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Did not go anywhere. How unfortunate. Hence watched many many movies over the last 4 days.
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One of them as you can tell obviously was District 9. This is another one of those alien pictures. With some differences though. It is not one of those superior beings descending down on earth saying "Take me to your Leader" thing and threaten to wipe out human civilisation if we don't ...
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Anyway, this movie is quite interesting really. A large alien spaceship was found hanging over Johannesburg and upon investigation contained many many aliens who were rather helpless and leaderless. They were kept in a gated area which turned slumlike and later was to be moved to another area, all 1.8 million of them.
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Our hero, Wikus van der Merwe is the MNU field operative assigned to lead the relocation. He is played by somebody I've never heard before, Sharlto Copley. Actually all members of the cast were new to me.
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The aliens looked like this.
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Well, there were quite some action scenes, fighting, awesome alien fireweapons, helicopters, contract soldiers et al.
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Watching this movie can be quite a dizzy experience as the cameras kept shaking like a documentary shoot. Well, the movie was purposely shot in this mock documentary style.
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You may be interested to know the following:
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Like "Alive in Joburg", the short film on which the feature film is based, District 9's setting is inspired by historical events that took place in South Africa during the apartheid era, with the film's title particularly referencing District Six. District Six, an inner-city residential area in Cape Town, was declared a "whites only" area by the government in 1966, with 60,000 people forcibly removed and relocated to Cape Flats, 25 km (15 mi) away. The film also refers to contemporary evictions and forced removals to new suburban ghettos in post-apartheid South Africa and the resistance of residents. This includes the high profile attempted forced removal of Joe Slovo Informal Settlement in Cape Town to Temporary Relocation Areas in Delft, the attempted evictions of Abahlali baseMjondolo and evictions in the shack settlement, Chiawelo, where the film was actually shot.
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Another movie that I watched on Astro is the very old East of Eden starring of course, James Dean, the hero of many including Joe Wong.
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East of Eden is a novel by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, published in September 1952.
According to his last wife Elaine, he considered this to be a requiem for himself—his greatest novel ever. Steinbeck stated about East of Eden: "It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years." He further claimed: "I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this."
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I was prepared to be impressed as I sat down to watched this movie yesterday afternoon on Astro.
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I was not.
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To quote a review:
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The plot is a rough "modern" (circa the 1910s) retelling of the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, set in and between Salinas and Monterey, California, as an allegory of good versus evil. But both Steinbeck and screenwriter Paul Osborn weave a dense allegorical tapestry, with those polar ethical opposites becoming less clear-cut as the film progresses.
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Also this movie is supposed to grow on you. That you will like it more and more upon repeat watching. I guess the subtle intricacies of the events escaped me and I find the movie slow moving and somewhat tedious at times.
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James Dean was the reason why I watched. He was well known for his rebellious nature and devil may care attitude, which seems to attract women. Joe Wong would agree.
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Well, here in this movie, he acted such. However, I find him overacting maybe.
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Then again, possibly at that time in 1955 when this movie was released, it could be huge then.
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Incidentally there was a remake of this movie in 1981 starring Timothy Bottoms, Jane Seymour, Bruce Boxleitner.
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