Wikus Van De Merwe

Second posting within a week! I'm getting there!

This past week I've been home feeling like crap and having some fun Crohn's action. I had a fantastic colonoscopy - no active Crohn's(!) - but am having trouble feeling better right away.

So I'm working from home today and watching movies. My lovely sister brought over this large piece of heaven called District 9. I've been meaning to see it since it came out in theatres, but never got around to it. My sis held onto it for about 4 weeks before she watched it. And now I can tell everyone I have seen...no...experienced movie genius. For the first time in a few years I was blown away by a movie again. What was the last movie to blow me away? No idea, apparently that's how good it was;)

The main plot of the movie is this: Aliens landed on earth in Johannesburg, South Africa years ago (like the 80's). Over the next 15 years people get upset with aliens running around their community so the South African government builds this "camp" specifically for the aliens (which they derogatorily call "Prawns"...think shrimp). To keep this camp orderly the gov't builds an organization call MNU which basically treats the prawns like illegal aliens with lots of regulation, segregation (think human rights era so signs for human and alien water fountains) and weapon laws. This camp is about 2 miles outside of the city and now the gov't wants to move all the prawns to a camp really far away to stop violence and whatever. Thus teh story of MNU trying to get evict all the aliens to another camp.

This film starts out in documentary form, centering on one character, Wikus Van De Merwe. Wikus works for MNU and his father-in-law (VP of MNU) promotes him to be like the project manager of this effort to evict and move all the aliens. The documentary follows him as he prepares his co-workers for the effort. Without giving any more away, this is the start of a major character transformation. Wikus is pretty weak as a person - you can tell within the first 10 minutes of the film. His journey to the end of the movie is inspiring.

This film is very grisly. Zero scary, but lots of body parts exploding. So for those who are weak in watching gooey explosions - maybe hold off on this. Besides the blood, you will go on an emotional roller coaster. I was on edge for the last hour of the film when the action goes into overload.

One thing I will tell you is: PAY ATTENTION. It was a little hard to understand some people and the film moves fast. So maybe don't work on a PowerPoint for your companys' shareholders. Just a suggestion.