9 = Ten

I have now seen all 10 Best Picture Oscar nominees.

I rented District 9 last night and HATED IT. What a stupid movie. It has a compelling premise: stranded aliens with a stalled spacecraft end up living in Johannesburg, South Africa, but that's just about the only good thing I can say about it.

Made to live in a slum called District 9, the aliens resemble giant shrimp, and are known, derogatorily, as prawns.

Of-course there are analogies to apartheid, but they're not particularly thought-provoking. The story is completely unbelievable and the movie can't quite decide what it is. It occasionally turns into a comedy that doesn't quite work, and then finally becomes a cliche buddy flick. And I haven't even mentioned all the violence and gore. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

So why is a movie that could only appeal to the most hard-core Sci-fi fan an Oscar nominee you ask? The way I understand it, the Academy decided to nominate more movies than usual in order to boost the TV ratings: if more people have a movie to root for, then more people will watch the show. So movies like District 9, Up, and A Serious Man got nominated, but there's no way they'll win.