My lousy photo-shop skills aside, you know you would totally see this movie if they made it. The thing pretty much writes itself. Just skip any plot nonsense and have 2 hours of fighting. There. I just wrote the script. Make it happen, Hollywood!
Beer is good.
I just wanted to share this video. I love this commercial. It’s for Alexander Kieth’s and shows us that beer brings people together and is a wonderful part of our daily lives and nothing bad could ever possibly happen from alcohol consumption. The day alcohol becomes illegal and we no longer get inspirational beer ads is the day I leave the damn country.
Movie Review: Avatar (2009)
Spoilers herein.
I think what makes Avatar such an enjoyable movie is that it feels like an amalgamation of the big movies we already know and love. It’s like someone put Aliens, Titanic, Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and countless other things in a blender and it came out all multi-coloured and shiny. Its influences seem to be vast. You could argue endlessly about the film’s allegory: war in Iraq? War in Viet Nam? The story of Pocahontas? A rip off of Dances With Wolves? Take your pick, either way, the argument’s valid. Surely any hippy liberal college students who went to see this movie totally blitzed out of their minds will find the message of the movie to be really deep and really important.
My only gripe would be that despite being called Avatar, there’s very little attention given to explaining the actual Avatar technology. I had a lot of questions. There’s no real major existential problems suffered by our main character. When Jake is doing his video log he comments, “It feels like everything’s backwards. Like in there is the real world and out here is the dream.” Is this because he’s questioning his boundaries of reality or because he’s more content to live as a Na’vi? If he’s 100% physically and mentally active while in the Avatar and while awake as a human, is he actually getting any sleep? Wouldn’t he start to suffer from exhaustion? How much of a dream is this dream world anyway? If you die in the Avatar form do you die in real life? You know, like The Matrix? After wondering this for a while my question was answered near the end when the tall nerdy Jewish guy whose name I can’t be bothered to learn even though he’s in a lot of movies gets killed while in the Avatar. He lives. Good for him. I suppose at the end of the day these are just silly nitpicks and besides the point of the movie. You could argue the logic of time travel in The Terminator but you would be wasting your time because that’s not the damn point of the movie.
But I’m wondering what Avatar‘s over all point is. Spoiler alert: Jake decides to stay on Pandora as a Na’vi at the end and all of the “evil humans” are banished and sent home to their “dying planet.” That’s all well and good for the Na’vis but kind of a bummer for the entire human race, isn’t it? So is the message: humans are evil, be a Na’vi instead? That’s discouraging. Clearly not all humans in the movie were bad guys. Some stayed on Pandora in the end but it seemed like their choice was to Na’vi-up or go home. All of this confuses and slightly irritates me so let’s just say that the movie is a call to change and we’ll leave it at that.
My favourite character from Avatar would have to be Colonel Miles Quaritch. The guy is such a badass that it takes him a good 30 seconds to acknowledge that his arm is on fire. The guy’s real handy with the giant exo-suit, too. He’s a great antagonist and I really wish there was more of his character in the final product. My next favourite character has to be Dr. Grace Augustine, played wonderfully by Sigourney Weaver. I think that Weaver has earned her place among actors who can do no wrong whatsoever, and is an absolute joy to watch on screen no matter what she’s in. Her death scene in Avatar was more tragic than the deaths of Dumbledore, Aslan, and Optimus Prime combined. Sam Worthington is good enough as our hero, Jake, but he seems to really shine in the Pandora scenes alongside Zoe Saldana as Neytiri. Needless to say, the motion-capture acting is beyond impressive and one of the highlights of Avatar.
Oh yeah, and it’s in 3D. The 3D is really cool and it was a relief to find that it wasn’t pandering to the technology at all: it never stops the flow of the movie to show off some stupid effect and have us all oohing and aawwing and trying to grab something in front of us. Basically, it’s still great and all without the 3D. But I would definitely recommend seeing it in 3D if you can. At some point you just got to stop thinking about allegories and messages, and just put the 3D glasses on and enjoy the ride. This will surely be the turning point in home theatre technology because a lot of people will want to experience it in Blu-ray and finally break down and make the switch. I can’t wait to see how it looks on Blu-ray.
It’s a great-looking movie, it’s a spectacular experience, all colourful, pretty and blue. But yes, it could have used a little work in the story department. And the half-assed allegory doesn’t seem to help, either. But maybe we’re all getting that allegory stuff completely wrong. Maybe all that war and environmental stuff is completely inconsequential and Avatar is truly a comment on our own escapism. Some people live out their lives behind an Avatar, whether it’s a wizard or something on World of Warcraft or simply a chat handle. It’s you, It’s your traits, your personality, but it’s not really real. And maybe some people like it better than their regular old boring lives where there world is a cruel and evil place, feeling more sheltered and accepted that way. I’ve heard stories of people walking out of Avatar depressed because they were no longer in the amazing world of Pandora for those 3 hours and they had to get back to real life, so maybe this theory has some leverage. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, or maybe we’d all like to keep those 3D glasses on a little longer than we’d like to admit.
