FRED Entertainment

Tag: Neill Blomkamp

  • Opinion In A Haystack: This Generation’s Robocop

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    22 YEARS LATER, THIS GENERATION GETS THEIR ROBOCOP!!!

    In 1987 there was this movie with a silly name, odd premise, a main character that looked like something out of Metropolis, and a non-A-list-celebrity in the lead role. The movie opened in theaters and subsequently kicked down the front door of Hollywood, gave it an uppercut to the jaw, and started pissing in its coffee pot. This film was Robocop.

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    Two decades later Hollywood had lost its way again, it forgot its lesson. Luckily, on August 14th 2009 director Neill Blomkamp decided to crawl into the bedroom window, while Hollywood was sleeping, and knock up its daughter. He did it with a film called District 9. It was exactly what we needed.

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    No big-name actors to weigh down the budget, no lame attempts at adapting already existing properties, no non-sense, no entanglements… District 9, much like Robocop, is just hardcore, passionate film making from a new voice. A voice not to dissimilar from a young Paul Verhoeven.

    Now, first off, if you are looking for a straightforward review of the film may I direct your attention over to the talented writings of QuickStop’s own Christopher Stipp. Second, I am in no way saying that District 9 is a “rip off” of Robocop. While there are tonal, character, comedic and satirical similarities between the two films, my point is not to insult District 9 for rehashing, stealing, or ripping off of another movie. Let me repeat that: I’M NOT SAYING THEY ARE THE SAME MOVIE; I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT PLAGIARISM; THE PICTURES ARE NOT MEANT TO POINT OUT THEFT. However I could probably say that 50 times and still some body will come on here, look at the pictures without reading anything and call me an idiot. The internet is a beautiful thing. Still, my point is one of praise. This film is not only an artistic success, but a financial one as well, much like Robocop, it will leave Studio Execs scratching their craniums wondering how and why this film worked.

    Both of these movies, above all things, are social commentary. They are bloody, gritty, dirty, futuristic satires. District 9 is obviously about apartheid, political corruption and corporate greed, where as Robocop is about fascism, political corruption and corporate greed. And for people that have a hard time thinking outside the box, and tying their shoes, I suppose they are about aliens and robots as well. They are good companion pieces in that they use these rather deep socio-political frameworks to ask questions, not answer them, and to ultimately facilitate the action, special effects, gore, and humor.

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    The tonal similarities they share are pretty significant, to the point of being complimentary. You have two cities in dire straights, Johannesburg and Detroit. A corporation offers to swoop in, get involved politically, and take care of the problems at hand. District 9‘s MNU (Multi-National United) is painfully similar to Robocop‘s corrupt behemoth of industry called OCP (Omni Consumer Products). This is not theft; this similarity is simply a by-product of the fact that a giant, evil corporation with a cold-industrial moniker is the only way to skin that particular satiric-cat. When films like this are done properly, they are bound to share elements. I know I sound defensive against my own assertion that these movies are similar but, sue me, I like to argue with myself.

    ********************MILD SPOILERS START HERE*********************

    Wikus, District 9‘s “hero” is not unlike Officer Alex Murphy. The two men both start out the respective films as part of the machine that is trying to fix the problem. In the process of such, they both get injured, disfigured, loose their humanity, their ties with their family, are betrayed by their corporate superiors and are forced to use their new found situation to fight for what they see as right, all under the back drop of a much larger dystopian future. Wikus’ situation isn’t as finite as Murphy’s (as Murphy never had the option of going back to what he was, he died,) nor is Wikus a purely “good” soul as Murphy is, yet the similarities of their loss are apparent. Both futures, I might add, are very dank, dirty and covered in decade old grime. They both sport monuments of former glory, statues that depict utopia are engulfed in excrement and failure. Johannesburg is shown to be over run by a slum motif, covered in 20 years of stagnation, much like Detroit in Robocop; it is a city that looks like it has been without maintenance for several years.

