DISTRICT 9 satisfies my brain and my boy parts

At the beginning of the year, only two dates on my movie calendar were circled. May 29 for Pixar's UP and August 14 for DISTRICT 9. Fortunately for me (and my sanity), both movies absolutely fucking delivered.

DISTRICT 9 (2009)

It was a sad day for many when the much maligned Halo film project was canned.

On the other hand, it was a glorious day when Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp decided to make an intelligent and damn cool alien movie that will keep a tent pitched in my pants for the next couple days.

The tale of DISTRICT 9 starts off in the 80's when an alien craft comes to Earth and hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. After a long period of inactivity, the ship is drilled into and found to contain nearly two million sickly worker aliens absent of their higher-ups. After being forced out of the ship and into a Johannesburg slum called District 9, multinational weapons and research organization MNU takes over control of the camp, looking to harness alien technology and weaponry for profit. Upon a new task to evict the aliens into the new concentration-camp-like District 10, MNU operative Wilkus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) accidentally comes in contact with an alien substance, which of course leads to proverbial shit hitting the proverbial fan.

DISTRICT 9 makes some fairly obvious allusions to apartheid and racism, but instead of ever becoming overtly and annoyingly preachy, DISTRICT 9 presents a methodical real-world documentary that transitions to a steroid-induced alien action flick. By no means mistake this for a bad thing as DISTRICT 9 presents a final act as tense and as awesome as you'll see in any science fiction film crafted in the last two decades; an action finale so savvily crafted that I don't know if I can ever look at alien films or projectile pigs in the same light again.

Newcomer Neill Blomkamp's direction is fabulous. Though the documentary aesthetic trend is nothing particularly new these days, its use in DISTRICT 9 heightens the sense of realism to alarming levels. As a sci-fi/alien movie nerd, this particularly tickled my balls. I don't know about everyone else, but I wanna know what happens when aliens land and Will Smith isn't there to talk to them in ebonics. Also on display is South African actor Sharlto Copley (Wikus), a virtual one-man bravado of a performance on which the entire weight of the film's narrative rests.

While DISTRICT 9's unconventional real-life documentary feel may leave casual viewers cold, DISTRICT 9 appeals to the desires of every virgin sci-fi fan that sacrificed two hours jacking it to Pokemon for two hours of basking in DISTRICT 9's glory. DISTRICT 9 never falls to TRANSFORMERS levels of retarded, and while big CGI set pieces can be feasts for the eyes, DISTRICT 9's sparkling visual effects coupled with fuckin' sweet and relatively grounded action and an original story that feels eerily real make DISTRICT 9 a must see for any self-respecting sci-fi fan (or any self-respecting dude, for that matter).

I wanna see this again and again until my balls are empty of my man juices and I am no longer physically capable of producing the chemicals that define me as a male. Don't get me wrong, though. While DISTRICT 9 is a killer action flick, it's a science fiction film that the genre needs. A tremendous and welcome boost in originality and sheer cool factor, DISTRICT 9 is a breath of fresh air that everyone needs to take.

A

JOVIAL HUMANS and the consequent roller coaster of emotions

What will hold me over 'til DISTRICT 9? The answer: DICK JOKES (or FUNNY PEOPLE).

FUNNY PEOPLE (2009)

If you were like most normal high schoolers, or at least like my sisters or Avril Lavigne, you went through the inevitable range of fads as you strove your find your true identity as a teenager. It probably started with the hippie stage, where you smoked grass, crafted such fine art as tye-dye t-shirts and peace quilts, listened to magnanimous musical artists like 311, and lounged around all day accomplishing absolutely nothing. After that, you likely transitioned to the goth stage, when one day you suddenly relished in your own self-loathing and angst at the sight of a Hot Topic at your favorite hang-out spot: the mall. And in the final stage of self-discovery, you came to the realization that you enjoyed the works of immortal wordsmiths like Soulja Boy and Snoop Doggy Dog, wearing t-shirts that are long enough to provide your body complete warmth in the dead of winter, and playing high-stakes casino games like street craps. Yep, you finally realized that you were black.

Judd Apatow's third directorial effort is one that has a noticeable (and similar) identity crisis. While more mature than THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN and KNOCKED UP, FUNNY PEOPLE certainly has its share of the typical Apatow-crew lewd humor. This is all fine and dandy, but for a film that tries to yank at the very cords of your vagina, FUNNY PEOPLE is a film that will leave you at a strange paradox wondering whether or not you found the flick funny or sad.

FUNNY PEOPLE is a nice looking film, thanks especially to the somewhat confusing choice of the renowned Janusz Kaminski as cinematographer. For all intents and purposes, FUNNY PEOPLE is an adequately directed film, highlighted by some old school home movies of Adam Sandler, but the cheese factor that Apatow was able to qualm in his previous rom-coms is laughable in its abundance here. Adam Sandler suffices, but while he delivers a performance certainly better than that of his previous stinkers like LITTLE NICKY and CLICK, he's as dull as dishwater when he's not making his SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE era funny noises (why wasn't this movie called FUNNY NOISES?). A slimmed-down Seth Rogen is also adequate; he's funny but not over-the-top and annoying for those that are tired of his humor.

FUNNY PEOPLE is funny. It has its sad moments, but it never really sold me on the dramatic end. I guess the only real thing that I was sold on walking out of the theater was that I have a crush on Aubrey Plaza. My new most anticipated movie of 2010: SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD. I don't know who you are, Scott Pilgrim, but your girl Aubrey does strange things to my boy parts.

C+

Note: no more stars. Since there are more letter grades than stars (on a five-star scale and without half-stars, and counting pluses and minuses, of course), I like the new abundance of choices with letters better. Maybe I should try to learn the Chinese alphabet for this purpose... Nah, fuck that.

Next up: DISTRICT 9. Fuck yeah!