District 9 is in theatres August 14th and we are very excited. To celebrate andPOP and Sony Pictures are giving away a signed autograph poster with District 9 cast members Sharlto Copley and Neil Blomkamp. To enter all you need to do is email contests@andpop.com with the subject heading District 9, and the answer to the following question:

What is the name of Sharlto Copley’s character in District 9?

Good luck!

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So let’s assume for a second aliens came down to Earth – how do you think we would react? Would we try to work with them to help further both of our civilizations, or would we try and round them up and put them in camps? I don’t know but District 9 explores this scenario and we sat down with Sharlto Copley, the star of District 9, to get his views. We also had a quick interview with one of the aliens from the District 9. It’s a long story but you will see.

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Note: If you’re already interested in seeing District 9 - you know the setup, you’ve seen the posters – go see it. Like all good stories, the best way to experience it is to know nothing about it going in. A word to the squeamish, however – this is a Peter Jackson production by the man who directed The Frighteners and the icky spider-pit sequence in King Kong, not the man who directed Heavenly Creatures or Lord of the Rings.

When we first meet Wikus Van der Merwe, we don’t really notice him; he’s one of many talking heads in the faux documentary that opens District 9, and he isn’t important. Others explain that in the 1980s an alien mothership appeared suddenly over Johannesburg, and that, after nothing happened (by all appearances, there was nothing to keep this ship from torching South Africa like the aliens in Independence Day) humans broke in and discovered a sickly race of alien refugees whose ship had literally run out of gas. Wikus (newcomer Sharlto Copley) is a cubicle drone tasked by MNU, the corporation that has kept the refugees under (debatable) control, to lead a team that will hand the aliens eviction notices, lending a sense of legitimacy to their forced extraction from District 9, the slums in which they currently reside, to District 10, which is more of a concentration camp. In his opening scenes, Wikus comes across as an officious bureaucrat who in any other movie would be the first to go, in a spectacular and probably funny manner. That appearance is crucial, because it means his ultimate role in the story is as much a surprise to the audience as it is to him. I can’t say that if Hitchcock made an alien invasion film Wikus would have been his protagonist, but I do think he would have been proud.

This is science fiction. This uses allegory to cast a light on one of the most shameful aspects of humanity. First-time writer/director Neill Blomkamp, who lived in South Africa until he moved to Canada at 18, never bludgeons us with the parallels, but his film has a clear thesis in mind, and he states it well.

With their clawed hands and hardened carapaces, the aliens almost resemble bipedal lobsters (they’re derisively referred to as “prawns”), and with their tentacled mouths and garbled speech they appear half a step removed from the Aliens/Predator mold of goopy hunters. Yet with their bulbous eyes and thin waists, they’re just as easily injured as humans, and with their weapons confiscated (you didn’t think humans would free them and allow them to live with their own technology, did you?) they can’t easily hurt us – nor is there any indication they’d want to, since they rarely fight unless being attacked.

And here is the sole element of District 9′s plot that I’ll spoil (it’s not much of a spoiler, since it’s revealed in the opening mockumentary, but it’s not underlined): MNU is funded by corporate interests who, as you might expect, are interested in the aliens’ weaponry. Problem is, no human can work them, since they’re attuned to the aliens’ DNA. Both “legitimate” MNU forces and the Nigerian black market that has appeared in District 9 have a cache of alien weaponry, but after 20 years neither has figured out how to operate them – until our plot comes along.

For those who desire nothing else, District 9 is a thrilling action yarn. The mercenaries hired by MNU to police the increasingly volatile district are capable villains, and while their bald leader, Koobus (David James), isn’t the most memorable antagonist in screen history – think Gary Busey in Lethal Weapon rather than Alan Rickman in Die Hard – he gets the job done. The Nigerians, whose wheelchair-bound leader is obsessed with eating the aliens’ flesh, hoping it will let him utilize that robotic exoskeleton taking up space in his warehouse, won’t win the filmmakers any points for racial sensitivity, but they actually come off as slightly more sympathetic than the (mostly white) corporate villains. At least they’re open about what they’re doing.

If there’s a problem with District 9 it’s that the documentary format can’t sustain the story. It’s impossible for a human being holding a camera to capture the aliens’ perspective, and unlike The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, the cameraperson is never identified. Long stretches of movie trade the format for straight narrative, albeit narrative with the same handheld cinema verite style, before abruptly becoming a documentary again. It’s jarring, but I’m not sure Blomkamp could have handled it differently. For whatever reason, the film almost reaches perfection, but not quite.

It is, however, an instant classic that will be fondly remembered for years to come.

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