Havasimy

I saw Avatar recently. I saw it on IMAX 3D, but got there late and ended up sitting in the front row. I do ot advise this. Since the glasses you have to wear do limit your range of sight to a small degree, sitting in the front row means having to move your head to see the entire action on the screen.

On to the review. This is a movie worth seeing. It is a amazing movie on a visual level. At no time did the compuer-generated world and images seem like cartoons. In fact, I kept forgetting that the blue creatures that inhabit the world were computer generated and not actors in makeup. Much has been made of the budget of this movie, but alot of it was spent creating new technology. Technology that can be used in future movies without the price tag of inventing it. Much the way technology had to be created when Star Wars was filmed, the same is true here. Even if the movie never makes a profit, it will be judged a success based also on how this technology is used in the future.

Despite this movie being known for it's visual effects, it does have a plot. James Cameron has never been one to leave out the plot in his sci-fi. In Avatar, the plot might not be completely original, but it's done well. The plot is basically the same as any politically correct movie about Europeans settling America. Think Disney's Pocahantas in space. The earthlings have big spaceships that requires an element that can be found in abundance on a planet. The planet has a race of people that are in tune with the planet and nature. Their god is a tree and they can attach them selves to horse-like animals via plugs in their long hair. The earthlings have scientists that want to be peaceful with the inhabitants of the planets, but mainly they have soldiers whose sole purpose is to fight and destroy. Leading the soldiers is a executive at the energy company who is only concerned with profits. A soldier is assigned to the scientists, gets exposed to the inhabitants' culture, falls in love with them and,.. well, if you can't figure out what happens next, then you'll probably enjoy the movie even more.

But the big thing is, there is a plot. It makes sense with relatively few holes for a movie that is two hours and forty minutes long. And for a movie that long, it doesn't seem like it is that long.

And some people might be turned off from seeing a movie where the buzz is about the budget and the visual effects, but at least it was a risk taken. It's a high budget movie that is not a sequel, a remake or an adaptation of a popular book series. I saw the trailer to the Karate Kid remake recently. Everytime a movie that takes risks fails, it makes the studios less likely to take a chance in the future and more likely to go with something like the new Karate Kid. If you haven't seen the new Karate Kid trailer, find it online and ask yourself if a lack of originality and risk taking could be the problem with movies today and not big budgets.

Ignoring that motivation to see the movie and judging just on the basis of the movie itself, I give it a rating of "Worth paying full price" with an additional rating of "worth paying extra to see it in IMAX".

Labels: Avatar, movies, review

1. Besides watching a lot of tv shows and movies, I also subscribe to at least 10 magazines, ranging from sports, pop culture, entertainment, and hard news. They are weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly. I'm also a daily subscriber to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I subscribe to the premium pay-to-use section of the PG's website and espn.com. Yes, I am a information junkie, a pop culture junkie.
   
   One of the reason I subscribe to some of the monthly magazines, like GQ, is that they often are only around $12 for a year subscription. So even if I don't read every issue, a year subscription is still cheaper than four issues on the newstand.
   
   
2. A number of magazines put out a sexiest women list. This was a good year for those. None of the usual suspects like Megan Fox and Scarlett Johansson were at the top of the list. Now I'm not saying that those girls aren't attractive. I'm just saying they're overrated. They belong on the sexiest lists, but not at or near the top. The media, both the mainstream entertainment press as well as the online bloggers, gets started on the hype on an attractive actress. The media puts out attractive pictures of the actress and the bloggers republish them over and over. The actress and/or the studios making their tv show or movie make sure there are no shortage of those pics and that they are top quality maxim-esque shots. The gossip rags help by putting them on the cover any time they can find an excuse.
   
   Well this year, Maxim chose Olivia Wilde, who not only has the looks to get her the title, but also isn't part of the hollywood celebrity hype machine. She's known mostly for being a supporting character on a medical drama (House) and for one season as a supporting character on a nighttime soap (The O.C.). She's in the upcoming Tron movie, so maybe she'll start getting the Megan Fox level hype. On the other hand, Esquire magazine chose Kate Beckinsale. Another excellent choice that is not only not a 20-something, but is actually older than I am. She can play the girlfriend-type (I watch Serendipity way more than is healthy because of Kate's smile) and the sexy action type (any of the Underworld movies).
   
