Avatar

2009

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver

Plot: A paraplegic marine dispatched to the planet Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.

The Classic Formula with a $400 Million Pricetag

by C. True

First, lets tackle the obvious complaint most people will have with Avatar, and that is a story-line that is completely obvious from about 15 minutes in and then lasts another 2 hours and 25 minutes. Looking back James Cameron has done some truly original storytelling and writing with such creative projects as The Terminator, The Abyss and even True Lies which is one of my favorite no-brainer actionpackages because of the unexpected plot developments Cameron throws in to a traditionally super-formulaic genre. Then you have Titanic, which wasn't a bad film but really lacked much innovation in terms of storytelling. Unfortunately, Avatar falls into the Titanic category of Cameron works. The native humanoid population on Pandora, the Na'vi worship nature and commune (directly) with their planet and think us humans (read Americans) are a bunch of insane blundering assholes come to destroy their planet. And we have! I wonder if our protagonist, who is sent to spy on the Na'vi and find some leverage to get them to leave their land so that the corporation he works for can finally mine that, wait for it, Unobtainium, will start to sympathize with these peaceful people? The plus side to Avatar is that James Cameron and his editing crew must have had a meticulous timeline of how many minutes were going to be spent on each plot device envisioned in this giant classic formula. For instance the romance in the film develops organically with only one, maybe two, scenes that directly go towards establishing the romantic bond between the two main characters. And there isn't any deliberation, she shows him amazing things in her world, when its time to chose a mate he obviously chooses her, and she says she's already chosen him as well. Simple, not too short, not too long. Time for battle? Lets stick to the standard beginning 1/3 the battle losing, 1/3 in flux and then the final 1/3 where... well you can guess. The whole movies works this way with everything given the exact amount of time we need to get the jist of what's happening and never once lingering too long on developments that are obvious. In the end the 2 hours and 40 minutes flies by. But of course the visual effects have a large hand in making us forget that we already know what is going to happen.

And they are pretty good special effects. I was skeptical, not overly impressed with Cameron's first pictures and I remained skeptical through the beginning of the film and some of the first creatures. But the Na'vi look pretty good, especially in scenes where humans are also present, something I thought their should have been more of, especially during big fight scenes in the end. The alien jungle is full of hostile creatures, some more original and impressive than others. Close-up shots show the level of detail that really went into these creatures and assuaged some of the cheesy gut-reactions I had initally. The Omaticaya's ritual to become a man involves picking your flying mount (size of mounts definitely matters) and this sequence is done really well and its no wonder why our protagonist would rather stay in this alien world where he can fly through floating mountains on a creature he controls completely with his mind than go home where he is an ex-marine paraplegic. Eventually Cameron gets you to immerse yourself in his alien world and you stop noticing things looking familiar or new, impressive or hokey, and you just go with it. This is a good thing because the battle sequences toward the end of the film are impressive enough without you trying to look at the detail of everything.

Finally, if you're seeing it in the theater the ultimate question I've saved for last: to 3-D or not to 3-D? I did 3-D (because my 2-D vote was overruled) and personally I found it a little jarring, though over time I finally adjusted and stopped feeling like everything on the screen popped out at me. Then again I found it jarring because it the 3-D technology was so impressive, and really sold your brain on the visual illusion. Importantly, I don't think the movie HAS to be seen in 3-D (unlike Final Destination 3 in 3-D which Mr. Moneybags and I found to be a little lacking when we watched it in 2-D at home) so if you don't think you'll like 3-D don't feel like you'll be missing anything critical by seeing the 2-D version. The one major problem for me with the 3-D experience is that it really forces your eye where to look, and when I found myself trying to resist this (or generally confused as to where I was supposed to be looking) things looked weird and out of focus. But there were some small 3-D effects like falling ash and dust that were really pretty beautifully done and added to the visual experience of the film. So I'll give the cop-out answer that if you think you'll like the 3-D version you will, and if you don't think you will then you probably wont. If you're in torn, go 3-D; I was sold the gimmick really can add something when done right.

Hola Mi Muchachos! Feliz Deciembre!

Hola Mi Muchachos!!!
¡Usted me trae mas feliz de cerebro, los amigos!


Feliz Navidad todos Y feliz tarde Cumpleanos Pedro!

It's Christmas movie time and you know our favorite, Bad Santa. But last night C and I tried to watch some of The Santa Clause, which shockingly felt like classic cinema to me. We also discovered that I thought there existed a movie called Miracle on 42nd street with Shirley Temple in it. This is not a documented movie.
Traditionally Die Hard movies were Christmas films but that's over now.
I feel there needs to be a Christmas movie category, but am having a hard time coming up with words. Something that will cover both N.L. Christmas Vacation (Where they stay home the whole movie?) and Lethal Weapon 2. Perhaps a subcategory of wincers.
I'm thinking: Myulevies or Cruicifilms or NaviDVDs... but these are weak...

Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars: Virtuoso Film Maker of Space and Sound

Mission to Mars (2000)
Director: Brian De Palma
Stars: Gary Sinise, Connie Nielsen, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle and Jerry O'Connell

Allow me to be clear from the out set, I believe strongly that Brian De Palma is the best film maker within the pantheon of great American directors and this article/review will be about his greatness. His greatness is impressive and under appreciated, that's why. I specify that he is the best film maker explicitly because that is the limit of his greatness. Brian De Palma = best at explaining stuff through moving pictures, that's it. Other directors, Martin Scorceses and Clint Eastwoods may get better stories than Brian and may make more enduring and better received films, but Brian De Palma in a number of crucial technical senses makes the best movies. Maybe someone like Walter Hill or some foreigner could hold a candle to him, but they're not famous enough or American enough to play into this equation. Bearing my irrational fandom in mind (I literally decided he was the best at some point last year and am sticking to it), I was shocked to learn that Brian De Palma had directed Mission to Mars.
Somehow I had gotten the notion that he directed the film Red Plant instead. Red Planet came out about the same time as Mission to Mars and somehow I got mixed up.
Since I am currently in a process of seeing all of Brian De Palma's films again, it came as quite a joy to discover my error. Especially since I watched Red Planet again and found it less than great. There is a specific scene in the film in which Valkimer is head banging while looking out an overexposed window looking out at space. It is a vapid shot that for me encapsulates the vapidness of that whole mess. I still enjoy that film for its visual appeal especially the very end when Trinity catches Valkimer in the airlock wearing an awesome space suit.
You must understand that my commitment to understanding De Palma's magic is epic. In high school I saw The Untouchables and Carlito's Way and was struck. Both of those films held something very special in them and it certainly isn't their stories. Without getting into it too far at this point, those films, specifically the more action oriented scenes of Mafia gundowns and drug deals gone awry, are shot with a sense of forensic, spatial clarity difficult to find in almost any other director's works. One of my other favorite things about Brian DePalma is that he gave us Robert De Niro, who before shacking up with Martin Scorsese worked with another of America's greatest film makers, Brian De Palma, first. The film is called Greeting. It is a great film, up there with Joe and Easy Rider when it comes to movies about hippies and freaks. If you can find Greetings, you are good at finding rare titles and are lucky, because it is a joy. Compare the Pornography in Greetings to the flashbacks in Sisters to see how De Palma laid the ground work for Peter Jackson's patent 'documentary footage' montages (He's done this in all his films). When I think of Jackson's Forgotten Silver, I think that the exact sort of mocumentary eye at work was first developed by De Palma. It's a more visceral sense of mocument more akin to The Blair Witch Project or Tim and Eric: Awesome Show Great Job! than This is Spinal Tap and that fair. De Palma in Greetings uses the affect of different visual media (here 16 mm pornographic films of the late 60s) to develop a specific tone in the story. Similarly the flashbacks in Sisters are terrifying glimpses into the character's suppressed consciousness. They're cast in a grainy, black and white that brings to mind documentary footage and at least coincidentally refer to shots in Goddard's Alphavile.
All that confusion aside, when I started to watch Mission to Mars, I knew what I was looking for. Brian De Palma's greatest virtue is his ability to lay out a physical space through the visual medium of film, that enables both tension and resolution. To get at this I point to the classic blood bucket-prom scene in Carrie, where we see each part of the devious teens' plan implemented, each character is spatially positioned in a very palpable way relative to each other, their sight lines are super natural, pacing keeps us interested and movements are in a distinct sense correct. We see and don't see things come together seamlessly until the events culminate with the classic shot of Carrie on stage just before the bucket drops. We've been subliminally informed on all sides by invisible contextual elements. We see her there on stage and know about the girl to the top left of her holding the rope and the two people to the bottom right hidden beneath the stairs and though we can't see them their presence is looming. Again in Mission Impossible when Secret Agent Ethan Hunt meets his contact after things fall apart, De Palma builds through expert cinema an infectious spatial tension. Then the he blows up the giant aquarium.
In Mission to Mars I say De Palma is in top form. The film was unpopular likely because it went too far and got a bit schlocky even for me, though I understand they loved it in France. It could also be said that 'bad science' made this science fiction falter. And of course, the alien at the end (there is an alien kinda) is a bit lame. The film has everything Apollo 13 had (including Gary Sinise as practically the exact same character doing the exact same things) plus Mars plus an alien, but Mission to Mars didn't give me nightmares about being stuck in a space capsule slingshotting around the moon. In fact it gave me no nightmares at all, which I'm ok with.
For all the story's shortcomings De Palma manages to set up a few cinematic sequences that are lush and taught and totally rewarding. Here they are:

First, there is a shot in the rescue mission ship where we have a continuous shot that goes from simulated zero gravity into a gravitronic wheel a la 2001, where the laws of gravity apply. This actually happens twice, once with Jerry O'Conell and again with Gary Sinise. I have no idea how this was done. It is so subtle that, like the first shot of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil or the Black Dahlia for that matter, you don't even recognize how awesome a thing you've seen once you've seen it. Like the Indians couldn't see the ships.

