Avatar

For the purposes of this review James Cameron will be referred to as: King Of The World (KOTW)

I have been accused in the past (mostly by Robbie and mostly about Beowulf) of making up my mind about a movie before even seeing it and then going just to confirm my preconceived notions, as if I do not give a movie a fair chance. I wanted to avoid that with Avatar, so I waited. I was not excited at all about this movie, but I did not want it to cloud my judgment, so I wanted to wait a few days and let the reviews trickle in. The reviews came out and just about everyone was raving! It was the greatest movie, ever. The effects are game changing, and the 3D technology was flawless. People were giving it 4 stars, or an A+ or a perfect 10. It really became the must see movie. It was a movie that was going to bridge the gap between mainstream and critical success. The 2009 version of The Dark Knight, or something similar. It lept into the top 150 of IMDB. It shot to the top of many top 10 lists. The KOTW himself declared no one could make a best of the decade list until they had seen Avatar. So, perhaps I was wrong. Critics and friends whose opinions matter to me were all saying it was the game changer it was made out to be. Roger Ebert has been gushing over it on Twitter since before it actually got released. So, with all of this in mind, I finally went and not only did I go see it, I went to The IMAX to watch it the way The KOTW intended me to watch it.

In a future where humans are called Sky People, Jake Sully(Sam Worthington) is a paraplegic former marine who is thrust into a new position because his identical twin had the job before him, but died and Jake's genes are the perfect match. His job is to lay down in a pod while his brain and body are connected to these wires and he can control a giant blue creature. These creatures are the indigenous people of the moon called Pandora. The Na'vi are a tribal people who in tune with nature and animals. In fact, their long ponytails can be synched up with the various plants and animals and memories and data can be exchanged and downloaded. The Na'vi take no pleasure in killing anything, but they are warriors. The Sky People are trying to get the Na'vi to move their home base because their home base happens to be on top of the largest supply of something called Unobtainium. The Greedy CEO's want the unobtainium for some purpose that I do not recall. Jake's job is to earn the trust of the people and then politely ask them to leave. However, Jake's military loyalties are used by a mean nasty, stereotypical Colonel (Steven Lang) and Sully starts providing the Colonel information on how to attack them. Due to these weird jellyfish energy things, Sully is not killed by the first Na'vi he meets. The Na'vi tribe decide that because he is a warrior, they will give him time to learn their ways and prove he can be one of them. The more he learns, the closer he gets, he falls in love, realizes he has made a collosel mistake and then tries to rectify that mistake.

The world of Pandora is an imaginative, gorgeously colored and designed planet. The Na'vi look very cool when not moving too much and all of the designs and colors of the animals and plants that reside on Pandora are nearly breathtaking. The attention to detail is exquisite and there is never a moment when you cannot look behind the main action and see something that could be cool. I love the big red orange, dinosaur/dragon thing and the weird dog looking things. The CGI is not cheap and it looks good. The film does not look as photoreal to me as it does to others, but I was not distracted by the entire world being rendered in CG. There is a really cool explosion, and a few cool slow motion moments when Sully is just getting adjusted to having legs again in his Na'vi avatar body. The KOTW obviously has a bright imagination and through a use of brand new CG and motion capture technology, he does an admirable job of creating this world and the first hour of the film goes to pain staking measures trying to immerse us in this world.

Here is the problem: I DID NOT CARE ONE BIT!! When the movie began and we were treated to trite, boring, laughable voice over dialogue, I knew this was going to be a big turkey of a movie. With lines that include a "We're not in Kansas" reference, and the most cliche, god awful dialogue I have heard in a long time, Avatar's good will from the effects gets used up quickly. Then, you have actors who are clearly not comfortable with the dialogue or the effects as all of the performances are awful and wooden, especially Zoe Salanda, as Sully love interest. Every time she delivered a line, I was trying not to cringe. The Colonel gets nothing but stereotypical war dialogue, like The KOTW watched every war movie and took out the most used dialogue and stuck it in this movie. Sigorney Weaver does not fare much better with a terrible performance and a creepy CGI face at the end, a la Patrick Stewart at the end of Wolverine. By the time we got to spend time on the planet, I was so tired of listening to the script that I just wanted a mute button.