One more pointless thought to end this stream of pointless thoughts:I’ve noticed that Avatar is rated PG-13, yet there are quite a few scenes which show Sigourney Weaver’s character smoking. I thought it was an MPAA rule that if there’s smoking in a movie, it’s rated R. No exceptions. What’s up with that? Always leave a review on a strong note, kids.
Blu-ray cover art sucks.
What happened to the good old days of movie posters? When the advertisements themselves were works of art, had some effort put into them, and promised that a certain movie would be epic and awesome?
The digital age with DVD kicked in and suddenly the cover art started looking very awful. Giant heads floating around. Terrible photo-shopping. Perfectly good movie poster art started getting replaced with really crappily edited cover art.
It’s not getting any better with Blu-ray. I have no idea what’s going in some of the designers’ minds. Some are either terribly minimalist or have so much ridiculous, nonsensical photo-shopped shit flying around the small area of cover space that just looking upon it induces headaches and/or vomiting.
Take a look at a few examples of cover art for upcoming Blu-ray releases and you’ll see what I mean:
You can tell that they’re putting absolutely no effort whatsoever into the cover art. Which begs the question, why not just use the original poster art? They recycle all the special features most of the time, so why not that? We’re paying big bucks for titles that we probably already have on VHS and DVD, and God knows what other formats, so we should at least have some aesthetically pleasing art to look at in our collection, not some lazily photo-shopped garbage that was probably done by some visual design student for free instead of a professional artist.
Addams Family Broadway Musical? Really??
Dear readers, let me briefly present to you a brief history of The Addams Family:
First of course, there was the original TV show, starring John Astin. A television classic, and notable for being the first TV show to feature a married couple with an obvious sex life.
Then there was a cartoon at some point. And probably some straight to video junk, too. Who can really remember these things?
Then there were two pretty good movies in the 90’s. Raul Julia, Angelica Houston, Christopher Lloyd, a young Christina Ricci. Good stuff.
Then we got another TV show. It was produced by Haim Saban, who brought us the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. It….wasn’t too good.
Now, in the grand tradition of Mel Brooks films like The Producers and Young Frankenstein, and the John Waters cult favourite Hairspray, the Addams Family has moved to Broadway, in a show with a musical twist, starring Nathan Lane. Really? Like, REALLY?? What good could possibly come from Pugsly and Wednesday belting out a musical number? And look at that picture, Pugsly’s way too damn thin.
I saw number from the show performed on Letterman tonight and Nathan Lane seems to be sporting a strange accent, perhaps an homage to Raul Julia, who, for all we know, couldn’t help it.
The one thing that could be good about this is Bebe Neuwirth (who played Lilith on “Cheers”) in the role of Morticia. Man, she may be in her 50’s, but she’s looking pretty hot. I think that pale look is good on her.
One indisputable thing about all incarnations of The Addams Family is that Morticia is hot. What is it about her? The creamy skin, the velvet black hair, that sultry, sexy voice, the tight, low-cut dress…you could even say that she is the original MILF. You can bet that not a lot of kids growing up in the 50’s wanted to plow June Cleaver. At least, I hope not.
But anyway, I digress. I really hate these Broadway adaptions of pre-existing creations. Nothing against the talent of the cast, or anybody involved, but why the hell would you want to pay 350 dollars for tickets (if you’re lucky) to see something that you could see for free at 4Am on Nick At Night, or rent/buy for cheap on DVD. And at least then you don’t have to sit through the intrusive musical numbers that shouldn’t even be there in the first place.
I wish the best of luck to the show, I know Broadway is big money, and I’m sure it’ll win 80 Tony Awards and we’ll eventually get the inevitable mediocre film adaption…but I think it’s all so, so stupid.
A Nightmare On Elm Street Series Review
Above is my review for all of the Nightmare On Elm Street films…it’s kind of long, it’s about 40 minutes long split into 5 parts. It’s you’re a fan of the Freddy movies or you just have a lot of time to kill, then definitely check it out.
If you don’t have the time, then for your consideration I have provided the JIST OF IT below:
A Nightmare On Elm Street: A great horror movie. Wes Craven’s masterpiece.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge: A turd. Not really worth seeing if you’re not a big fan. Skip it.
AÂ Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: Really entertaining. A Perfect sequel.
A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master: The plot is a little odd and complicated, but it’s still good fun. Worth checking out.
A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child: Even more complicated of a plot but this time not as entertaining. A big “meh” over all.
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare: More of a comedy than a horror, also kind of “meh” but it is admittedly entertaining.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare: A great horror film, in worthy company with the original 1984 film.
Freddy Vs. Jason: Stupid, but really, really fun. Enjoy it for what it is.
Hi, this is Derek. 