These films happen to be in order chronologically by release date and by my preference.
District 9 was amazing. I have not seen anything so raw and original in a very long time. (Except perhaps Watchmen, but that is in a different league all on its own.) Written and Directed by Neill Blomkamp, who was on the Halo project until it found a brick wall, District 9 is about a large group of aliens that were forced to land on Earth over Johannesburg, South Africa, and they soon find themselves the victims of human/non-human racial abuse. The film carries many themes, the most prevalent being selfish desire vs. justice, as shown through Wikus's tentative partnership with the non-human Christopher. A few things in general that I really enjoyed about District 9 were the viral campaign leading up to the film's release, the originality of the story, and the cast of unknowns. I have yet to find the script, but I plan to read it when I do.
Halloween II, a sequel written and directed by its predecesor, Rob Zombie, was also awesome. There have been lots of re-imaginings of classic slasher films (the recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, Friday the 13th from February earlier this year, and A Nightmare on Elm Street soon forthcoming - starring Watchmen's Jackie Earle Haley, no less), but I think Rob Zombie's vision is the most notable. He has taken Michael Myers and made him very real. I believe that is the trend - giving our typically masked slashers a very real (if psychological) motive instead of mindlessly killing anything that fucks. The entire horror genre is in a process of reinvention, but then again it is the one genre that must change its face all the time. The original Halloween script by the immortal John Carpenter may be found here.
And then there is Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds. I know he is famous for his quirky scripts and visceral eptitudes, and I love Pulp Fiction as much as anybody else, but I was not crazy about the Basterds. Maybe it was way too talky, even for Tarantino, or maybe it was the spinning camera that made me sick, or perhaps even it was the inaccurate history - even though I went into the theater knowing that. But for me, the best part of the movie was watching Brad Pitt's rednecked Lt. Aldo "The Apache" Raine try to speak Italian or Hitler stepping out of his box to ask the guard for a piece of gum.
Films I am looking forward to: Whiteout (09/11), Sorority Row (09/11), Surrogates (09/25), The Road (10/16), Where the Wild Things Are (10/16).
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