District 9 District 9 District 9 District 9 District 9

District 9 is the latest in a series from the burgeoning Science Fiction movie industry of South Africa. This is the most sophisticated installment of the series, and the first to be screened in the United States. It’s a shame we haven’t been privy to the first eight District movies, because this one is quite excellent, and surely some of the back story wouldn’t hurt. Actual smart science fiction with tons of action, sterling special effects, and decent looking aliens. Not only does it leave you crackling with energy, it imparts a message: People would care about displaced Africans if they were aliens.

That is why I’m starting a new charity: Antennae for Africa. We shall affix antennae and other alien prostheses to hungry Sudanese children. Donate money or the rabbit ears from your old digitally incompatible television sets. We’re also accepting lobster remains, but please do clean them first. This will give them an exotic aura that will pay off when it comes time to give to charity, or to write your congressmen about the ongoing annual atrocities in Sudan.

In the movie a white man with a bad mustache is spattered with alien rocket fuel which turns him into an alien. Sure that doesn’t make any damn sense, but this is alien stuff! Who knows what it would do. He turns alien hand first. Now this is a crucial failure in realism. There should have been a montage of him, curled up in an alien shanty jerking off with that alien hand for hours on end. No man could resist. If this was my picture, it would be all alien hand masturbation for the rest of the movie, and it would have been a great movie. I would have called it “District Alien Hand-Jerk 9.” While it’s a tragedy that this wasn’t the movie that was made, the movie they did make was pretty good.

Eventually our hero goes through a torturous ordeal, and grows enough beard that we don’t care about his mustache. No sappy speeches are made, and a lot of baddies get blown into splashes of blood. Screw G.I. Joe. This is the movie of the summer.

Until the foundation for Antennae for Africa can be established, you can donate to help regular human hungry Sudanese kids here.

--Dan Kilian

Bruno, Harry Potter, Orphan

Benjamin Button