Another Famous Person Has Died

Apparently Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcette, Billy Mays, and Ed McMahon weren't the only celebrities to die recently. Check it out.

A Sad Day has Occurred.

Danny Gokey has been voted off American Idol. I am continually amazed at the public's ineptitude to at all judge good singing. As I mentioned in my last post on this subject, Allison Iraheta was voted off last week. Allison, Danny, and Adam Lambert are all clearly superior vocalists to Kris Allen, but somehow he managed to make it to the finale with Adam. Allison is a powerhouse, rocker singer, who can really belt it out and sound great. Danny can sing great in a soft voice, in loud voice, in falsetto, and he has excellent control of tone in whatever range or volume he has to sing in. Adam, can hit some of the highest notes I have ever heard anyone hit, and he's perfectly on key. None of this did Kris have. Kris is a competent vocalist who is almost always on key, but there ends his singing ability. All three of the aformentioned are also much more talented than him. I guess I can't blame America, because loyalties easily suprecede objectivity. However, there's one thing lurking in the darkness that no one probably wants to talk about. It's that element that has most likely gotten Kris this far when he probably shouldn't have even been in the top ten. Neither Danny nor Allison have it. That's right, it's girl appeal. Kris is the young, "cute" guy of the bunch, and perhaps for no other reason than that, he has advanced to the finale.

In any case, Danny will be missed. I hope he goes on to have a great career and prove America wrong in voting him off. He was just so on, on everthing he sang (except, of course, that one note last week he sang wrong). He was so balanced. Any range or volume he had to attack, he did it with great control. The one thing I like about him more than Adam is that he didn't scream out every song, but had the reserve and control to be quiet and tender sometimes. Here's to you Danny, an awesome vocalist and one of the best at that!

Enter District 9

Once upon a time, a once unknown Neill Blomkamp, was contacted by a very well known Peter Jackson. Pete wanted Neill to work on a little film based on a very well known video game franchise. It 's a franchise involving missile launchers, Warthogs, space rings, and exoskeleton battle armor. You guessed it, its Halo. Then, Pete got ambitious and decided to have both Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox back the project. Unfortunately for him, the studios didn't want to play nice and share profits with Microsoft(because Microsoft owns the rights). As a result, the studios decided to back out of the project. Besides, they didn't trust Niell, the new guy on the block. And everyone lived happily ever after...

Wait, what? We all know that can't be the end of the story, after all, the protagonist didn't get to direct his movie. Indeed it is not the end.

Niell Blomkamp was a short film and advertisement director before Jackson contacted him. One of the short films he directed was called Alive in Joburg. When the Halo movie fell through the cracks, Jackson decided to give Niell a whack at making Alive into a feature length picture.

Enter District 9.

District 9, or D9, which is the feature length extension of Alive, is about an excluded demographic in South Africa which is confined to a certain area in Johannesburg called district 9. The catch is, the demographic is not human. Detailing an alternate present day, D9 chronicles humanity's attempt to coexist with space aliens who have come to earth seeking energy and refuge. The above picture is of one of the main characters who has been infected with alien bio-technology, hence his eye. (image retrieved from Slashfilm.com)

This is looking as though it's going to make a very interesting movie. Besides the concept being intriguing, Neill has a very visceral and edgy style of directing. As further example of this, one of his other short films is Tetra Vaal, which is a fictional promo video for a sort-of robocop for third-world countries. Additionally, some of his advertisement efforts include: two Citroen ad's featuring a transformer of the car dancing and ice skating, two Nike ads called Evolution and Crab, and a Gatorade Rain commercial.

I am certainly looking forward to this film, as this style has not really been explored in a big-budget sense. Simply put, this is a film to look out for.

For more information about the film, and to see it's official trailer, go to www.d-9.com