District 9

[Keith Walters]

I'm hearing rumours that it made back its production budget in the first 2 days of theatrical release already!!

 

love

 

Freya

 

Sony aren't too forthcoming about how much they spent on publicity though.

The fact that millions of people flocked to see a non-franchise film, that's not based on a best-selling book, from a totally unknown outfit, with totally unknown actors can only logically be explained by clever marketing.

 

But, if they can pull another weekend like the last one, they should be well in the clear.

 

The film still baffles me. In Australia, on its opening weekend it was just pipped at the post by "The Ugly Truth": $2.2 million vs $2.1 Million.

Yet three days after District 9's release in Australia, at the midday screening I went to, I was the only patron who sat through the entire film!

Even more bizarre, the percentage of positive critical approval for the two films is almost precisely reversed: about 80% of critics loved District 9, and almost exactly the same percentage totally panned The Ugly Truth.

 

If nothing else, this film is a fascinating sociological phenomenon.

[Keith Walters]

You appear to have a real dislike for the Red One, which is fine with me as I prefer film too. But it seems from this post that that is the reason why you don't like the film.

 

Er... bit of a false dichotomy there, there are quite a few other alternatives to film than the RED one... :huh:

Erm ... but how did you get that from this?:

 

I went to see this because it's a Peter Jackson backed all-RED production and it was interested in the technical aspects.

 

The cinematography, as in framing and so on, was fine, apart from the now-irritatingly-ubiquitious shaky-cam that attempts to give it a documentary feel.

 

The CGI on the aliens was first-class, as you'd expect from Weta Digital. It looks like they used live actors in suits for most of the scenes with digital tidying-up in post. The aliens have a wasp-waist only about 6 inches in diameter and the matting of that against the background was absolutely flawless; I'd love to know how they actually did that. I don't think they're all-CGI, simply because if they were, they wouldn't have looked so much like men in rubber suits laugh.gif

 

Overally, the picture has the same "tired" digital look that every other digitallly shot movie I've seen seems to have. Routine blown-out exteriors, the same perenially "overcast" skies, actually caused by pixel overload. On a couple of scenes it looked liked they experimented with some sort of blue graduated filters to try to correct this, which looked every bit as convincing as the "Autumn" forest colours on Knowing.

 

None of this really impacts on the production itself, by the way; it would have been just as awful no matter what it was shot on.

 

 

 

 

 

Like any film or video camera, the RED is just a machine; it has certain capabilities and certain limitations.

The notion of people "hating" any particular inanimate technology is mostly a product of the imaginations of its proponents and their fanboys.

You know, like the word "Scam" :D

 

I do however, have a real dislike of people waxing evangelical about things a technology is totally incapable of delivering, and then reacting as though any criticism of it is a criticism of themselves, but I'm hardly alone there.

 

I just didn't see what was so fantastic about the story.

[Keith Walters]

The movie was primarily an allegory for Apartheid by a South African. character.

Yeah, that's what I originally thought, and what I found so annoying.

I've since realised that I was mistaken; whether by accident or design, this film is actually something else, probably based on the short film it was derived from.

It appears to press exactly the right buttons in a large segment of the population, rather as Mr Gibson's 2-hour snuff movie did, although in a different way.

(I guess I must have been either born without those buttons fitted, or they were never wired up or something).

 

A certain family member bought a copy of The Passion of the Christ, and watches it over and over again, ahem, religiously.

I couldn't even get past the first 30 minutes. Even Peter Greenaway's films didn't revolt me as much.

 

I know what the buttons are, but I'm not going to elaborate, as from bitter experience, button-equipped people are completely incapable of visualising the non-button-equipped universe :lol:

[Patrick A Murray]

Keith, my apologies, I misunderstood this post:

 

I've only just now worked out why this film has received such overwhelming critical approval.

I'm not going to discuss it further here because I will only get flamed, but Jim Jannard is onto a winner at last.

(As in there is finally a RED-shot film he can legitimately brag about. Maybe now he'll get round to updating the www.red.com website).

 

I'll only make one prediction: I'll bet it doesn't do anywhere near as well in Australia and New Zealand.

 

I'm thinking this could turn into greatest box-office achievement since "The Passion of the Christ," for very similar reasons...

 

And forgot about your first post. Sorry.

