 pm |
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| And though he made three bona fide classics, I would not call Coppola over all a "director for the ages." |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:00 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Must agree with Joe on this one. Tetro sounds great, but look at the string of fiascos FFC came up with post- (and pre-) Godfather. (Few Broadway musical adaptations are as awful as Coppola's Finian's Rainbow travesty.) I also happen to loathe Apocalypse Now, but I concede I'm in a kind of minority on that one.
The Conversation, on the other hand, was every bit as good as or better than Godfather 2. Almost no movie in the world is as good as the original Godfather. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:30 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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| Right you are about Finian's Rainbow. Why on earth did Pauline Kael give it a positive review? |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:35 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: Right you are about Finian's Rainbow. Why on earth did Pauline Kael give it a positive review?
Because--despite her protestations about hating the auteur theory of film criticism espoused by the Andrew Sarris crowd--she had her own stable of auteurs, led by De Palma, Altman, Peckinpah (rumored to have been her sometime boyfriend), and...Coppola. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:43 pm |
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| Must admit I'd forgotten she liked Finian's. The Broadway show had one of the best scores ever written. But the book was always mired in the social events of its time and the dogmatic attitudes of E.Y. ("Yip") Harburg and Fred Saidy, the lyricist and author. The movie was ruined by Coppola's heavy-handed direction and miscasting right down the line, including the waste of great dancer Fred Astaire in a singing-acting role. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:35 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Fred Astaire is bad as Finian, but still good as Astaire. Tommy Steele as Og is just bad.
Oddly, this movie was years before The Godfather, so it's hard to understand why Kael felt the need to stick up for it.
By the way, Kael wasn't against what most people assume the auteur theory is, i.e. that the director is the major creative force behind any given picture, and that studying a director's output is informative. What she objected to was the Sarris/Cahiers du Cinema approach, which was to define an auteur was a director who, working solely in mainstream commercial pictures, made "statements" by injecting little, rarely noticed effects. And that following these little effects from picture to picture revealed a serious artistic creation. |
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