Out of This World

If aliens arrived tomorrow, would they be malevolent foes bent on conquest or enlightened beings offering wisdom and peace? What if they were simply refugees, sick, tired and powerless? That's the concept behind Neill Blomkamp's brilliant District 9, showing tonight as part of the University of Colorado’s International Film Series' Aliens Attack program.

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More About

• District 9
• University of Colorado at Boulder
• Neill Blomkamp
• Science Fiction
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

The South African director's debut feature is at once a powerful allegory for Apartheid, a character-driven drama and a rip-roaring, action-packed science-fiction epic. He pulls off this trifecta of awesome without resorting to heavy exposition or falling into cliché. Throughout the movie, there are no clear-cut heroes, although it does offer more than a few real villains. The characters display realistic depth and motivation, and the aliens look and act believably weird. The dialogue is well-written and rings true. All that, and there's a gun that makes people explode — what else can you ask for from a science-fiction movie? It's an instant classic that needs to be seen by every fan of the genre.

See it tonight only at 8 p.m. in Muenzinger Auditorium, on the CU-Boulder campus. Tickets are $6, $5 for UCB students. For more information, visit www.internationalfilmseries.com or call 303-492-1531.
Wed., Feb. 10, 8 p.m., 2010