Of course, the dialogue is not helped by a big helping of sucky story. Bad dialogue and a horrible story is the exact opposite of two scoops of awesome. It is two scoops of suck. Two giant scoops of suck, served to you by The KOTW himself as he tries to convince you it is amazing. See, it has to be amazing because it is a message film!! You are not allowed to hate a movie that teaches us to love the Earth and wants us to go green. We have to love this movie because it shows us that if Native Americans had giant dinosaur/dragon things, maybe the outcome would have been different! Wait, this is an allegory? You don't say. Oh, in case you are not sure, the movie goes to great lengths to make sure we understand The KOTW is condemning our entire sense of history while at the same time pontificating on some new agey philosophy. The KOTW is a philosophy 1 professor and we have all been forced to take a 3 hour seminar without any questions being able to be asked. We just have to shut up, listen and come out the other side wanting to SAVE THE TREES!! In fact, the trees house memories and if we pray to the tree goddess, she will repay us at the exact time we need it!

The KOTW is never one for being subtle, after all he did proclaim himself The KOTW, so it is no surprise we can see the beats of the story coming a mile away. Only 4 people have ever ridden the giant red orangey dinosaur/dragon thingy, hmmmm, what could that possibly mean? Sully has 30 days to achieve his mission, hmmmm at what point will he fall in love? And so goes Avatar. I am not saying every movie has to be twist heavy, but everything in this movie is so easy. Sully has a good heart, and the jellyfish can tell that, so he gets to stay alive. The chief and his wife quickly decide he can stay, even though they have never liked the Avatar program. These just scratch the surface of how EASY things go in this story.

Notice how all of this is about the movie itself. The movie is terrible because it is a bad movie. The story, dialogue and acting are all terrible. The action sequences are too blurry and unfocused and in 3D there is far too much going on to register anything truly awesome. But, the 3D is not why this movie is bad. The movie is bad because it is 160 minutes of trite dialogue, bad acting, a director with heavy handed douchiness and far too much downtime that could have been cut to make a tighter movie.

Now on to the 3D or tech side of things:

3D is a stupid-dumb way to watch a movie. If you like the gimmick, good for you but stay away from me with that noise. Horror movies can work in 3D because I like to watch jaws fly at me, but Avatar was going to be the cure for all of that nonsense. It was made specifically for 3D and The KOTW created tech to make it seamless. If by seamless he meant EXACTLY THE SAME, well he succeeded. My headaches, the blurry screen every time I tilted my head, the heavy glasses, the labored screen watching, the ghosting, the people with longer fingers and arms than a normal person should have, the blurry people when they moved fast and the slight color definition loss were all present and accounted for. It was as if this movie just followed the checklist from my experience watching every other 3D movie I have seen. I am sorry, but if you want 16 dollars from me, well 1. Don't have the movie be a disaster, and 2. do not give me a headache.

People want to compare this movie to watching Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings and I get it. Those two movies along with Jurassic Park changed the way effects are used in a movie. However, Star Wars has a kick ass story, a cool performance from Harrison Ford and amazing action sequences. Jurassic Park has solid writing, good performances, genuine thrills and a great story. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has these mind blowing effects on top of being a truly spectacular movie. Avatar just has the effects. If I am going to watch a movie just for effects, give me 2012, at least that movie has the good sense to know it is silly and it acts accordingly. Avatar tries so hard to be so serious about everything that it does not want to acknowledge that the story is just Fern Gully or The Last Samurai in 160 minutes instead of 85 minutes.

If Avatar is where movies are headed, I am packing it in. If big budget blockbusters start moving towards 3D and more theaters put in 3D, I am going to seriously hate it. It is a stupid gimmick that is being used just to get extra money from a crowd that does not know any better. I get that event films are meant for mass consumption and usually I like that. I love big ridiculous movies, but I have to draw the line at a movie not even managing to be entertaining for more than a few minutes in its entire bloated running time. I really want to know how people can actually think this is a great movie, even a good movie. Avatar is the kind of movie I wish I could never have to hear about anymore as it just angers me to know I wasted precious hours of life sitting through it, when I had a bad feeling from the beginning.

Final Grade: D

P.S. I was not alone in this, the theater was completely sold out and I would have expected a serious applause when it was over, but only like 5 people clapped and the other people in my group were not impressed either and they were excited for it.

A Decade's worth of movies # 6, 5 and 4

The show At the Movies was once a favorite show of mine. It is of course the show that started as Siskel and Ebert and then became Ebert and Roeper at the movies. When Disney wanted to mess with it and make it more about entertainment, they hired two douchebags and I stopped watching. Realizing their mistake Disney went back to what worked and hired two great film critics and took the show back to really reviewing movies. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and A.O. Scott of The New York Times are two of my favorites to read and they were my two favorite guest hosts with Ricard Roeper, so my excitement level for At the Movies went right back up. Starting this past week, the show is going to feature each man unveiling one movie a week in their top 10 of the decade.

