• Comic-Con was the week’s big story, with 25 minutes of footage from “Avatar” its major talking-point so far.
• Meanwhile, the rather less glitzy sci-fi of “District 9” wowed the crowds.
• And Gary Oldman slipped some unexpected news about the next Batman installment.
• Good week for trailers, as both “Alice in Wonderland” and “Bright Star” offered a crazyglimpse of their goods.
Last night Peter Jackson showed up at the Horton Plaza United Artists theater a few blocks north of the convention center with protege Neill Blomkamp and actor Sharlto Copley in tow. The occasion: the first ever screening of Blomkamp’s “District 9,” a sci-fi installment that finds itself in the midst of a heavy “what the heck is it?” campaign right now that hopes to drum up anticipation for the August 14 release (and will no doubt see a spike in that once the web press finds time to sit at their laptops and hammer out reactions).
I didn’t really know what to expect. I haven’t follwed the viral on this to the letter like so many and I really just thought it would be a nifty diversion during the Con if nothing else. But it was so much more. The film, which I won’t even discuss plot-wise, isn’t a watershed moment for sci-fi cinema by any means, so don’t let me over state.
What it is, however, is a dedicated, small piece of character-driven genre, much like Duncan Jones’s “Moon” in that way, that was smartly nurtured by Jackson. It also has plenty of seat-leaping action moments to go around, but at it’s heart, it is a near one-man show from actor Sharlto Copley, a fresh young talent who, quite frankly, stunned the hell out of me with his control of a character that is quite complicated in some ways.
I’ve got to eat before I pass out, but a quick iPhone post is quite necessary in the wake of “District 9,” an amazing effort that sits alongside Duncan Jones’s “Moon,” J.J. Abrams’s “Star Trek” and, hopefully (though today’s footage was a great start) James Cameron’s “Avatar” as part of a damn fine year for sci-fi cinema. And truly, a star is born in the film’s brilliant young fresh-out-of-the-gate lead actor.
More later. Food now.
I’m just settling in here at the Bayside Hilton next to the San Diego Convention Center. Killer view, badge pick-up within the hour. It’s all happening, etc. But I find myself pondering the “Con” aspect of it all more and more these days.
Of course, I disagree with David Poland’s notion that the festivities here don’t manage to move the needle at all. The mood is set, legions of journalists (every Tom, Dick and Harry with a Blogspot or a Live Journal gets in as “press” these days) spread the word and a culture is born right here, every year. It’s an unknowable variable, of course. Things can go one way or the other, and nothing will necessarily be made or broken. But the publicity opportunity is rather undeniable.
Which brings me back to a point I made just this afternoon, the idea of the web universe largely playing the role of extended mouthpiece for a studio system more and more desperate to reach audiences and drum up excitement in advance of their product’s unveiling. It’s marketing 101. But it’s not journalism, any more than the cut-and-paste press releases you find in the trades every morning.
So why do we cover it?
• Gael Garcia Bernal: activist. [Daily Telegraph]
• Phil de Semlyen chats it up with Bruno. [Empire]
• Michael Powell goes deep on “Golden Age” survivor Andrew Sarris. [New York Times]
• Mike Jones profiles the child actors of Harry Potter, wonders if their fame can last beyond Hogwarts. [The independent]
Expanding on the teaser that generated much excitement among genre aficionados a few months back, comes this more revealing trailer for South African Neill Blomkamp’s freshman feature “District 9,” produced in association with Peter Jackson.
Can’t say I’m as sold on the venture as others are — and the new trailer makes it look rather broader and less enigmatic than what we were originally led to expect — but I’m always up for seeing my hometown of Johannesburg show its sun-bleached colors on screen. Represent, Joeys. (Newish one-sheet after the cut.)
I haven’t kept up with Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9,” a Peter Jackson production that has the geek world chomping at the bit. But the recently released trailer has certainly sparked my interest. A plot synopsis from the film’s IMDb page: “An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.”
Alrighty then. Click the jaw-dropping image below to check out the trailer over at Apple.