   Lets hope the magazines keep choosing less obvious choices for their sexiest lists. Of course, I'm probably just saying that cause my personal list, if I had one, would differ alot from the magazine list.
   
   
3. One of my favorite sections of any magazines is the "What I've learned" in Esquire. Basically it's a one page item containing blurbs by a celebrity or other world-mover containing advice or lessons they've learned. I find them entertaining. One issue a year, which is the one I just got in the mail, contains a whole feature containing "What I've Learned"s from various people. Definitely one of my favorite issues of any magazine each year. Check it out.
   
   
4. And as for more serious subjects, this was my favorite article all year. It's about how the autopsy of one of my favorite athletes growing up, Mike Webster, by a guy who wasn't even a fan of football, started a series of event that led to a battle with the NFL over concussions. Both fascinating and very sad.
   
   
5. Getting away from magazines, an actress I've always like, Zooey Deschanel, guest-starred on her sister Emily's show Bones. Bones is a show I've watched since the beginning and enjoy. I was disappointed in how Zooey's stint. If you have a star of a tv show who has a close relative who is a film actress, a guest appearance by her should have more purpose than to have the star's film actress relative make a guest appearance. Zooey's character had nothing to do with the crime plot and seemed like it was stretched and strained to advance the Bones and her father relationship plot. Let's just say, I was extremely disappointed in that episode.
   
   
6. The new James Cameron movie is coming out soon. Seems like every magazine has an article about it and every news magazine show on tv has a segment on it. I'm actually looking forward to it. With movies like Aliens, Abyss, and the first two Terminators, I think he has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sci-fi movies. I even think he could pull off Aquaman. In fact, it makes me wish he would take a crack at Battlefield Earth, a sci-fi novel I read when I was young, before I knew anything about Scientology, and thus see it as just good science fiction. I think would do an amazing job on not just a movie based on the first half of the novel, the half that John Travolta help made into a complete and total clusterfuck of a movie years ago, but also the second half of the novel which would involve even more aliens and special effects.
   
   
7. So I finally saw the series finale of the tv show Monk. Not having cable I had to watch it on hulu. The first half was put on hulu that night, but the second half was delayed a week. Being curious, I glanced at the hulu discussion board and read a couple post about Stottlemeyer being the villian. I couldn't believe it. I stopped reading the discussion board immediately. Stottlemeyer has been Monk's biggest friend and supporter. So I kept saying to myself that it's been a mistake. When I finally saw the episode, I kept expecting Stottlemeyer to be implicated. He never was. He wasn't a bad guy. I looked back at the discussion board and could not find the post I had read. It must have been removed or I simply read wrong. This was a relief. The end of the series turned out to be perfect. One idea I have for a future blog topic is rating endings of tv series based on how content I am with how the series ended. Monk high up on the list with Cheers and Buffy. (Interesting sidenote: characters on Cheers and Buffy have both made appearances on spinoffs giving updates on where the other characters were at.) Monk's ending was both comforting and realistic.
   
   
8. On a related note, my favorite ending to a series wasn't the end of a tv series, but a book series. Stephen King ended his Dark Tower series in a way that was satisfying. An amazing feat considering he once wrote that he might never end the series and the series having such a big scope that any ending could only be disappointing.
   
   
9. I didn't have a chance to write the last five days. So I had a lot of topics stored up which caused me to take a lot of time to write this. This blog is still a work in progress. Hopefully, I'll be able to start having the post be smaller and more often. But today, you're going to have to put up with this monster of a post.

Labels: Avatar, Bones, Dark Tower, Esquire, GQ, James Cameron, Kate Beckinsale, magazines, Maxim, Mike Webster, Monk, movies, NFL, Olivia Wilde, series finale, Stephen King, tv, Zooey Deschanel