Summer Movie Roundup: District 9, G.I. Joe, and Inglourious Bastards
The movies I’ve seen this summer were very entertaining, albeit each of them had their share of bloody violence, and were not intended for the family friendly audience. Nevertheless, the storytelling in each of them was quite enjoyable.
The extraterrestrial bipedal crustaceans or “Prawns” sci-fi drama of District 9 parallels the 1980s sci-fi movie Alien Nation—in both a space ship lands, extraterrestrials come out to live amongst humans but are marginalized because of well their different. Of course, like many other sci-fi movies, these take real life issues—such as in the case of District 9 and Alien Nation the ill treatment and exploitation of foreigners—and infuse them into an otherworldly adventure. In District 9, the aliens overstayed their welcome, and are relegated to living in a ghetto outside of Johannesburg South Africa where their experience extreme poverty and exploitation. However, humans are still not satisfied and want to evict the aliens and move them in mass to another location farther away from the city. Wikus va de Merwe is a government official assigned to serve eviction notices and supervise the alien move to their new residence; however, in a twist of fate, he is exposed to alien liquid, which causes his DNA to mutate, and he becomes an alien/human hybrid. After experience life as an outcast, Merwe seeks the help of an alien so that he could be fully human, but also comes to realize the great evil being done against the aliens. The astute viewer can’t help but see the connections to the plot of District 9 and something in the past, such as the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, or the present Middle East Palestinian refuge camps. Although I am not certain that this will ever become a sci-fi classic, I can understand why the hype over the movie given the action and intriguing storyline.
I never really owned a GI Joe action figure with the “Kung Fu” grip, and I never got into the Saturday morning cartoons; however, in spite this, I still saw GI Joe: Rise of Cobra and found it too to be enjoyable. “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is the basic theme to the movie. Nanotechnology in this story is constructed into a weapon of mass destruction and the knowledge and possession of that power becomes the agent that corrupts an American solider into becoming the Cobra Commander.
“Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein!” The movie Inglourious Bastards is about one thing and one thing only — killin Nat-zis and revenge. Filled to the brim with satire, and wit, Tarantino takes viewers on a wild World War II fiction in Nazi occupied France with the subtle hint of an old Spaghetti Western—a sort of “I know it really didn’t happen that way, but I suspect people probably wish it did happen that way,” kind of story. And like all Tarantino movies, this one comes loaded with loads of pop-culture references, along with allusions the European movies of the 30s & 40s, especially the German propaganda films. Christoph Waltz (Colonel Hans Landa) and Brad Pitt (Aldo Raine) portray some really unique characters, which really carry the movie, and keep the interest level high.
The extraterrestrial bipedal crustaceans or “Prawns” sci-fi drama of District 9 parallels the 1980s sci-fi movie Alien Nation—in both a space ship lands, extraterrestrials come out to live amongst humans but are marginalized because of well their different. Of course, like many other sci-fi movies, these take real life issues—such as in the case of District 9 and Alien Nation the ill treatment and exploitation of foreigners—and infuse them into an otherworldly adventure. In District 9, the aliens overstayed their welcome, and are relegated to living in a ghetto outside of Johannesburg South Africa where their experience extreme poverty and exploitation. However, humans are still not satisfied and want to evict the aliens and move them in mass to another location farther away from the city. Wikus va de Merwe is a government official assigned to serve eviction notices and supervise the alien move to their new residence; however, in a twist of fate, he is exposed to alien liquid, which causes his DNA to mutate, and he becomes an alien/human hybrid. After experience life as an outcast, Merwe seeks the help of an alien so that he could be fully human, but also comes to realize the great evil being done against the aliens. The astute viewer can’t help but see the connections to the plot of District 9 and something in the past, such as the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, or the present Middle East Palestinian refuge camps. Although I am not certain that this will ever become a sci-fi classic, I can understand why the hype over the movie given the action and intriguing storyline.
I never really owned a GI Joe action figure with the “Kung Fu” grip, and I never got into the Saturday morning cartoons; however, in spite this, I still saw GI Joe: Rise of Cobra and found it too to be enjoyable. “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is the basic theme to the movie. Nanotechnology in this story is constructed into a weapon of mass destruction and the knowledge and possession of that power becomes the agent that corrupts an American solider into becoming the Cobra Commander.
“Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein!” The movie Inglourious Bastards is about one thing and one thing only — killin Nat-zis and revenge. Filled to the brim with satire, and wit, Tarantino takes viewers on a wild World War II fiction in Nazi occupied France with the subtle hint of an old Spaghetti Western—a sort of “I know it really didn’t happen that way, but I suspect people probably wish it did happen that way,” kind of story. And like all Tarantino movies, this one comes loaded with loads of pop-culture references, along with allusions the European movies of the 30s & 40s, especially the German propaganda films. Christoph Waltz (Colonel Hans Landa) and Brad Pitt (Aldo Raine) portray some really unique characters, which really carry the movie, and keep the interest level high.
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