    *******************MILD SPOILERS STOP HERE***************************

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    District 9 starts out in a documentary style, which, I would argue is the equivalent of Robocop‘s several commercials and news programs. In the 80’s that is simply the way they decided to break the fourth wall, today audiences are more open to characters just talking to the camera. This device in both films, leads to, or creates most of the humor. The humor being very important, cause if you’re not laughing from time to time, you will forget what the filmmakers want you to remember… this is entertainment, it should be fun. However, it’s not mindless fun, there is depth, and sometimes it’s damn funny.

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    Neither film bothers to deal with the grandeur of the devices at hand. Robocop‘s narrative isn’t about the technical developments of robotic technology; District 9 isn’t about the complex nature of the alien’s world, society, and knowledge. In fact, District 9 shows audiences something very new to this decade, aliens that aren’t all that remarkable. They are about as smart and physically vulnerable as us, they just happen to have lived long enough to develope space travel and superior munitions technology… other then that, they are just humans that look different. A fresh, gut-punch approach to such sci-fi material is what made Robocop so biting in the 80’s. Same goes for District 9.

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    If you look at a lot of the criticism of District 9, you will see a pattern. My opinion is not fact, nor is anyone’s, but it seems to me that those that have put the movie in a negative light are not seeing the movie for what it is, they are simply seeing the premise. The premise sounds stupid, much like Robocop (which also has the added opposition of have a name that sounds ridiculous.) However, there is still people to this day that don’t “get” or “understand” the love for Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi-horror-action classic… they are so dense that all they see is a stupid violent movie about a robot cop. The same goes for District 9, which is confusing, since even critics that are fully aware of the African Apartheid plot device still seem as though they aren’t in on the “joke.”

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    If everything I just said about the comparison between the two films seems like just a meandering mess… then at I’ll give you a good, clean, surface comparison. District 9 had its own ED-209:

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    That proves nothing, and goes against the angle of approach I was taking, but why fight it, let the internet have its fun.

    The biggest similarity that the films share is in what they represent for mainstream entertainment at the time of their release. These are real films, not adaptations, written and directed solely for the screen and the screen alone. Big-budget science fiction films, with substance, made with passion instead of a goal (i.e. “We want a movie based on this toy line… do it, do it right, and do it so everybody can understand it!”) They are huge, filled with counter-culture ideas, abnormal themes, for a select audience, and most of all heavy with questions. That is what you get when studios get behind things other then the bottom line. So thank you to Neill Blomkamp, Paul Verhoeven, and even Peter Jackson for “mavericking” the hell out of cinema. Let’s hope that Hollywood doesn’t try to emulate-rape the premise… the last thing we need is the Robocop 3 version of District 9, I wouldn’t buy that for a dollar.

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    SORORITY ROW

    Really? So did we just have a script lying around from the lame horror trend of the 90’s that a studio thought they might as well sink a couple millions into it just for laughs? This movie is 10 years past its prime. The sub-genre ignited by Scream and killed by every subsequent Scream rip-off, then chopped up by no less then 76 Scary Movie spoofs is coming to a theater near you!!! Isn’t it too early to do throwback to bad movies of last decade? Well at least Carrie Fisher is in it.

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  • Trailer Park: DISTRICT 9 and THE GOODS: LIVE HARD. SELL HARD.

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    And now, you can follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp

    Item #1

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    (Consider this a retweet)

    Geek Monthly.

    The magazine graciously let me write another piece for their publication and I couldn’t be more thankful. This entry, off my last one which chronicled the hosts of Attack of the Show, explored the events of the documentarians who made the film Don’t You Forget About Me.

    Chronicling the films of John Hughes (rest-in-peace) and using a series of interviews with the players who helped bring the stories to life, the article in Geek Monthly delves into where John Went, what made his movies so enduring and why, oddly enough, his films were savaged in the press by critics when they came out.

    The article really delves into the process of just making a documentary, much less one about John Hughes, and what you find out along the way to making a finished film. There are some surprises with who didn’t want to participate in the making of this movie but there is more than enough insight into John’s processes and picks of who would eventually become Long Duk Dong, Jake Ryan and The Princess from THE BREAKFAST CLUB.

