And The Winner Is… WTF, Who’s Sharito Copley?

In case you missed it, a new (sorta) Sci-Fi film opened this last week here in Movieville.  District 9 is an outstanding creation from Neill Blomkamp, a somewhat new feature film director who comes to us from the world of music videos. This film is one that at first glance you’d think might be just another “Independence Day” or “Alien Mine” kind of diversion, but be aware, D9 is no K9.

That first glance would be so wrong, not that there’s anything wrong with the former or anything right to emulate with the latter. And when I say “sorta” Sci-Fi, it’s meant to be in high praise because this one goes so much more deeply into the dissection of humanity (no pun intended here) than any of  your basic ET/UFO/Dinosaur driven cinema.

The first standout differences you’ll notice are that, with absolutely no offense meant to Mr. Copley who plays an MNU (Multi National Unit, sort of the equivalent of the “Blackwater” group in South Africa) field operative named Wikus van der Merwe, there’s not one actor in this film that you’ve likely ever seen before on any screen, at least not in North America. Nor does it seem that there is any sort of limit to, even after all of these years of years of CGI and Green screen improvements, exactly how many times you’ll say “how the fuck did they do that” in one sitting.

Don’t panic Earthlings, we’re not from the NSA

And don’t be so quick to chug that Diabetes friendly mega serving of soda because you can count on sitting through the whole thing, not one person in attendance got up during the nearly two hours including time spent watching the credits roll by looking for even one recognizable name other than executive producer Peter Jackson’s.

Therefore, count on there being a long line at the restroom when the last credits do fade out. In that credit roll, the list of the visual effect crew alone runs almost 6 screens on my Macbook, people that certainly earned their can of cat food (inside joke that you’ll get when you see the film).

I don’t need your damned anal probe, I’m the good guy!

In an award winning way, the above mentioned Mr. Copley at first brings to the screen an early John Cleese, circa Fawlty towers. He manages to morph that comical performance persona into one that Henry Fonda would have been proud of.

Yeah, I suppose that it’s a long stretch to imagine a person being able to go through that range in one film, but then I’ve seen it and have no problem with thinking of him that way, just one very long and smooth transformation.

See it and make a comment with your own “How the fuck did they do that?” count, including that very bizarre eye effect (take another, closer look at that photo above).

Me? I’m waiting for that richly deserved envelope to be handed to Mr Copley.

N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and/ or quotes above (including those of my own) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but as always, success usually has a million parents and failure is an orphan.
Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below this advisory, I don’t get to choose them and even more sadly, I don’t make a penny off any of them, so in the holy name of capitalism I rebuke and don’t endorse or support any of them, unless of course they’re made of funny stuff…..
P.S., check back for occasional updates and rewrites….
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