 

Also, reading your last post, I better understand (I think) the post I quoted.

 

People do have buttons and billions have been made by filmmakers exploiting those buttons. Porn being the most extreme example in my opinion. Billions of dollars a year in revenue for cheap poorly made garbage "movies". Some guy puts his blood and tears into a brilliant film, but it looses money while people who produce films (video) about a mom sleeping with the cable guy on Tuesday and the gas guy on Friday make bundles of cash.

 

I'm not complaining, btw, just making an observation. Putting aside porn, lest we get right off track, there are definitely buttons that are pushed in mainstream film. I'm not sure why people would flame you, Keith, it wouldn't bother me to read what exactly you mean.

 

On this board, in a thread about a movie made on Red One, I presume flame has something to do with film versus digital. :-) My mistake.

Edited August 18, 2009 by Patrick A Murray

[F Bulgarelli]

Call me crazy but it was the best film I've seen so far this year.

why? Something different, finally. Engaging, good acting, good effects, suspenseful, unique in a way.

The RED held up pretty well, I've seen movies shot with the genesis that don't look as good. Specially the action sequences.

[John Hoffler]

I have to disagree. I went to a showing with the Director and Lead Actor present and the audience went wild for it. Then I saw it again with my friends in a packed theater and the audience there loved it as well, then saw it again with another friend in a packed house and they all loved it as well... I guess the theater Keith went to was an exception...

 

Blomkamp said that all the alien effects were 100% CGI with the exception of Christopher Johnson. He didn't even use green screen or tracking markers. He simply had the actors look where they thought the aliens would be and then they added them in post. The gentleman who played Christopher was completely removed in post and replaced by a pure CG alien.

 

The shaky cam did get a little much but I thought it fit really well with the docu-style... but that is simply preference.

[Keith Walters]

I have to disagree. I went to a showing with the Director and Lead Actor present and the audience went wild for it. Then I saw it again with my friends in a packed theater and the audience there loved it as well, then saw it again with another friend in a packed house and they all loved it as well... I guess the theater Keith went to was an exception...

 

 

Well, it sure as Hell wasn't packed where I went....

But it's brought in another $38 million this week, so it wasn't just a fluke. Buggered if I know....

 

I readily admit I started this thread in a pretty foul mood, since I'd just gone to considerable trouble to see a movie at full adult price, which had overwhelming critical and public approval, and ... I just couldn't see anything special about it. I still don't.

As one other critic succinctly put it: "I went in there expecting to see Alien and I got Solaris..."

 

I don't get much time to see movies, and all I could think of was that time could have been better spent. If it was something I'd rented on DVD for $5 I probably wouldn't have said anything.

 

I'll just have to accept that this is just one of those cultural phenomena that I

Simply. Don't. Understand. Like Michael Jackson. Or Kylie Minogue :lol:

 

Still, mystery piles on mystery. (For me anyway)

 

Rotten Tomatoes gives it around 80% approval rating, but, if you read all the reviews, a significant number of the "Red Tomato" Icon-ed reviews are not particularly positive, and look to me like they should be "Green Tomato" Icon-ed.

 

And again, The Ugly Truth got about an 80% DISSAPROVAL rating from critics on RottenTomatoes, and yet it did slightly better at the Box Office (here at any rate).

 

Even more bizzare, (to me anyway), there seems to be a considerably higher percentage of District 9 "Dissidents" over on Reduser.com than there are on this forum.

 

Blomkamp said that all the alien effects were 100% CGI with the exception of Christopher Johnson. He didn't even use green screen or tracking markers. He simply had the actors look where they thought the aliens would be and then they added them in post. The gentleman who played Christopher was completely removed in post and replaced by a pure CG alien.

When the aliens were walking through the piles of rubbish, you could see it deforming exactly as it would if someone was really walking on it. That's what made me assume that there was an actor actually standing there, but I couldn't figure out how they managed to get the "wasp-waist" part right. The CGI was superb, but somewhat pointless.

