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Review: ‘District 9′ a brash, inventive debut

(CNN)

– Why do UFOs always land in the USA, wondered someone in "Monsters vs. Aliens"? Good question.

Sharlto Copley plays a bureaucrat forced into action in "District 9," a film about extraterrestrials.

But it's not always the case, as Neill Blomkamp's adventurous sci-fi movie, "District 9," goes to show.

Presented in the now-familiar fake-doc style — at least until Blomkamp gets bored with its limitations when the action heats up — "District 9" is an edgy little B movie with an injection of impressive big-money special effects courtesy of "Lord of the Rings" director-producer Peter Jackson.

The story's origins are with the extraterrestrials' arrival in the early '80s, when they park their spaceship a mile or so above Johannesburg, South Africa. The ship is vast — almost the size of the city — but when after three months there has been no contact from the visitors, no sign of life in any form, the authorities decide to break in.

What they find is a wretched cargo of pale, starving creatures: tall bipeds with scaly skin and stubby insect-like tentacles around the mouth. The humans call them "prawns," and after establishing that the worst threat they pose is a cosmic PR disaster, they bring them down to earth and stick them in a refugee camp.

That would be District 9, a shantytown of makeshift wooden shacks, no electricity or running water, and scarcely enough space for the million or so newcomers.

After a couple of decades of uneasy coexistence, even this set-up seems too cozy for the residents of Jo'burg. With civil strife and black-market gangsters getting out hand, it is decided the prawns should be relocated to a new camp, somewhere out of harm's way.

International law being what it is, the South Africans are required to collect the signatures to indicate the prawns' acquiescence. And that's where mild-mannered bureaucrat Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) comes in — with a delegation of trigger-happy private security guards.

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"District 9" is a truly global affair. The South African-born Blomkamp learned his trade in Canada, and found a mentor in New Zealand. But it's the location that allows this allegory to resonate.

Here in North America we may darkly imagine that interlopers not only mean us harm but that they have the wherewithal to back it up. In South Africa, though, the story takes on more complex, queasy echoes. The British effectively invented concentration camps here at the turn of the 19th century, and the Boers, the victims then, would mandate that native Africans were nothing but second-class citizens.

Naturally the prawns come lower still down the pecking order. Blomkamp indulges in grisly, blackly comic satire worthy of Paul "Starship Troopers" Verhoeven as our man Wikus (Sharito Copley) casually demonstrates the art of aborting alien offspring with the aid of a flamethrower, all for the edification of the viewers back home.

Complacent and overconfident in front of the cameras, Wikus gets his comeuppance when he accidentally ingests an unidentified liquid substance, which incurs an alarming physical reaction. At this point, the movie changes tone, sometimes for better, sometimes not.

"District 9" also begs plenty of questions; not much of it makes sense if you stop to think about it. And Blomkamp seriously overplays his hand in the long, thoroughly conventional climactic shoot-'em-up. What should have been a taut 90-minute nightmare flick — a classic midnight movie — has somehow pumped up into a 112-minute approximation of a Hollywood action blockbuster.

Still, "District 9" has plenty of material to chew on. Expanded from a six-minute short, it's a brashly confident debut, full of sharp, inventive detail (the prawns are crazy for cat food) and rooted in a couple of Big Ideas. Well worth the time, if not all of it.

"District 9" runs 112 minutes and is rated R. For Entertainment Weekly's review,



click here



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Gibson CEO: Les Paul was ‘a visionary’

(CNN)

– Les Paul never stopped tinkering, said Henry Juszkiewicz.

Les Paul was constantly making recommendations on how to improve guitars, says the CEO of Gibson.

Juszkiewicz, the chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitars, remembers getting calls from his company's partner (and famed client), offering recommendations on how to change or market his eponymous Gibson guitars.

Sometimes, Juszkiewicz recalls, the two would go out for Chinese food. Paul was very particular, desiring a dish called Chicken Subgum. The two would have to search Chinatown for a restaurant that knew how to cook it, he says with a chuckle.

Les Paul died Thursday of pneumonia. He was 94.

Juszkiewicz talked about his friend and colleague Thursday afternoon. The following is an edited version of the interview.

Watch how Les Paul helped invent modern music »

CNN:

Tell me about working with Les Paul.

Henry Juszkiewicz:

I've been with Gibson about 25 years and known Les pretty much through that entire period. … Les was a very kind person. He was a visionary.

In the early days, Gibson was doing very poorly as a company, and I got involved essentially to turn the company around. … We had many, many conversations about the guitar business and what to do. … A lot of the things we talked about and implemented were very successful.

CNN:

What was distinctive about the Gibson Les Paul when it came out, and what remains distinctive about it?

Gallery: Guitarists pay tribute to Les Paul »

Juszkiewicz:

When it first came out, it was extremely controversial, and it was not really successful. It took years for Gibson to actually come to terms with Les. He had been pitching the head of what was Gibson's parent company, CMI, for three or four years until they finally decided to give it a try — and only then when he became very famous and a television personality.

And they were right, actually, because a solid-body guitar was considered silly. … It really wasn't until 1965, '66 that the guitar took off and became popular. In fact, in the early '60s, the guitar was discontinued for several years. One of the [prized] Les Pauls was the 1959 Les Paul — that's sort of the holy grail of Les Pauls — and one of the reasons is there were only 300 units made in 1959. And 300 units was not really that successful for Gibson; it was a powerhouse guitar builder in 1959.

So Les was always ahead of his time. He was someone who could see what was going to happen 50 years in advance, and very often, he was able to bring his vision to reality and share it with the entire musical community. …

The [Les Paul] guitar shines in modern music. … In the '50s and before the '50s, the [standard] guitar was amplified, but it was just louder. In other words, it still sounded just like an acoustic guitar, but you could turn it up. What Les did was turn it into a whole new instrument. When he was playing … you will hear this rich context that's kind of normal today. …

CNN:

Les Paul being Les Paul, I assumed he continue to play with things over the years.

Juszkiewicz:

Yeah, he would call me all the time and give me suggestions. It's really hard to answer your original question, what makes it [distinctive]. … As a guitar player, when I pick it up, I know it's a Les Paul. I can feel the sustain. It's got a certain feeling. … There's a lot of things in it. But it's the package that's kind of magic. In the modern world, working with modern equipment, it's incomparable.

CNN:

How many Les Pauls do you sell nowadays?

Juszkiewicz:

A lot. Many, many thousands.

I'll share with you: We had a big debate when we first got involved in the business. When I was a young guitar player, Les Pauls were always very expensive … and they're very expensive today. [Paul] said, "You know, Henry, you really have to make a less expensive Les Paul." … We argued about it for a year and a half, and finally I gave in. I said, "OK, Les, it's your guitar." …

And it was an instant success. And all of a sudden, people that couldn't touch that magic got a shot at it, and he was pleased as punch, and we were as well.

He was a renaissance man. … What a life. And what a wonderful, warm gentleman.