The last movie you saw

[sliver]

Cross-posting because I wouldn't want Geebs and the fanclub to miss my review in the Avatar thread

Avatar: 8/10

James Cameron’s long-awaited Avatar, sold for months as a cinematic “game-changer,” is finally here, and both the best and the worst thing that can be said for the visionary director’s decade-long pet project is that it is exactly what it looks like.

On the one hand, it is a leap forward in action film-making from one of today’s foremost auteurs, marrying real-life acting with breathtaking computer-generated imagery on a scale never achieved before. On the other hand, Avatar is a disagreeably by-the-numbers morality tale about capitalism and colonialism which predictably pits bloodthirsty, profit-hungry marines against a native population of noble earth worshipers.

We are introduced to the world of Pandora through Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a disabled former marine given the opportunity to earn himself a new, working pair of legs by infiltrating the society of the indigenous Na’vi culture.

Pandora’s most valuable mineral resource—named “unobtainium” in a vexingly cutesy moment that must have seemed to Cameron as though it would get lost in the minutiae of his world-building—is concentrated right beneath the temple-like Hometree of the local Na’vi tribe, and human business-types want it.

Running the corporate operation is administrator Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), a brash entrepreneur with no belief in the existence of setbacks. And heading security—perhaps contributing to Selfridge’s myopia—is the bigoted and abrasive Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), essentially Cruella de Vil in army fatigues.

With bulldozers en route to the Na’vi Hometree through the dense Pandoran jungle, Jake and his research team have a matter of weeks to gain the trust of the Na’vi and convince them to relocate from their traditional territories to avoid all-out war.

However, Jake’s time spent with the Na’vi causes an inexorable acculturation, for which Avatar was lampooned on a South Park episode as “Dances with Smurfs.” Ultimately, “Dances with Pocahontas in FernGully” would be more apropos, but the underlying issue is that, having been marketed as a wildly original story, Avatar is in fact anything but.

Even overlooking the question of originality, Avatar’s slavish adherence to convention nearly eclipses the natural beauty of Pandora’s landscapes and wildlife.

The Na’vi are a gentle, spiritual and communal people with profound respect for nature—bien sûr. Set against them are the tyrannical military caricature and the icon of heartless corporate greed, two broad-stroke clichés neither relatable nor understandable as human characters, despite traces of plausibility. When Jake is lost in the woods, of course he meets a beautiful Na’vi—the daughter of her tribe’s chieftain, no less—who ultimately falls deeply in love with him. Of course he will love her back, change his allegiance, and help to lead the Na’vi against human colonization. Of course it will climax with awesomely violent warfare.

Aggravating this numbing predictability is the disappointing familiarity of Pandora. The inhabitants are bipedal humanoids, with the generic African tribe as their terrestrial analogue. Sure, the forest is sprinkled liberally with bio-luminescence, but the flowers are just deep-sea tube worms and the fauna—including hammerhead-rhinoceroses and parrot-pterodactyls—are symmetrical reconfigurations of earth animals.

However—and this is a big however—Avatar’s saving grace is the sheer audacity of its vision and execution. Even when we know exactly where he’s going, which is most of the time in Avatar, Cameron makes the journey enjoyable.

For example, there is a classic stock scene—as recycled in King Kong, Star Wars, and this year’s Star Trek—in which the hero is attacked by a monster which is then devoured by an even more fearsome monster, and so on. Cameron gives it to us once more in Avatar, but with such breathless energy that it almost feels new again.

The film is full of moments of sheer awe, from Jake’s discovering the wildlife of Pandora to his first experience of flight, from the ceremonies of the Na’vi to the beautifully shot chaos of total war. And make no mistake, there is enough action here to satisfy the fans Cameron earned with Terminator, Aliens, and True Lies.

If anything, Avatar’s real weakness is that it does the representation of native peoples a disservice (as did The Last Samurai, among others) by depicting indigenous populations as reliant on external salvation when they conflict with “civilization.” And by assigning worth to the Na’vi partly on the basis of their functioning biological Wi-Fi network, Avatar begs uncomfortable questions about the status of their real-world analogues, whose spirituality does not manifest in breathtakingly visible ways.

But most importantly, despite impossible hype, Avatar succeeds on the fundamental level of transporting us to a different world. The message is an important one: might does not make right. The medium is an effective one: lush 3-D as you have never seen it before. Like Jurassic Park on steroids, Avatar is a rollicking good time.

[axbaby]

District 9 .. score 8/10
Really cool movie shot not far from where i live.. Digital effects are amazing .. very funny and accurate bits if your were familiar with the different cultures in the movie.
Not a political story but replace the Aliens with the slum living South African and there would be little difference.
One of the most original movies i have ever seen .. i am not sure how the world would rate this movie "probably low" but i must honestly say for the cool factor, originality,great sounds and special effect i gave this one an 8.

Loved the Railgun and the Mech
headshots

[sliver]

^ I just got a 56" TV and Star Trek on blu-ray blew me away. I loved District 9 in theatres, it's an ASAP blu-ray pick-up (along with LOTR, Matrix, Watchmen, ...)