    If you happen to see the magazine at your local bookstore, grocery store, newsstand, wherever finer publications are sold, please pick up a copy.

    Item #2

    picture1Once again we’ve got passes to see a sneak preview of a film that’s about to drop soon. This time it’s for the new Ang Lee film, TAKING WOODSTOCK.

    The screening will take place here in Arizona, Tempe to be exact, at the Tempe Marketplace on Thursday, August 27th. For those interested please shoot me a note at Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com and I’ll get you hooked up.

    For those who want to know about the film here is a synopsis:

    Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee tells the story of the Greenwich Village interior designer who inadvertently helped to spark a cultural revolution by offering the organizers of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival boarding at his family’s Catskills motel. The year is 1969. Change is brewing in America, and the energy in Greenwich Village is palpable. Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) is working as an interior designer when he discovers that a high-profile concert has recently lost its permit from the nearby town of Wallkill, NY. Emboldened by the burgeoning gay rights movement yet still tied to tradition in the form of the family business — a Catskills motel called the El Monaco — Tiber phones producer Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff) at Woodstock Ventures and offers boarding to the harried concert crew. Later, as the Woodstock Ventures staff begans arriving in droves, half a million concertgoers make their way to Max Yasgur’s (Eugene Levy) adjacent farm in White Lake, NJ, to witness the counterculture celebration that would ultimately make history as one of the greatest events in the annals of rock & roll. Imelda Staunton, Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, and Paul Dano co-star.

    Item #3

    About a year and a half ago I interviewed Dicky Barrett of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Since then and from hearing Adam Carolla’s podcasts and seeing his movie THE HAMMER where he uses their signature hit “Rascal King” as a musical cue for both I was on a feeding frenzy for some live material. This band is simply on point when they perform live and I have to thank Scott, a much bigger fan of the band and of The Dropkick Murphys than I could be. He has royally hooked me up with some live concerts and I let him know I would plug his YouTube channel for his good deed of the day. So, if you’re into Dropkick Murphys or Mighty Mighty Bosstones please patronize his channel located here: youtube.com/LambruscoKid Huzzah, kind sir.

    DISTRICT 9 – REVIEW

    district9_poster-689x1024I remember my first time learning what satire was in college.

    For a long time I was under the deluded impression that satire had to be funny, comedic or somehow gut-busting but I read “Dante’s Inferno” by Dante Alighieri and was schooled in the art of veiling the real world in a thin cloak of fiction. DISTRICT 9 isn’t as veiled but, to its credit, the bludgeoning of its message of apartheid from director Neill Blomkamp is one that is a first in some way for this science fiction tale of aliens who have come to earth and have, to some, overstayed their welcome.

    The film’s use of pseudo documentary storytelling, using the absolutely charming newcomer Shartlo Copley as the movie’s emotional core, is certainly not new but what immediately becomes clear is that every penny of the film’s purported $30 million dollar price tag ended up on the screen. The fantastical physical centerpiece of the circular mothership of the aliens who inhabit the Johannesburg slum where they have been marginalized and physically contained is massively impressive. There is an attention to detail to presenting this story visually to us that many other science fiction films would rather gloss over. Neill intersperses interview footage of residents who live among the prawns, a derogatory term cleverly ascribed to the aliens, and that use alone brings a heft to the story that helps to elevate the film’s well-crafted world.

    As for the aliens themselves, it has to be noted, they are deserving of every technical accolade one could hoist onto their digitally created shoulders. Blomkamp not only developed a species with their own ways of walking, talking and moving but he did so without you ever questioning for a moment that what you were seeing was not there. Blomkamp takes their development beyond just being used in darkened corridors or in the recesses of a post-apocalyptic environment (read here: every ALIENS movie) , he uses them out in the open, out under the sun. It is his use of light that makes these aliens seem more real than any other alien we’ve had up on screen since MEN IN BLACK. By integrating these creatures in the atmosphere and landscape that we ourselves move in that creates the kind of believability that sets this movie into motion.