Second, Tim Robbins floats out into space. I have never seen this happen in any other space movie: someone drift slowly into a planet's atmosphere. De Palma lays this out with such intelligence. The crew of the rescue vessel are in trouble when their engines explode and they loose all control. The crew decides to leave the ship and space walk to a satellite, which they can then maneuver to the surface. Apparently moving through the 3 dimensions of real space space is more confusing than any earthling could intuit. This part of the film is all about angles and distances. There is a tragic shot where Tim Robbin's movie-wife Connie Nielsen shoots a kind of rope gun at him hoping it will make it to him so he can be reeled in. We see him floating slowly away and she's getting closer and then shoots the gun and we know already that it will fall just short because of spatial cues provided by the precise cinematography. Here De Palma uses space as a vehicle for a tragic resolution not tension or ambiance.

My third and final favorite part of Mission to Mars is the sound analysis carried out by Don Cheadle's character. Films like Blow Out and Mission Impossible feature the other side of Brian De Palma's forensic genius, his adept use of sound. When the first crew approach a mountain on Mars in order to collect geographic recordings they encounter a truly bizarre sound. It is in this scene that a giant funnel of wind kills most of the initial characters. That's not important, what is is that we latter de-code the mystery sound and discover that it is in fact a pattern that describes the chemical structure of DNA. Now, this is a great part of the movie because as far as the audience can follow along they make the same profound discovery as the scientists and its neat and kinda unexpected. The problem with this part of the story and truly the final third of the film is that the DNA explanation makes no scientific sense and rather is out right wrong in some of its terms, calling nucleotides chromosomes, implying that DNA has a distinct beginning and end, and indicating that there is one sequence of DNA common to all life on Earth that we can easily identify. All this I was told by an actual scientist is non sense and makes the story a little hard to sit with. Still, there were far out sounds involved.

These are my three favorite things about Mission to Mars. I give the movie an A, like a 90%. That means I'll definitely watch it again some time probably in the next five years. It does fall short in many respects but makes up for it by being exceptionally well made. This sentiment can be applied to many of De Palma's projects for instance The Black Dahlia, which I think of a classic Wellesian noir or Snake Eyes, which is next on my list to watch again.

I implore you reader to give Brian De Palma a try and come at it with limited expectations. Expect craftsmanship and you will be rewarded. Expect to bite your nails and cry or laugh and you'll be disappointed. Think of it as being as good for you as Sudoku without being a form of subliminal advertising.

Zombieland

2009
Director: Rubin Fleischer
Cast: Jesse Eisenburg, Woody Harrelson and Emma Stone

Plot: Two men who have found a way to survive a world overrun by zombies.

Zombies and Whiny Ninnies
by C. True

After Shaun of the Dead it is was inevitable that others would try to cash in on the idea of horror and overt comedy, and thus was born Zombieland. Its the post zombie-apocalypse meaning few people are left and scattered zombies wait in the shadows for bright lights or loud noises to arouse their insatiable hunger. Like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland treats the subject of zombies humorously but the majority of laughs come from the joy Woody Harrelson's character gets out of annihilating them. And there is some good zombie-asskicking, but Harrelson's performance was so gleeful it seemed a shame that we didn't get more of these rampages, or hear his rules and thoughts on zombies. There are also some jokes around Jesse Einsenburg's, Columbus character being wimpy and so impotent its a wonder he gets up in the morning and finds the will and courage to face a new day. Although he was funny in the beginning it was unbearable by the end. I've heard Jesse Eisenburg was good in The Squid and the Whale and somewhat of a serious actor but after seeing Zombieland and the painful Adventureland (is there a theme starting here?) I think its safe to say that comedy is not his genre. I blame Michael Cera, who may have cursed us all with a decade of geeky teenage boys striving to be the next awkward/funny guy, who ends up with the lady in the end because, gee, I guess he's sorta sweet? No, he isn't sweet, he is just non-threatening. He'll never leave you for another girl, or hit you or do anything that isn't completely predictable. That sounds like a potentially boring main character, right? But Cera somehow shows you he isn't liked because he's misunderstood, and to be fair his variety of dweeb was pretty unique when he debuted in AD, but Eisenburg's dork is just ceaselessly annoying and the repulsion other characters feel towards him seems well deserved. Towards the end of the movie I cringed whenever he opened his mouth and had it not been for Woody Harrelson interludes I doubt I would have made it to the end.