[Ryoki]

rly? i thought the book was a bit mediocre

[menkent]

ok, sliver just called James "King of SFX Mega-budget Wankfests" Cameron an auteur. Yeah. Him, Michael Bay, and Werner Herzog.
Welcome to the foe list. Say hi to plained and piddla for me in your next moronic review.

[Hannibal]

mancunt no likey da Herzog?!?!?

[EtUL]

rly? i thought the book was a bit mediocre

It could be like fight club, I always thought the movie was better than the book.

[menkent]

mancunt no likey da Herzog?!?!?

sarcasm
there will be no moment in film greater than the end of Aguirre when Kinski picks up the little monkey, stares at it (as if to say "this is all your fault, monkey!"), and chucks it into the river. classic.

[Hannibal]

That's a relief. You're back on my cool list.

[o'dium]

Family Guy Star Wars Episode V.

Its not exactly a film, but its an hour long special, and...

Well, I haven't laughed that hard since I was a little girl. That was some gold right there...

[GONNAFISTYA]

Avatar = 7.5/10 - Entertaining, visually stunning, doesn't feel long and the acting was slightly more than passable.

Don't believe the hype: this movie will not be the end all be all of film.

[Whiskey 7]

District 9 .. score 8/10
Really cool movie shot not far from where i live.. Digital effects are amazing .. very funny and accurate bits if your were familiar with the different cultures in the movie.
Not a political story but replace the Aliens with the slum living South African and there would be little difference.
One of the most original movies i have ever seen .. i am not sure how the world would rate this movie "probably low" but i must honestly say for the cool factor, originality,great sounds and special effect i gave this one an 8.

Loved the Railgun and the Mech
headshots

Hey Ax. Thanks for the comments as I was wondering about it.............

I've yet to view this one (got it on a usb stick somewhere) but you critique

[Don Carlos]

Home Alone 1 - 8/10

Home Alone 2 - 8/10

Fuck you - my childhood just caught up with me

[o'dium]

I think I still have my TalkBoy from when Home Alone 2 released in the attack... That was some good shit back then. You could make it go fast, or slow and... That was about it.

Ok it sucked. But it made it all the more fun dropping things on my Dads head from 20 foot up and then recording the resulting "yaaoowwww?".

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

whatever Gavin

[Whiskey 7]

The Time Traveler's Wife

Wiki Clicky

Sherlock Holmes

Wiki Clicky

Had 4 movie vouchers to spend, made a day of it at the cinema both movies back to back and worth your time, equal @ 8/10

[werldhed]

Sherlock Holmes - 7.5/10

The plot is pretty slow at first, and Ritchie tries to make up for it with gratuitous action, but it's still good fun. There was a bit too much CSI-style cinematography in the way the clues are revealed, too...
R. Downey Jr. is fabulous, as usual. In terms of his physical appearance, I had a hard time picturing him as the tall, scrappy, Holmes, but he nailed a lot of the mannerisms.

I've read a few mixed reviews about the movie, mostly from people complaining that there's too much violence, debauchery, and cheek. Those reviewers have clearly never read any Holmes stories. I even read a review that complained that Downey Jr's character was obviously drunk/high at times. Newsflash: the literary Holmes was a cocaine user. Reviewer fail.
The movie plot seemed pulled straight from a Doyle book -- even the slow first half is classic Sherlock. The dialogue was funnier and goofier than the books, but it was a Guy Ritchie film. What do you expect?

Recommended as a generally fun film.

[MKJ]

my interest in Holmes grows by the day.
I plan to see it posthaste

[Nightshade]

Inglourious Basterds - 3/10 More proof that Quentin Tarantino is an over-rated hack and one of the worst directors of all time. If you think he's awesome and avant-garde, you're wrong. The only thing that saved this from being shit/10 was the brilliant job done by the actor that played Colonel Landa. Even Brad Pitt was horrid, and that's assuming he was going for over-the-top with the role. Crap, utter crap.

The Hangover - 5/10 Moderately funny, nothing special. I did like the fucking weirdo Alan, though. He was sooooo awkward and dumb it was hard not to enjoy the character.

[plained]

i inished the blu ray jack black movie

year one

very funny!

[seremtan]

Shitates of the Shittabean: At Shit's End - 0/10 - just fuck off an die

Memento - 7/10 - imagine watching this movie stoned

[plained]

Shitates of the Shittabean: At Shit's End - 0/10 - just fuck off an die

how the heck could u sit all the way threw that piece o poo!

i seen the length and then i scaned it and seen that snakeface idiot for what looked like 90% of the films frames and just laughed!

u slow?

[MKJ]

Memento - 7/10 - imagine watching this movie stoned

or in reverse

[menkent]

500 Days of Summer: i liked it in the same way that I liked Eternal Sunshine. if you have no tolerance for kinda emo movies and/or don't like Zooey Deschanel, i would suggest skipping it.

[phantasmagoria]

I think I still have my TalkBoy from when Home Alone 2 released in the attack... That was some good shit back then. You could make it go fast, or slow and... That was about it.

Ok it sucked. But it made it all the more fun dropping things on my Dads head from 20 foot up and then recording the resulting "yaaoowwww?".

do you mean attic?