District 9

The first movie I've seen in months...only because on two nights in a row, the BF's friends were all planning to go and I got dragged along. I'd read reviews that said the movie was good for what it was- a low budget scifi action thriller. An alien spaceship comes to a halt above Johannesburg and the humans rescue the stranded aliens and put them in District 9, a concentration camp/apartheid metaphor.

There were plenty of problems with this movie. Logic questions, character questions. Too many explosions. A bad guy who realllly would not die. Extremely masculine and women play nothing than brief plot blips. And it really hit you over the head with the alien-human metaphor of "who really is the monster/alien/unknown/other."

But I liked it! It was enjoyable to a film student because it was a big stinky piece of popular culture, just ripe for deconstruction. What paper material! What classroom fodder! It switched from documentary style to action movie midstream, which was an interesting shift to try and pass by an audience. The main character was also such a douche bag at the beginning but by the end he is our Byronic hero. It was compelling, well directed, and just plain fun to imagine. And viscerally so alien-y; satisfying oozes and guts and blood and gore. :)