A few months ago Robbie approached me with the idea of coming up with a best of the decade list and it kind of festered in my mind, but a few weeks ago I started to really think about it. I rewatched a bunch of movies and thought long and hard about it. Then I watched At the Movies this weekend and it clinched it for me: I needed a list. So, Saturday night I started a list. It started at 50 movies, then I got it down to 33. Monday the list got whittled down to 25 and finally yesterday afternoon I got the the list all the way down to my definitive top 10.

Before I unveil how this is going to work, I need to talk about how I decided on these 10 movies. It is a combination of things and different aspects are weighed differently. I wasn't sure if I should do just the ten best, or most replayable, or maybe 10 movies I felt defined this decade of film making. Should I look at them for what I felt at the time of their release, or movies that hold up over time? Eventually I came to the conclusion that it should be a bit of all of that. So my list will incorporate a lot of those aspects for different movies.

Alright, so the plan is this, for the next ten weeks I will release 1 movie on my list to coincide with At the Movies. I will also list each of those guys' pick and talk about for a brief second. This might turn out to be a colossal disaster and it is very time consuming considering I have like 4 people who actually read this, but I think I want it for me, so here we go!

Number 6

Michael Phillips: Zodiac- I hated, hated, hated this movie. It was incredibly disappointing and by the time it actually got intense, I was just so over it. I do not get the appeal of this movie at all, certainly not to put it in a "Best of" list. No way, no how. Icky!

A.O Scott: The Best of Youth- This is a mini series from British television, so how it made it on this list is beyond me, but I have never seen it and I was not really compelled to see it after listening to Scott discuss it. I guess "movie" is a loose term for the guy.

My Pick: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang- Shane Black wrote and directed this brilliantly hilarious movie that is about as META as a movie can be. When done well, I love 4th wall breaking and this movie has it in spades. It also features an incredible script, interesting story, great acting by Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer and just some really interesting narration techniques. I really can watch this movie over and over again and be perfectly content.

Number 5

Michael Phillips: Y Tu Mama Tambien- I really enjoyed this movie the first few times I watched it, but it does not hold up any longer for me. It is still well acted and the direction is phenomenal, but the story does not keep me engrossed anymore. It does not surprise me to see this movie on this list and I expect it would be on many lists like this. Alfonzo, the director will appear on my list in a little while, but for a different movie.

A.O Scott: Where the Wild Things Are- This came as a total surprise to me, but 2009 is turning out to be an incredible year for movies, so to find a movie from this year on this list is not shocking. Having listened to Scott review the movie, discuss the movie and having read this amazing article he wrote about it, I know how strongly he feels for it. This movie did make my initial list and even made it to the final 30, but eventually I decided that (500) Days of Summer was going to represent 2009 for me.

My Pick: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind- The narrative framing alone in this movie is worth it being considered on my list. When you add in the rest of the flawless screenplay, the terrific acting, the very steady directing and how visually gorgeous it all is, how can you not love it? The movie is about memories and love and questions if losing the pain is worth losing the good stuff as well. it takes a break up to the extreme and then messes with their heads and ours at the same time. I love it.

Number 4

Michael Phillips: Once- I still have yet to actually see this movie. I have no excuses for not seeing, I just haven't. I love the soundtrack and think I will probably love the movie, I just got bogged down by the hype of the film that year. I will be making a much stronger effort to see it now.

A.O Scott: The Pianist- This is definitely a Critics movie. I am not the biggest fan, but I get why people love it so much and Scott's passionate reasoning was nice to see. The movie really affected him and that is nice to see. Maybe I need to see it again now that I have some time away from it, so I might have to put it on the list.

My Pick: Memento- Chris Nolan had 3 movies in my top 15 this decade, and one of those is even higher on the list than this one. Nolan's story telling is wonderful and the way they shot it remains spectacular. Guy Pierce shows why he deserves to be a bigger actor than he is with a terrific performance that carries this unusually framed film. I think the the fact that the movie is backwards helps make this amazing, but the movie is just flat out good.