[Tim Sibley]

The CGI on the aliens was first-class, as you'd expect from Weta Digital. It looks like they used live actors in suits for most of the scenes with digital tidying-up in post. The aliens have a wasp-waist only about 6 inches in diameter and the matting of that against the background was absolutely flawless; I'd love to know how they actually did that. I don't think they're all-CGI, simply because if they were, they wouldn't have looked so much like men in rubber suits :lol:

 

FYI, all of the alien CG work was done by a Vancouver based company called Image Engine - Weta was only responsible for some design work and the alien mother-ship. And, as mentioned, the aliens were fully CG - the ground interaction was likely a mix of practical rigs pushing debris around to match footsteps (with the wires/mechanism hidden or painted out), warping effects on the plate footage, or CG debris.

 

http://www.vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&am...4037&page=3

[Keith Walters]

FYI, all of the alien CG work was done by a Vancouver based company called Image Engine - Weta was only responsible for some design work and the alien mother-ship. And, as mentioned, the aliens were fully CG - the ground interaction was likely a mix of practical rigs pushing debris around to match footsteps (with the wires/mechanism hidden or painted out), warping effects on the plate footage, or CG debris.

 

http://www.vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&am...4037&page=3

I stand corrected. Weta were still tied up with Avatar. It's certainly going to be a good advertisement for Image Engine.

District 9 has to date clocked up almost $90 million worldwide since its release.

[Tom Lowe]

I thought this movie sucked major balls. The shaky-cam literally made me sick halfway through the film. I was looking around for a barf bag. The story sucked, the picture was ugly, I didn't care about the characters or story... I just wanted it to end.

[Keith Walters]

I thought this movie sucked major balls. The shaky-cam literally made me sick halfway through the film. I was looking around for a barf bag. The story sucked, the picture was ugly, I didn't care about the characters or story... I just wanted it to end.

But Jeez Tom; it was shot on a RED.

I thought by definition that moved it two orders of magnitude closer to celluloid Nirvana than 65mm film :rolleyes:

In - what is it? - one or two years? - the majority of films will be shot like this.*

 

But seriously, I suppose it wasn't all that bad, it's more that it turned out to be about two or three orders of magnitude less worth spending my cinema allowance on, than several other features on offer at the same time.

I've probably missed out on G.I. Joe now, so you can well understand my vexation :rolleyes:

 

 

*Well if not, you're gonna have to cough up - what was it - twenty bucks...?

[Paul Bruening]

I thought this movie sucked major balls. The shaky-cam literally made me sick halfway through the film. I was looking around for a barf bag. The story sucked, the picture was ugly, I didn't care about the characters or story... I just wanted it to end.

 

Don't hold back, Tom. Tell us how you really feel.

[Thomas James]

But of course Keith, Red will ultimately promise the digital nirvana of 65mm film formats such as IMAX and Showscan at an affordable price. So that even a crummy movie will look good because at least you will be able to enjoy the scenery. So now shaky handheld shots are no problem because now these shots can be filmed and projected at 120 frames per second just like they are in amusement park rides. Thanks to the digital revolution barf bags are now obsolete.

[Tom Lowe]

LMAO, you guys are still so hung up on Red, it's funny.

[Keith Walters]

LMAO, you guys are still so hung up on Red, it's funny.

Given the amount of "traffic" in the RED folder lately, I'd say "we guys" are pretty well over it.

N-E-E-E-E-E-E-XT!!!

[Joe Giambrone]

District 9 (2009) – Sci Fi Action With Brains and Soul

[klas persson]

Well, I loved the movie. I'm baffled that you call it pretentious though. It's a SciFi action flick... How is this movie pretentious? Because of the apartheid allegory? That doesn't make it pretentious.

It's got an original story, bold hero character and an almost videogame kind of story but made in a good way.

Can easily see how their Halo movie would've been pretty damn good.

 

Cinematography. Liked it. Gritty. The shaking camerawork fitted the premise so it didn't bother me.

[Guest]

This film was just superb! Easily some of the best VFX work ever achieved in film. I had to keep telling myself, "those creatures are CG, not guys in suits." Wow! Amazing quality work.

 

I kept wondering how they where going to get a feature length presentation out of the script. Neil did not disappoint, he kept coming with the twists and turns.

 

The standard approach to creature movies is to show the creature as little as possible, and then only briefly in full view at the end in the darkened "sewer."

 

This movie starts from frame one with the creatures in full view in broad daylight, so they knew the VFX work had to be good, and it was.

