Comments on: District 9 and the Problem With Movie Reviews in a Digital Age

By: J

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 03:47:29 +0000

A) Wow — slow news days recently at The Week, eh? It’s like their whole paper rolled their chairs over to one desk to jump your shit.

B) People who critique things should accept criticism of themselves with more dignity.

C) Inexperienced critics seem to think they MUST be negative in their reviews — if you read around, you’ll see that it’s an industry blight — if they don’t hate eveything, they don’t feel like they’re “talking smart.”

I saw your point and agree with what you were saying. It would be of more use to see what the audience as a collective brain thought than to rely on the word of one kid at a weekly who wants so badly to matter that he googles himself after every review.

I also think the critic needs to read that quote he’s clinging to one more time — he doesn’t seem to understand it.

And, for the record, the editor should be taken to task for coming on here and jumping in the fray. He should have better things to do. We’re all a little touchy about the future of newspapers right now, but this just makes us all look bad.

The writer is entirely entitled to his opinion. And so are you. By jumping in here like a kid with hurt feelings, he showed he doesn’t think before he writes. And that’s exactly why it’s best not to take just one guy’s opinion about movies (or anything else?).

By: Joe Wallace

Joe Wallace — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:27:36 +0000

Dave–I didn’t see the whole article (maybe the snipped portion reveals something here but I’m too lazy to go look) It doesn’t read as though the first critic actually SAW the movie. It reads to me like he read a synopsis and made up his mind by other means. “Hey Jerry, did this movie suck?”

By: jetstream

jetstream — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:50:49 +0000

if you were stranded on a planet you would have no bias towards “cat food”. i agree that its unlikely that they get stranded….but that goes to the imagination of who they are. its a reflection of fucked situations that we choose to ignore.

By: Nicola

Nicola — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:02:43 +0000

I have never had the urge to leave a cinema quicker! Totally unbelievable cat food eating, prawns who have forgotten how to operate their own guns and ship and all so we can have an annoying commentary on racism! For crying out loud why must we be bombarded with such low energy nonsense! There should be an apology made for the harmful impact this film makes on the consciousness of all humanity!

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:58:57 +0000

I think the problem with film reviews is shown in this very blog discussion…every person has a different opinion. I personally liked District 9. I won’t bore anyone with why or how.

*Spoiler alert*
Rosie – the Nigerian people in District 9 were indeed one-dimensional and negative; they were crazy murderous gangsters, you are meant to be repelled by them! The main character becomes alien and yet you choose to be annoyed by the lack of consistency regarding teeth?! You have no problems with his DNA changing over the course of a few days? The teeth in question were molars pulled from the back of his mouth, unless you are smiling like a maniac there is little chance of seeing them, or any lack of them. I too was a little curious as to how the alien ship remained suspended over the city for 20 years but I just shrugged my shoulders and got over it. And yes, sleeping with a Black person probably was seen with revulsion by white people at the time of aparthied. And no, not all African Pagans practice cannibalism(I doubt if any do), also I can’t remember seeing any Pagan characters. In short it’s a movie, not a documentary about African life. You are inferring too much.

By: scifi

scifi — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:51:56 +0000

The film was a great disappointment.
I expected a lot but it only turned out to be an irritating camera-shaking videogame. The plot-line was ridiculous and had great holes.
The biggest crap in 2009!!!

It’s time writers should read more traditional literature to create strong storylines. Not silly, mindless violent cinematic video-games.

By: Rosie

Rosie — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:33:54 +0000

I had expected DISTRICT 9 to be one of my favorite movies this summer. And although it had an interesting premise, I discovered that I didn’t like the movie very much. I don’t know. I supposed that it could be that I found it questionable that the mother ship would remain hovering over Johannesburg for at least two decades or more, without any fuel or its command module. I’m still wondering how the aliens (who were ailing when the South Africans first discovered them) managed to get their hands on enough weaponry to trade with the Nigerians.

I found the movie’s portrayal of the Nigerians rather repulsive. Mind you, the South Africans were not portrayed in a positive light, including the main character. But the Nigerians were portrayed in such a one-dimensional and negative way that . . . well, it repelled me. And if the aliens are supposed to be metaphors of the black South Africans during apartheid, does that mean sleeping with them was supposed to be regarded with revulsion? Apparently, we’re supposed to regard Nigerian prostitutes having sex with aliens with revulsion. And could someone please explain why the Nigerians would refer to its shaman (or whatever) with a Southern African word, instead of a word in Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo. And are we really supposed to believe that all Africans who practice in paganism, indulge in cannibalism?

And why couldn’t Blomkamp have told the story with one of the aliens as the main character?

Also, there is one scene that featured the main character losing some of his teeth after being affected by the alien liquid. Yet, a scene or two later, he is smiling at the camera with all of his teeth showing. Hmmm? Also, the last half hour was an exercise in excessive action scenes that didn’t mesh very well with the rest of the film.

Yeah . . . DISTRICT 9 disappointed me.

By: Dave Allen

Dave Allen — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 06:31:12 +0000

Raquel,

I get what you’re saying, yet the leveling of the playing field is the important part for me. The stand alone critic or the historian is now but one cog in the machine. If I met you leaving the cinema, having seen what I was about to enter and see, your opinion would carry greater weight to me than any review/preview that I may read. Look at what’s going on around Tarantino’s latest movie – the critics are all over the place! I’m sticking to the idea of crowdsourced info as I believe that from that vast ocean of input there will rise a different way of covering art/movie/literature criticism by the new participants, or even the New Communicators.. Thanks for jumping into the fray…