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The Telegraph:

When we think of the liberation of South Africa, we completely associate it with Nelson Mandela and what he did was extraordinary, of course – but what she did was equally as extraordinary, if not more,” said [South African director Darrell] Roodt. …

“If it wasn’t for Winnie Mandela, South Africa would have been a vastly different place. It might have ended in ruin and chaos. It is, for me, the great untold story about South Africa. It’s the ultimate women’s movie.”

The film aims to overturn negative views of the woman who once notoriously declared that “with our boxes of matches and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country” – a reference to the method of killing suspected informers in the townships by setting fire to petrol-filled tyres placed around their necks.

Under apartheid she was convicted of kidnapping a 14-year-old boy who was later found beaten to death in Soweto. In 2003, she was convicted of more than 40 charges of fraud.

But Roodt said Mrs Mandela’s image was deliberately undermined by her enemies, although he insisted the film would not be a hagiography. (more…)

While offering up one of the smarter political allegories to hit theaters in a long time, after an imaginative and compelling opening based on an imaginative and compelling premise, the second half of “District 9” doesn’t live up. The idea-bottom drops completely out of what was looking to be a potential sci-fi classic when the story suddenly turns and devolves into a B-grade, actioner – most of it photographed by that infernal shaky-cam, which is guilty of ruining more movies than Julia Roberts.

High above Johannesburg, South Africa, a lifeless spaceship hovers in the haze. No one knows where it came from or how it got there and for a while everyone seems content to wait for something to happen. But as time passes and nothing does, a decision is made to investigate. Once inside, investigators find the ship’s cargo: thousands upon thousands of alien beings who will come to be known as “Prawns.”

Twenty years pass and by now it’s become obvious that these 1.8 million aliens are unable to care for themselves or integrate into human society. Like animals, they scour garbage piles for food, are hostile towards equally hostile citizens and have had to be segregated in District 9, a ghettoized internment camp guarded by Multi-National United (MNU), a private corporation involved in everything from military contracting to medical experimentation. (more…)

Is it possible for a film to be both a brilliant, exciting piece of entertainment, and also a completely illogical piece of heavy-handed political propaganda? It is, if the new science-fiction oddity “District 9” is any indication.

Led by a stunning performance by Sharlto Copley, who is not only unknown to audiences outside South Africa, but who had never acted in anything but short films before, “District 9” blasts through its running time with a furious mix of action and satire. Yet its central plotline, focusing on what might happen if space aliens approached Johannesburg and were then held in a segregated district for nearly three decades, is riddled with holes and bangs viewers over the head with its allegories of racial discrimination harkening back to the evil days of that nation’s apartheid policies.

The film kicks off with a fast-paced blend of fake newscasts and faux-documentary footage shot by a camera crew that’s been assigned to cover a mass evacuation of aliens from their home in the city’s District 9. The aliens had come in a giant mother ship back in 1982, but no one has ever figured out why they arrived and left the ship to hover eternally over Johannesburg. (more…)

The crime is complete. Judgment has been passed. The killing stones are in hand. As per the harsh stoning penal code of Iran’s Islamist thugocracy (for however long that lasts) where the crime took place, my stones are not so big as to kill right away, not so small you can’t call them stones. And I’m winding up like Nolan Ryan. Feel free to pick up a stone of your own. But wait for it!

And let me make this perfectly clear, even if they do say Jehovah!

Sentence must be read before being carried out. And unlike Soraya M., the board members of the Asylum of Motion Picture Airheads and Stooges will deserve every rock that’s thrown their way. I also believe that, in light of events in Iran today, the following commentary will stand out in much starker prominence than it did when I first started reporting on them in early March, when Team Oscar first set off for the Unfriendly Skies of Islamist Iran. (more…)