The Blind Side

There is nothing like a good inspirational sports story, in my mind. I love the tears that come with them and I even love most of the cliches that exist within them. Sports have always been my first love and to see movies that show the good parts of sports makes me happy. This particular story first came to me about 3 years ago when I was listening to Jim Rome every day. He interviewed a man named Michael Lewis who had written a book called The Blind Side. I was pretty taken by the story and read the book and loved it and was pretty excited to see a movie made about it. I was unsure of what to make of Sandra Bullock as the star and I did not like how dumb they made Michael look in the trailer, but I was still pretty excited for it. It took me a few weeks to get to the theater because my dad and I had plans to see it together, but I finally got to see it and I finally got the tears that came with it.

Michael Oher(Quinton Aaron), is more commonly known as Big Mike. He is a homeless huge black teenager who has just started at a private christian high school because the coach of the football team sees his size and thinks he would be perfect. However, Big Mike's grades are not good and it seems that no one really believes in him. He has two shirts, and to wash them he has to throw them in someone else's laundry when that person is not looking. He sleeps in the gym because it is warm and he has very limited reading skills.

Leigh Anne Tuohy(Bullock) is a strong willed, sharp tongued woman with a wonderful family, great house and seemingly perfect life. She is a good Christian woman and a card carrying member of the NRA. One night, fate brings these two people together. On the way home from Tuhoy's son's school play, her family crosses paths with Big Mike walking in the cold in just a shirt and shorts on his way to the school gym to sleep. Tuohy thinks about it for about 30 seconds and decides he is going to come with her family, at least for the night. One night turns into the Thanksgiving holiday and eventually into Michael getting his own room in their house.

Michael has a past that he never speaks of, but as we catch glimpses of it, we can see it is not good. As Michael has people who finally believe in him, he gets his grades up enough to play football, but he is too gentle. He does not understand the game until Tuohy figures out how to get through to him. It turns out he is an amazing left tackle, or "Blind Side" tackle. Sure enough, colleges start calling, but Michael does not have the grades for it, so Tuohy hires a tutor and well, we all know how these stories end.

I have a few problems with the movie, but the feeling the movie left me with, kind of negates all of those bad feelings. The movie is earnest in its desire to show how good people can be and how sometimes all people need is someone to believe in them. The movie is unabashed in how it drenches you with warmth and love and kindness and for that I applaud it. Granted the movie kind of paints too broad a stroke in terms of Michael's past and we barely get to see the problems in his life, and there is not a huge conflict, even the major conflict seems almost an afterthought. The movie is just flat out nice.

Sandra Bullock, an actress who operates in a range from pleasant to super annoying, is excellent in this dominant role. She is never too tender, which would go against the character, but she obviously has a great capacity for love and really wants to do the right thing. The rest of the family, played by Tim McGraw and two child actors all do a good job and the kid playing Michael does a well enough job, even though the character does not get nearly enough to do, if you ask me.

The football scenes are pretty fun to watch, you feel the hits pretty well, but the movie has a tendency to gloss over the football a bit. The story is a bit too much on the Bullock character, so it is hard to really feel for Michael because we are really watching the Bullock character's story in how she relates to Michael, not the other way around. The movie makes the mistake of making the young black man look hopeless without the white savior and the final voice-over kind of solidifies that point and that is unfortunate. I wanted just a bit more focus on Michael's struggle and his consequent triumph.

While it is far from a perfect movie, The Blind Side is a nice story brought to the screen for the perfect season. When Leigh Anne took in Michael she had no idea how it would turn out. She wondered if he would steal something and she had to endure questions about white guilt and her kids probably endured some hardship from their friends, but the family knew it was the right thing to do, and in return Michael Oher graduated from high school, got a college education and is in his rookie season in the NFL.

Final Grade: B-

P.S. The movie begins by showing the absolute worst NFL injury ever and it is just as gruesome now as it was when I first saw it. Poor Joe Theisman.

An apology of sorts

So, it has been a few weeks since I have posted anything and for that I apologize. I have a few reasons for it, but mostly, I just have not felt much like doing it. I am not seeing nearly as many movies as I would like due to the lack of money and in some way this blog is a reminder of all of the movies I am missing.

So, For the rest of this year, I am doing away with the television stuff and any lists, probably. I will review new movies I see, catch up with the best of the decade, continue with the best of the decade and then do the end of the year thing, even if it will feel incomplete because I am missing some movies.

After this year, I will probably scale all the way back to just doing new reviews and occasionally doing lists or random things as the mood suits. Or I may just stop altogether. I am just not sure yet.

Thanks for reading!