TestosteRohne

Well said Christian.

A non specifically Apartheid reading does work a little better, but it's hard to suggest that after the setting, the time period (Aliens have been there for 20 years, setting their appearance near the end of the first apartheid, perhaps ironically it ended it? Which would probably have said more than the film did.), the repeating scenario itself and the famous (Atleast in SA) Apatheid book District 6, that the film makes a pun of.

The filmakers have practically commited themselves to it.

 

 

And I didn't quite care for all the Fly homages, as they were meant to expediantly port across that film's unintended Aids (especially relevant to SA) subtext.

 

 

I don't know, dude, it just felt to me like the filmmakers were big fans of The Fly (rightly so) and decided to try for the same cool shit in their movie since what movie fan doesn't dream about the day they can put in knowing nods to their favourite movies in a sci fi movie of their OWN. I don't know if it was meant to expediantly port across anything. But I may be wrong - it's all conjecture anyhow.

I agree, However within the film it's possibly backed up by the "leaked" story in the press.

Where the cause of his "Infection" is (Hilariously) sexually contracted.

The Fly was often and famously taken as an alegory for AIDS, Cronenberg actively contested this but it wasn't helped by him being perceived at the time as the King Of Venerial Horror.

Perhaps I'm giving the filmakers far too much credit, but AIDS is a far more prominant public/media concern in South Africa than I dare say almost any other country.

It's thematically unavoidable.

Inglorious Basterds was personally childish.

See what I did there?

Nevertheless it's an opinion shared by many reviews who damned this far more harshly than I did.

Forgive me but my bee in the bonnet was with your first post where it seemed that your "catharsis" outweighed your horror.

Your second post effectively clarifies this, but reread your first post and it's personalised hyperbole.

Watch the Dirty Dozen alongside this to see just how comparatively mature Aldritch's film is.

How tonally different their slaughters (There can be no other word for it) are.

Dirty Dozen doesn't allow you to relish it, and the actions are perpetrated by some often unashamed rapists, muderers and thieves.But this was Vietnam then, now it would be Israel.

They're not quite comaparable.

Tarantino has famously said that his intention with Inglorious Basterds was to make a "Kosher Porn".

A counter holocaust doesn't make it right or progressive or healing.

And to even posit or explore (I say loosely) the idea, a territory so well covered by great films through the decades since WW2,and within the context of some of Israel's sadly questionable actions, is personally nigh pointless.

I was sort of excited to when I saw the trailer for the new TV show Flashforward.

Then I saw David Goyer's name attached.

Just been to see 'District 9', and I've got to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a lot funnier than I was expecting. It's mostly reminiscent of early 2000AD strips, I thought - there's a big dose of blunt, unpretentious satire, but it's mostly an excuse for big stompy robots, gooey body horror, and things blowing up. And there's nowt wrong with that.

 

It's the best thing that Pete Jackson's been involved with for a long time, anyway.

I may be daft but what exactly was it making a satire of?

A horrid period in history that all too easily repeats itself?

And I didn't quite care for all the Fly homages, as they were meant to expediantly port across that film's unintended Aids (especially relevant to SA) subtext.

That said I did piss myself at the South African humour and accents, especially the swearing in Afrikaans bits.

Inglorious Basterds is incredibly awesome. It's really two movies only loosely tied together and - if you really get down to it - a number of dialogue based setpieces. These are, however, impeccably written, directed and performed. It's a superb film full of powerful images, great ideas and some explosions of very cathartic violence (though the violence isn't as frequent as it's made out to be from the PR). Highly recommended. I think it's far far better than the Kill Bill Movies and Death Proof. His best since Jackie Brown. And the dude who played Colonel Hans Landa better be up for an Oscar!

 

completely agree! as a jew, the ending felt extremely cathartic (but I think any person without nazi sympathies would find it cathartic)

I'm not a nazi but I thought that the film's trick/malformed point was that you were meant to feel especially disgusted by it.

Especially because it was deliberately juxtaposed to the feeling of disgust you were meant to feel as the "Movie Nazi's" relished in the filmed slaughter of the Nation's Pride.

It's a juvenile attack on the audience of both the Nations Pride and the Inglorious Basterds itself.

Just as the baseball bat beating of the German was actually quite troubling.

They're meant to be as bad as each other, a point that Tarantino is quite inconsistant with.

Again the Dirty Dozen slaughter of unarmed Nazi officers was far more effective, probably because it was made by a grown man with an actual and relevant to the Vietnam era point.

Munich handles this need for catharis in a far more adult fashion.

This catharthis is cyclical, villyfying and ultimately destructive.

