so. much. cocaine.

30th anniversary of a legendary performance. You’refuckingwelcome.

Today, Sony Pictures announced that it had acquired all North American and all English-language distribution rights to Peter Jackson’s “secret” sci-fi movie, District 9. The Academy Award winning director and friend to elves, hobbits and any and all demi-humans everywhere, however, will not direct the feature. He will, instead, act as producer through his WingNut Films and Neill Blomkamp will direct. It’s Blomkamp’s feature debut, and he also wrote the film alongside Terri Tatchell. Blomkamp’s previous work includes short films for the Halo 3 launch, titled Landfall, and he’s also been attached to the forthcoming Halo film, which is now in pre-production.

Sony Pictures, understandably, is stoked.

“We have seen some of Neil’s enormously creative work launching Halo 3 and he is a true talent who understands how to use visual effects in full service of the story. With Peter Jackson and his team at WETA workshop working with Neil, we believe District 9 can be a true event tentpole on our release slate,” said Amy Pascal, Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment

Should you be stoked? I guess. It’s a little tough to get too worked up about a movie you don’t know anything about, but I’d probably watch someone take a dump if Peter Jackson’s name was attached to it. The film begins shooting in South Africa in Spring 2008, and those involved are being pretty tight-lipped about the plot. Expect to read a lot of half-truths and rumors to flooding a nerd-centric message board near you.

2007 isn’t even over yet, but it would be pretty damn hard for anybody else to create a science-fiction as immersible as what I am about to share with you! But first, I’m going to rant the apparent differences between Commercial and Independent media. (skip the next paragraph if you don’t care).

Traditional television and it’s disruptive, incoherent nature have been miserably failing to the likes of ‘user generated’ video media. It would be my (presumptuous?) assumption that people are simply tired of reality television shows, sitcom’s repetitive story-lines and sugar-coated premises with no present-day relevance; besides the fear factor. Nothing too surprising, the commercialism that fuels it’s creation has diluted it’s quality. While in the inter-world, YouTube offers user-generated content that cannot be persuaded by profit.

‘Afterworld.tv,’ is a prime example of this tantalizingness we know and love as ‘Independent Media.’ It is an on-going Cross-Platform Science-Fiction Internet Series that took off with a quiet bang early 2007. Took me 8 months to stumble-upon this Sci-Fi series, but only 3 hours, 30 cups of Maté and a lot of ‘wow’ factor to zip through all 53 episodes (and rising). Every second I was on the edge of my seat, intensely involved and interested in it’s mind-blowing take on the end of the world. If you are like me, and delve into the end-of-the-world type sci-fi, this is right up your dark alley!

Each episode of Afterworld is 3-5 minutes long. Each one a tastefully and masterfully digitally animated wonder manufactured to leave you hanging from a 1000 foot cliff; every damn time. The creators release a new episode daily, Monday through Friday, with a recap video every Saturday.

A little background on ‘Afterworld:’ Afterworld is a premise based on the life of a man named Russel Shoemaker from Seattle. Russ takes a business trip to New York, one that is supposed to change his family’s financial life forever. Radical change was in his future, but not the way he expected. Upon waking up in his 4 star hotel room and making a trip to the lobby, he was shocked when there was nobody around. It didn’t take this frightened city-slicker long to figure out an unknown and very mysterious event had occurred which resulted in the disappearance of 99% of the population, and the extinction of technology and electricity. At first Russ is scared and lost, without a plan. But as time goes on, he finds other ’survivors’ and learns more about his own humanity. His decision to make a 3000 mile voyage back Seattle to reunite with his family comes quickly; and this ill-planned voyage becomes a discovery of the truth, accompanied by a plethora of clues that obscurely outline the cause of ‘The Fall.’

Watch the very first episode below, you’ll be hooked like a heroine addict. (minus the track marks) fish. (that was bad)

Remember, new episode shorts are released Monday-Friday! (I just watched episode 54, can’t wait for 55!!!!)