    Another element that adds another layer to a film that feels more verite than it does a science fiction film is having an organization like MNU. Standing for Multi-National United, the force tasked with the mission of policing the aliens who have been interred, for lack of a better verb, in these shanty towns where the aliens have learned how to exist just as any marginalized member of society would if group and herded together like refugees seems all too real in their execution of getting this settlement moved elsewhere. Led by Copley, as the bumbling and buffoonish man-in-charge named Wikus, the group goes out heavily armored, heavily armed and ready to displace body parts if needed. There is a tension there and in anyone else’s hands this is where a film could bog itself down using common tropes or hackneyed plots having to do with an alien’s otherness, rather, here things are just accepted as normal but different; this is the power of Blomkamp’s mining from his past in this culture. DISTRICT 9 also elevates itself by incorporating actual interview footage with the residents of Johannesburg, describing what these aliens are doing to their city and want to see this scourge of cat food eating miscreants gone from their city. Wikus acts as a buffer between both the aliens and the community that fears and despises them but he does so by being vulnerable. In the opening sequences he is shown as a man almost unable to put on his own microphone but, one element that cannot be overlooked, is his genteel manor.

    Wikus is a man who may not possess the kind of brute mentality that his other co-workers at MNU share but he has a level of sophistication and wide-eyed optimism that the process of things will work itself out and to believe in that process which help make him a man that we can believe. He doesn’t want to see anyone hurt in the process and as he starts serving eviction notices to the aliens in District 9, as preposterous as it is, we accept it because everyone is as well. The issue I take contention with, however, is that since Wikus is our emotional core and our touchstone as the man who crosses that line between man and alien there should have been more to latch onto as the film progresses. In pseudo documentaries that are good you get the quiet moments between the subject and the interviewer which help to enrich the action on the screen. In a film like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT which used single person cameras to a great advantage you became invested in them when we had moments of meaningful 1:1 time. Meaningful 1:1 time. Some rube like Wikus looking dumb on camera does not help to anchor the film and, I would posit, hurts the emotional impact of what happens to the man. Everything that does occur to him after being exposed to some leaking gaseous material from an alien canister as the MNU look for contraband in a ramshackle tenement as they serve their eviction notices could have had a richer resonance if there was just more to know about this man.

    Instead, what happens is that Blomkamp takes all that he builds up in the 1st part of the film, giving you effects that seem flawlessly added to the scenes of the picture without ever drawing attention to itself, a masterstroke of directing, and pumps in the rest of the budget to give you a sensory thrill ride that squarely puts this film into science fiction territory. Blomkamp razzles and dazzles with weaponry, the likes of which have never been seen before, and visual delights that make you absolutely affirm that every penny of the budget they had ended up on that silver screen. The final and penultimate moment in this film, that almost seems like a fireworks display’s final moments, explode with the kind of action that make you feel great to be a geek. You will find yourself clapping and cheering as the plot unravels itself, the final moments providing a sad and reflective guide as to what it means to be human.

    Sure, there are some basic manipulative tricks that are employed throughout the film as Blomkamp tries to buy some favor and sympathy with the audience but it should be said that this movie is a delight and should be seen as the best way to end the fireworks of this summer movie season. Anything else that comes after it will seem like sparklers compared to this.

    THE GOODS: LIVE HARD, SELL HARD – REVIEW

    goods_live_hard_sell_hardThis movie deserves a place.

    It deserves a place right next to MISS MARCH, in fact. I usually try and avoid superlatives whenever possible as even when I think I’ve seen the greatest, best, most or fantastical thing “evar” I like to take a minute and step back, reevaluate. 9 times out of 10 I usually back off and just give something a real positive spin, something that is congratulatory and best expresses the delight I felt at seeing the film I appreciated enough to write about glowingly.

    THE GOODS is, perhaps, the 2nd worst film I’ve seen all year.