Inglorious Basterds was personally childish.

Last House on the Left - another one of those family gets fucked with by bad people (a la The Strangers, House By the Lake, I Spit on your grave, et al), this one works better than the previous films of this genre. Though the 'bad guys' are the least realistic of the genre, for some reason, the film seems a little more realistic than its cohorts. There aren't any actions taken that you go "No way!" to, you almost care about the protags and hate the antags. It's a formula stab flick, sure, but it uses the formula well enough to work.

Well it's origin sure as hell wasn't formulaic.

Check out Bergman's The Virgin Spring.

District 9-Is there a conversation about this movie somewhere on StH? I don't see one.

District 9 was so over-rated.

It started off very good and as something different at the very beginning, but it quickly devolved from there.

And, while I did really get into the ending, it ended as a generic action flick, and was very much akin to Iron Man. Iron Man was a very good superhero movie, but it was never played up as anything other than a spectacular action movie either.

And, sure, I liked that the private security corporation were the villains, but they were completely stock villains.

The fact that they were setting up for a sequel about half-way through the movie really hurt too, because it gave it a cheesy, Hollywood blockbuster feel right there.

While the movie completely left room for a sequel, I don't think it needs one.

So, while the movie was very far from bad, although they really needed to cut out most of the disturbing middle part where the movie seemed to think it wanted to become a horror film, just don't expect much more than Iron Man style fun.

Christain it only just hit the UK today.

Nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is, and ironically still a whiteman's movie about apartheid.

And do we really need to use an Alien metaphor to discuss apartheid?

Really?

15 to 20 years ago sure.

And if the film had a lot of uncomfortable things say about post-appartheid then perhaps.

But it really doesn't.

It's the worst kind of sci-fi, besides being personally quite derivative, because it's sci-fi for the sake of sci-fi.

Subtext came in afterwards.

I'm not one to hammer on about representation in films, but this really suffered and actually undercut the films central conceipt (Further nullified by the film's inclusion of South Africa's growing mostly illegal Nigerian population).

I'd even go as far as to say that your run of the mill Hollywood film gets represenation of the racial spectrum of America better than this did of South Africa.

As the white population are the minority in South Africa, is it too much to ask for a black lead or a black wife or a black anything?

It's probably even too delicate to have a black bad guy.

The sequence in which the mostly White Afrikaaner Security troops engage the ireedemable Nigerian criminals (Who don't actually partake in Muti magic) is dreadfully uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons.

Hell even the representaion of the Aliens themselves is bad!

We are treated to two token good Aliens whilst the rest run around like ignoble savages.

We gleam nothing from the intriguing reemergence of apartheid in this film.

No character seems to recall the past, at all, no one appears to be self aware enough, or directly motivated by it.

The film's reference/delibarate inversion to/of the famous South African book District 6 is only that, a namecheck/refernce.

Nothing else.

If you really needed an externalised metaphor, the Nigerians themselves should really be the Aliens of this South African film.

If it weren't for the authentic accents I wouldn't have actually thought that it was a South African directing it.

Which, although this has been aimed at the muliplexes, is quite damning.

The depiction of Private Security Companies (Well in SA atleast)was very simplistic, I'm with Christian here as they're mostly shits, but there many instances where the crime is so bad in SA that the police themselves hire PSC to aid them.

Namechecked aspects such as the electrical blackouts (And the politics behind them) are tantalisngly unexplored.

All meaning aside it achieves a lot visually for it's budget, but here is no unique voice, even if it is a debut.

There's merely an amalgam of various styles.

Ultimately it's really no deeper than 80's Alien Nation, and that's before the film "devolves" as Christian puts it, personally it's at this point that the film jettisoned all it's muddled subtext, nicked the plot and character interactions of Blood Diamond and becomes a, admittadly entertaining, videogame/Transformers flic.

 

Antichrist - why does "artsy" mean softcore porn in black & white? This one even shows penetration. This is a film about dealing with grief. The opening sequence is a rather intense

fuck scene between a husband and wife (with the forementioned penetration) while their toddler son escapes his crib and falls out a window to his death. His body hits the ground as the couple climaxes.

Now that's art! the remainder of the film is how the couple deals with grief and the obvious guilt they feel. by the way, he's a therapist. Not an easy film to watch, but well acted and purposefully troubling to watch, if you're into that sort of thing.

That's all good and well but what did you actually think about the contents?

Especially Von Trier's fucking 3rd act u-turn.

Ooh a real movie.

Bigelow's The Hurt Locker.

I haven't enjoyed a recent film this much since, funnily enough In Bruges.