 

R,

 

There where a few plot holes here and there. Mainly I kept wondering why the aliens would allow themselves to be subjected to harsh treatment by the humans, while the aliens possessed such superior weaponry. Why didn't they just blast the humans? Of course that would have been a very short movie :D

[Keith Walters]

There where a few plot holes here and there. Mainly I kept wondering why the aliens would allow themselves to be subjected to harsh treatment by the humans, while the aliens possessed such superior weaponry. Why didn't they just blast the humans? Of course that would have been a very short movie :D

 

That was one of the many things that annoyed me. They started out with a notion that the ship was sort of like a beehive and that most of the inhabitants were unintelligent "drones" (Actually drones are male bees with the rather vital function of fertilizing the queen's eggs to make them hatch into new queens, and there are only a few them in each hive). I could buy unintelligent workers, but whatever, they went from being uncommunicative to perfectly communicative for no adequately explained reason.

 

Another was the fact that there was a gigantic, still functional spaceship containing unimaginably advanced technologies, and humans could get into it anytime they wished, but nobody seemed interested in investigating it. In the real world it would have been crawling with scientists and it probably would have been like most observatories, you'd have to apply and wait until your number was called to get a look at it. I can only suspend disbelief so far....

 

Ah well, I actually got to see G.I. Joe in the end because my sister's kids needed someone to take them at the last minute. OK, it was another paint-by-numbers CGI effort, but it was more imaginatively done than a lot of barstool film critics want to give it credit for. At least I got something out of it vs nothing out of it.

 

Actually the only thing I found really annoying was the pre-movie trailers for some of the most lame-ass upcoming "comedies" it will be my utmost pleasure to not waste time and money seeing.

[Freya Black]

As one other critic succinctly put it: "I went in there expecting to see Alien and I got Solaris..."

 

But hang on, Solaris is great! Maybe not his greatest work you could argue but still amazing, especially compared to most of the stuff out there!

 

I'd be overjoyed if I went in there just expecting another alien clone and got Solaris instead!!!

 

love

 

Freya

[Guest]

Nigerians don't like District 9:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2009/09/...t9-nigeria.html

 

And I'm denouncing Braveheart for its negative portrayal of English people! :D

 

R,

[Rich Hibner]

I'm not sure who you're talking to when you say: "To put this on a similar level to Transformers is ludicrous"

If you mean me, I never made any such statement. As a low-budget film project, it's a respectable enough effort (aside from the script). It is what it is.

What I can't understand is why so many critics are heaping such effusive praise on it.

It will be very interesting to see how it actually does in the box office.

 

guess it did rather well for such a crummy movie.

[Thom Stitt]

Wow, I have to say, it's refreshing as hell to see some people who really didn't like this movie. Here's one thing that really rang true with me:

 

I'll just have to accept that this is just one of those cultural phenomena that I

Simply. Don't. Understand.

 

That's how I've felt since I saw this movie on opening night. I just didn't like it very much, and I felt like I saw a different movie than everyone else. Theater I saw was packed. People LOVED it.

 

It shows some promise early on, but it's such a messy hodge-podge of styles, and is so inconsistent, that I just became kind of annoyed by it. It goes from satire to gross-out horror to michael bay action flick. It shifts from documentary to traditional narrative. And, most annoyingly of all, it goes from being progressive and original to completely predictable and cliched.

 

Some spoilers ahead, by the way:

 

I have to mention the set design for his wife's bedroom. Did anyone else notice it? Have you EVER seen a movie made more for BOYS than District 9? The one woman character's bedroom is all pink and filled with flowers and I'm pretty sure there was a Barbie Dream House in the corner of the room, because that's what GIRLS have in their bedrooms. Tee hee!! Girls!!

Anyway, enough of that nonsense, where's my giant alien gun. No wait, there's a mech I can ride, even better! But first I want to vomit two dozen times on camera, cuz puke scenes are gross and funny. Uh, oh, here comes the BAD GUY!! I'd better have an easy time killing everyone else except him, so that he can keep hunting me down, and then at the very end get a special death scene all to himself.

[Joe Giambrone]

District 9 (2009) – Science Fiction of the NowDistrict 9 is an Ugly Marvel

[Mei Lewis]

Great film. Stupid and funny and lots of weapons that looks like they came out of an FPS.

 

Roll on the sequel!