    I assume that if I was 13 years-old and wanted a movie chock full of awful, embarrassing humor that is executed with the surgical precision as a doctor monitoring Michael Jackson’s vital signs on the last night of his life this would be the film for me. However, since I really believed that a movie that boasts Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, David Koechner, Ed Helms, Tony Hale, Craig Robinson (who is also in MISS MARCH), Ken Jeong and Rob Riggle as a 10 year-old trapped in an old person’s body due to a “thyroid” condition I thought this movie would absolutely be a lock for one of the funniest films of the summer just judging by the level of talent. From THE HANGOVER to The Daily Show to KNOCKED UP you have some of the best comedic actors working today but seeing how insipid the comedic situations were that made the final cut you almost find yourself wondering who would think that this was a film that had potential.

    Some of the best comedies ever made had premises that, on paper, just sound like it could be a 4 minute Saturday Night skit. 3 guys wake up in a Las Vegas hotel room without any idea of what happened the night before sounds pretty basic but at least that film was able to harness the power of those in it and, as a result, THE HANGOVER is a film everyone is talking about this summer. It is my hope that no one talks about THE GOODS beyond this weekend.

    Describing the plot of this film would be just as infantile and lame as the script itself but, in a nutshell, Jeremy Piven plays a guy who can move a whole lot of cars in a very small time frame. He surrounds himself with his 3 other partners in crime, Koechner, Kathryn Hahn, Rhames, who all seem intent on tossing out bon mots, “Querque”  is referenced a lot and we aren’t let in on the big reveal of what “Querque” is supposed to mean until the final moments of this film as “Querque” seems to hold something grave and deep but “Querque” is only an excuse, it seems, to have these actors try and get a new catchphrase into the lexicon of those who scan these films for 1 liners they can share with their friends, co-workers or wear on a shirt they can pick up at Hot Topic.

    From an absolutely excruciating and forced romance between Piven and Jordana Spiro, the daughter of the dealer Piven is called in to help “move some metal” (Ooo! Another catch phrase! Collect them all and see what sticks!), that feels more forced and unbelievable than trusting in the fact that when all the salespeople beat the ever loving hell out of Ken Jeong, the fists and haymakers flying like a good gang up should look like, as the commercial gives away, Ken is simply able to go out and move some metal. (See how easy it is to incorporate these into your daily vocabulary?)

    The movie seems less interested in telling a funny story than it is trying to go for a laugh that is unearned and is certainly not deserved. Making Ed Helms a walking freak factory of arrested development, he’s trapped in the idea that he is going to make it in a 3 person boy band but sells high priced imports across town, is an awful decision as making him an overtly obnoxious and unwitting rube only lessens the effect of whatever you have in store for him and what’s in store just helps to a) make Ed look pathetic, sad and delusional and b) not smart for taking a role where his comedic talent for being subtle isn’t tapped. If you’re a director looking to garner the best from your actors wouldn’t it follow you cast people based on their talents? Ed is wasted as is Ken and everyone else in this movie. Ving has to say lines that I would be hard pressed to say didn’t make him cringe but I am sure the paycheck helped, regardless of the fact that he seemed equally ridiculous and pitiful as his counterparts.

    The writing should be the most important thing about a movie. Just because a premise sounds weird doesn’t mean there isn’t a goldmine of material to be mined by those who know what they’re looking for but this movie seems to have a blatant disregard for everyone trying to act in it as, separately and in other films, most everyone is capable of work I revisit regularly. It’s insulting not only to their reputations but to the audiences who are unfortunate enough to have to sit through this weak exercise in bad filmmaking.

    There is a moment at the end of this film after we find out whether Jeremy Piven is able to save an auto dealer from going under where, and I promise I won’t spoil this to the <2% of you still reading and still want to see this film that the UN should publicly condemn and consider off-limits under their torture protocols,  a famous actor makes a cameo and gives the camera a middle finger for reasons unknown. As I sat there looking at the big, extended middle digit I immediately thought that there isn’t a better punctuation mark out there today than that finger, pointed right back at that screen. This movie dishonors the laughs and genuine funniness of TALLADEGA NIGHTS and STEP BROTHERS.

    Enjoy THE GOODS. I hope it ends up holding a special place for you this year as well.