Bigelow's ostensibly apolitical film is in itself an IED if you will.

Simple, lean, mean, comprised of various episodic parts, some old, some new ,unpolished but deadly efficient.

The film itself even presents it's own nerve shredding countdown throughout.

I've never called myself a fan but her time in the film wilderness had done her wonders.

Personally, not only is this is her finest film to date but it's a contender for one of the great war films of all time.

It's episodic structure perfectly expresses the constant shellshock (Or The modernal "Hurt Locker" equivalent) inducing routine of disarming messy IEDS in Iraq.

Of indirect engagements with an enemy you can never really see, but who is potentially all around you.

By for the most part only engaging the products of the enemy, which in themselves are often innocent looking devices, Bigelow presents a superb metaphor for the confusing War on Terror.

She illicts fine performances from her "unknown" leads, which thankfully validates all the grief she went through to do so.

More to her credit the oddly structured script (On paper atleast) never actually feels episodic, and more impressively the tension from each preceeding segment is cumalatively relayed on to the next bigger scene.

I can't recall a film so unrelentingly tense, and the palpable tension itself so aptly reapplied into and reflecting the subject material itself.

On the outset her film is more personal then political but it's subtle docu momemnts are volumous in political insight.

Alarmingly it's not quite pro-war but it is in certain circumstances pro the experience of war.

To some "War is a drug".

It's final shot of SPOILER an Astronaut plodding off into a world of quite possible death is up there with the best.

The emotional bomb of our lead has not detonated, but a fearsome new countdown has begun.

Not quite a Beau Travail ending, but definitely up there.

All in all a masterful film that simply eradicated the experience of Inglorious Basterds last night.

Seriously a 9/10 movie and my scale is harsh.

Inglorious Basterds is incredibly awesome. It's really two movies only loosely tied together and - if you really get down to it - a number of dialogue based setpieces. These are, however, impeccably written, directed and performed. It's a superb film full of powerful images, great ideas and some explosions of very cathartic violence (though the violence isn't as frequent as it's made out to be from the PR). Highly recommended. I think it's far far better than the Kill Bill Movies and Death Proof. His best since Jackie Brown. And the dude who played Colonel Hans Landa better be up for an Oscar!

I enjoyed it far more than I would have expected but those admittadly glorious, if sometimes a tad too overlong dialogue setpieces were all too often marred by Tarantino hyper overstyling and actual sadism.

Such guilty scenes as the cringeworthy Mike Meyers cameo, Samuel Jackson's imposing "ubercool" exposition of nitrate film and Hugo's introductory flashback and with accompanying Ritchie-esque text.

Personally the use of music was hideous, and the Sergio Leone styled template completely ill advised and not pertinant at all.

I would have loved Tarantino to make more use of the "Nations Pride" flic ala Watchmen and the Black Freighter.

The tantalising flashes were perfectly styled.

This should have replaced the Sergio Leone bits.

Tarantino almost pulls off a substitute Dirty Dozen level massacre but not quite it's moral complexity.

But those dialogue setpieces, specifically Chapter 4 (Where the English agent meets his contact)are superb (Although even that has to have a quick but pointless Wild Bunch flashback).

Hans Landa is played by Christopher Waltz with real movie-nazi relish but it's the SS Major (August Diehl, The Counterfeiters) from chapter 4 who steals it for me.

More's the pity that Tarantino's Hitler was so pedestrian.

Overall the film is incredibly muddled as it is overstyled, poorly paced in the third act, sometimes childish and well...pointless but overall entertaining.

There are some interesting ideas but they run into each other blindly as do the multiple genre personalities of the film.

Absolutely. There is nothing wrong with In Bruges.

You won't find any opposition here.

It's been said before, but In Bruges is the closest we're ever going to come to seeing a Garth Ennis comic - a really, really good Garth Ennis comic, at that - being adapted to the screen. Everything about it - the classically-Irish melancholic sentimentality, the central dynamic of a younger apprentice paired with an older, wiser mentor figure, the down-to-earth presentation of people operating on the fringes of society, the humour, the blending of hyper-realistic, well-drawn characters with grotesque caricatures, the sudden, shocking violence, the sparkling dialogue - is pure Ennis, and it's brilliant. One of the better films I've seen this decade.

Besides the signifigant "high brow" Don't Look Now references I quite agree.

It's quite an interesting statement.

Ralph Fiennes was the new Sexy Beast Ben Kingsley.

First trailer for Avatar here I can't wait for this... but I'll have to.

Looks good visually, but I'm not convinced storywise...yet.

