cjdaweasel.com

TMI: 2 days of WoW
..or “Why I Hate Twilight Fans and Your Sword”

Everyone needs to stop giving me information I don’t ask for. For example, why do people insist on telling me how long it takes them to read a particular book? Twilight and Harry Potter fans are the WORST about this. Constantly updating me on how many days/hours/minutes/seconds it took them to read a particular volume of one of these insipidly boring series. If there’s one thing I hate more than sparkly vampires, it’s people who insist on telling me that they took two days to read about sparkly vampires.

First of all, these books are written on a seventh grade level. If it took you LONGER than two days then you either need to free up five minutes a day, or you should put the book down before you hurt someone. They’re big books and you might drop it or accidentally mistake it for an anal suppository. And just because it’s big doesn’t mean anything. Make the print large enough and slap an inch margin around it and I could turn the Nutrition Facts on a box of Oreos into a 400 page novel.

So as you can see, we don’t care, and for good reason. Read Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ in two days and and then I’ll think about acting impressed, but probably not.

Also, WOW players, you have got to stop telling us about your character’s stats and gear. We really don’t care. Have you guys actually looked at your armor? If I gave my little brother a few crayons and charged him with the task of outfitting a clown army, what you have on would come damn close to the first draft.

And your weapons are pretty silly looking too. They’re huge and impractical to the point of comedy. They’re covered with so many sparkly things they could be confused for a metal Christmas tree at a gay pride parade.

You DO realize that those items you’re so proud of, that you waste hours/days/weeks of your life collecting, don’t exist, right? Your 50-socket +3 bajillion Armour Uber-Rare Chest-plate of Total Loserness that you’re so damn proud of is just a couple of numbers in a database somewhere. We’re not impressed because it isn’t cool. Well, not as cool as reading Harry Potter in two days.

-cjdw

I just saw this movie and I must say I am duly impressed.

The movie switches gears quite frequently, giving you part documentary/part Hollywood Blockbuster in different shifts. Not only does it keep one style of cinematography from dominating the whole film, you actually get a feel for what is a news broadcast versus what is the omniscient director-cam. But no matter what type of camera work is being used the CGI characters and machines look top-notch: polished and clean. The special effects are not there to give anyone with the maturity of a nine year-old an erection, they’re included because they mean something. Action sequences feel well-paced and important, not just flash in the pan to look cool.

But as Transshitters 2 and GI Suck show, you can’t keep an audience with an IQ over 100 interested with just explosions and good CGI; you need substance. This is where District 9 really stands out. Not only does the magnificent acting, excellent storytelling and realistic characters bring depth not to be found in the two aforementioned films, these make, nay LET you actually care about the main characters. You don’t want them to be hurt, and you feel real empathy for their predicaments. But mostly, when the bad guys finally meet their maker, you feel satisfied.

This satisfaction is further solidified by the intricate narrative of District 9. No matter how thick the action gets, no matter how many explosions are on the screen, no matter how many bodies are exploding D9 never forgets that it has a thick, intelligent story to tell. A story that looks at humans in an alien/human interaction not in as oppressed, but as the oppressors. Using analogies from real life in the way of apartheid, slavery, and segregation, this narrative asks us “If we can do this to our own race based simply on skin colour, then what would we do to an alien race that looks, talks, and acts nothing like us?”

In the end, District 9 is a smart, cerebral, entertaining experience that shows us a side of ourselves that we don’t want to see. A part of ourselves that we must see: Our moral self righteousness is undeserved, because we were and are capable of terrible terrible things.

Rating:
10/10
The Point:
“Everyone must see this film, as it is destined to be a Sci-Fi classic up there with such movies as ‘Soylent Green’, ‘Blade Runner’ and ’2001: A Space Odyssey’. Like those films, you will want to be able to tell your kids and grand-kids that you saw this movie came out in theatres.”