District 9 won last weekend’s box office over G.I. Joe AND the Time Traveler’s Wife (who could imagine?)
I saw it this week, I went in with a lot of expectations and preconceived notions about what it would be like and what it was about. Aliens come to Earth not as invaders but as refugees, “Yawn” right? I mean we all saw Alien-Nation. I kind of expected a hodgepodge of sci-fi Alien films I’ve seen before; E.T. with a bit of Starship Troopers thrown in for good measure. All of those notions and expectations were blown away.

The movie centers around the refugee camp of Aliens in Johannesburg South Africa. The locals call the aliens Prawns because well they resemble prawns, but they are also seen as bottom feeders and treated as such. The camp after 20 some odd years is starting to be relocated away from the urban populace of Johannesburg to a “safer” and “more comfortable” location for the Aliens (read “away from humans”). Of course things get complicated from there, as a safe and orderly relocation would make one boring ass movie.

On the surface District -9 is about Aliens and spaceships and explosions. But when you dig deeper it’s really about humanity. It’s about how we have a nasty habit of treating other people as less than human, and if these people happen to not be human it would be even easier. I couldn’t help but think about a recent read of mine the book “What is the What?” by Dave Eggers about a Sudanese refugee (Valentino Achak Deng) and his trials and tribulations. He and his people are basically chased from their homes and forced to live in camps in another country, and eventually even chased from there to another camp. He’s a “Lost Boy”, he’s a lone boy with no family to speak of walking across the desert. Many people treat him and his fellow “Lost Boys” as the lowest of the low. Like many displaced people cross the world people might want to help them, just as long as they don’t have to deal with them. The similarities between the Aliens and human refugees all around the world is hardly accidental by any means, but I never expected it to be so powerful.

The acting is good, the effects are superb (as you may expect from any movie produced by Peter Jackson) and the story is magnificent. It flows back and forth between Docu-style story telling and traditional movie narrative. It may possibly be the best movie I’ve seen this year and I can’t recommend it more.

For more info see: http://www.d-9.com

In this new age of technology, some folks are chucking their digital cameras in favor of a retro device:  the Polaroid camera!  At least that’s what a group of people in the Netherlands is counting on.  According to a recent article in The New York Times, scientists are working on re-inventing Polaroid’s instant film with the hope that eager consumers will embrace the old analog technique.

I remember the Polaroid growing up and was always fascinated by its instant gratification.  Not even today’s digital cameras can produce a hard copy photo in a snap.  There’s something very satisfying about holding a picture in hand versus seeing the digital image on a screen.  Perhaps there is an awaiting niche market for this retro brand.   To read The New York Times article, here is the link.

Thank you, PC World. We here at Stillgoodnews.com love, love, love lists. And this is one to love. Top 11 Lamest Blogs in the world. Included in top honors - A Paris Hilton Fan Blog, the Pepsi Obsession blog, Kim Kardasian’s Personal Blog (what DOES she do again? I’m sorry, it’s so lame… I can’t even link to it) and this one below (opening a cupboard? sounds interesting to me…)

http://tech.msn.com/products/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=13523062

When I was little, kids used to think my hair was funny. It stuck out in a halo around my head. It wasn’t quite like rudy’s or quite like punky’s. It strangely resembled that of those cabbage patch kids with the moldable corkscrew hairdoes (OH, I’m going way back). I was neither here nor there. In short, I was a Zorse, and sometimes I just felt better mosey-ing around the pasture by myself:

Anyone?

According to AFP (Link Here) a group of 15 kangaroos escaped their home in a French amusement park.

“Vandals set loose 15 kangaroos from an Australian theme park in southern France, sparking a major search operation, with three marsupials still on the loose.”

“Vandals” sure….

These “Vandals” are obviously ninjas!! Who captured these three kangaroos, perhaps the teenaged ones who love pizza. Anyway they let loose the other 12 as a smoke screen. These three Kangaroos have been chosen by a secret ninja clan who read my previous article. I can only hope that these are good ninjas and not ones bent on world destruction.

(artist rendition of secret training)

The owner of the nature reserve Carole Masson (a possible ninja in disguise) says “They are not aggressive or nervous animals by nature,” she said. “They’re probably just grazing quietly away somewhere.” OR they are learning to hold a katana in their little hands or store throwing stars in their pouches which obviously is more likely.

Can the world withstand the earth shattering implications of a true Ninja Kangaroo let alone THREE? One can only pray.

Jon Stewart (via Fox News) informs us all of the good news: 30,000 Burmese pythons are on the prowl in Florida, heading for a plane near you – so according to Stewart, its great news for anyone that had “termination by snake” for the “how is the world going to end?” question.

This is completely unbelievable, in every sense. First, that it could happen, and second, that the boy is going to be okay.

Whilst playing during the Holi festival, a six-year-old Indian boy fell on a 6ft rod. Not quite sure how he fell, but the rod went straight through either side of his stomach, in the direction that would make it very difficult to walk through doorways.

Doctors on the scene gave him some necessary first aid (don’t know what that means, but it probably involved saying “oh S*&$” in Hindi a couple of times) and then he was transferred to the Rajendra Institute of Medical Science (soon to receive a lot more funding due to their new “We Perform Miracles” add campaign)

There, doctors spent four hours removing the rod, to quote the BBC article:

The doctors said he had lost a lot of blood and suffered liver and stomach injuries but “nothing major” [Read more →]

There was an actual study that measured the level of disgust one registered when tasting something bitter and when faced with the morally acerbic. They found that the 2 sitiations registered an equal amount of grossicity.
[Read more →]