(Btw I have a general distaste for films where stone-age people somehow outfight modern/sci-fi armies. This may be a failing on my part, I don't know. but it'd have to be really well-done for me to suspend disbelief)

Agreed on both accounts.

First trailer for Avatar here I can't wait for this... but I'll have to.

Yay Stephen Lang comeback.(35 seconds in)

I guess we're to accept that DD survived his trials, based on the Diggle story.

I think thats going to be covered in Daredevil actual.

The single issue Daredevil: the Shit List was a way of putting out a monthly Daredevil publication, because they were late with the rest of the run.

The one shot jumps forward whereas I hope, the run itself will fill in the gaps.

And Stan Lee left him without fear!

More so on Brubaker because he was just writing so much and Dardevil was the first to go, whereas Bendis may have stayed on for one story too many (The Golden Age was very poor, nice art though).

Artwise Billy Tan is quite wrong but it's Robert Del Torre? (Thunderbolts) to whom I was referring to.

Daredevil #500-Finally, an interesting change in direction for DD. For a while I couldn't tell the difference between this book and Hellblazer. Sure, Hellblazer had a few more demons, but the same plots being recycled over and over.

This was what I was hoping to see as soon as Brubaker started the story, but I didn't think it would be allowed to happen, keeping the status quo.

Yeah I'm happy with it, in terms of DD Mythos it makes sense.

I just wish Brubaker/Lark were on it for a little longer though.

I haven't really enjoyed Diggle at Marvel and I don't quite care for the new artist.

But I've underestimated Diggle before.

Hope they've got a good colourist on board.

Ha ha ha.

I'm a big fan of Munich too. The ending fizzled slightly and the intercutting of the sex scene with the massacre was a little silly but, in general, I admired that film a lot. Quite thoughtful and also very entertaining. I wouldn't sell Spielberg short - he has myriad faults as a filmmaker but he does make the occasional great movie.

 

I've been looking forward to The Baader-Meinhof Complex. Any good?

The intercutting again was the thematic reproductive cycle of violence.

I liked his sexual catharsis, but I can see how it could look a tad silly.

I wasn't writing off Spielberg, but this was pleasantly atypical of him.

I enjoyed the Baader-Meinhof Complex enough.

The fierce "History report" approach of the book, works less sucessfully in a dramatic film though.

Yeah, the teachers are acting very well, I especially love Alan Rickman as Severus Snape. As for the SW prequels, there's McGregor, McDiarmid and Neeson who are able to make the best out of the script.

All the good actors in the world wouldn't have saved that script or it's director.

They were all just mere props before a green screen.

Spare us Hagren next thing you're going to wax lyrically about the Matrix Trilogy.

Speaking of real films, I whole heartadly recommend a double bill of One Day In September and Spielberg's(I know!)Munich.

Together they're as close as we're going to get to a modern day Battle of Algiers.

On a second viewing Munich had matured, not only presenting how violence begets violence but infact extensively exploring it's reproductive cycle quite literally.

When all is said and done with Spielberg, this will shine as a hopefully not so rare serious gem.

I honestly didn't think he had it in him.

That said the film did need to encapsulate more of One Day in September, but that's why the double bill suggestion.

Nevertheless it's close to being on my favourite lists.

The slightly flat docu-film The Baader Meinhof Complex on the side helps too.

You are really high.

At the very least, it wasn't as embarrassingly realised as the Potter movies.

No Sir.

I loathe Harry Potter as much as the next reasonable man, but the films, all of the films (Hyperbole warning) were put together far better than than the three Star Wars prequels.

Ultimate Avengers (Ultimates 4).

Fail, fail, fail.

Pacheco's art, lovely as it is, is no Hitch (Hell Hitch now is no Hitch), so the splash pages really didn't have the desired effect at all and the plot would even have Ellis complaining of Decompression.

A poor effort, not a patch on Volume 1 and 2.

The Marvels Project #1-Hey, remember that comic book series called Marvels written by Kurt Busiek? Well, now you can read it again, with the word "Project" tacked on afterwards!

Seriously, there better be more of a point to this series than what we see in this first issue, because I swear almost every scene was taken from the pages of Marvels.

Yeah a bit too overfamilar.

And the Erskine as nazi scientist was nicked from my beloved Earth X trilogy.

Explaining why the U.S would send a blue eyed, blonde haired supersoldier to fight the Nazi's.

Lovely art though, Namor bursting ot of the crest of the wave (As he usually does) was very evocative.

I fantasized on the spot of a decent Fantastic Four 3 film about Namor.

That said this was out last week over here.