Avatar

Today, I am disappointed in the movie nerd community. This is a group that I have been proud to be a part of for many years. Whenever a good movie slips past the general public and is danger of falling into obscurity, the movie nerds give it the respect it deserves. Without movie nerds, I never would have seen Brick, Oldboy, or the Pusher trilogy. They're also responsible for turning me onto such television shows as Veronica Mars and Battlestar Gallactica, both of which now rank amoung my all time favorites. But as I said, today I am disappointed, because they have allowed themselves to fall victim to Fox and the James Cameron hype machine, to forfeit the need for plot and characters and drama all in the name of some pretty pictures. Avatar may be pretty, but it is dramatically inert and as emotionally hollow as the Na'vi home tree (for those who haven't seen the movie, it's a hollowed out tree.)

I don't want to come across as a James Cameron hater. There are many of them out there, but I am not one of them. Up until recently, he was my favorite director and had he chose to keep making real movies rather than take a 10 year hiatus to make documentaries, he probably still would be (the title now goes to Christopher Nolan.) Cameron is responsible for my two favorite movies of all time (Terminator 2 and Aliens), but that is not enough to make me see past the failure that is Avatar. Yes, I said failure. Any movie that takes a decade and close to $300 million to bring to fruition should be something spectacular. What we are given is far from that.

I'll get to the tech Cameron used in a minute, but as it should have been in the movie, I'll start with the foundation elements, plot and character. I made the assertion to someone earlier that the movie had no plot, only to have this person give me the Webster's definition of plot, so, yes, it has a plot in the technical sense, but not in the sense that matters. This is basically a reshashing of Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai, or any other white guilt movie ever made. The focus of Avatar is a paraplegic marine named Jake, who through a crazy random happenstance becomes part of the avatar program on the distant planet Pandora. This program is designed to mix human and alien DNA to create synthetic aliens which are remotely driven by humans. If it sounds complicated, it's not, and is all explained in one line of dialogue. Through his avatar, Jake is given the ability to walk again and he slowly begins to infiltrate the Na'vi (10 foot tall blue cat people who make up Pandora's native race) to find out all of their secrets. Surpisingly (read: not suprisingly at all), Jake begins to connect with the aliens and realizes they are not savages at all, but really nice people. For $300 million, we deserve a lot better than this as a story.

Aside from being the most unimagined story ever, it is just filled with things that don't make sense. For example, the first thing that we are told about the Na'vi is that they are very hard to kill. If by hard to kill, they mean just shoot them with a gun, than yeah, it's true. Also, the year is 2154, we have the tech to create artificial aliens and drive them iwth our minds, and yet wheelchairs are still the exact same thing. Oops, didn't think that one through, did ya Jim? These are just more examples that show the script came second to the visuals, which should never happen.

Maybe, just maybe, this simple and cliche story might have worked if every character in the film hadn't been flat and one note. Sam Worthington is good as Jake, but there is no reason behind anything his character does. It's as though he's supposed to do certain things to move the "plot" along, though neither he nor audience really understands why. Neytiri, the alien warrior princess, is the most interesting character in the movie and probably gets the closest thing to a character arc in the film (yes, more happens to Jake's character, but it's all bullshitl.) Zoe Saldana gives an excellent performance and thanks to Cameron motion capture tech, we are able to see the few instances of emotion in the film (but sadly, we don't feel anything.) The best performance is the live action one of Stephen Lang, the film's bad guy, Colonel Quarrich. Quarrich is a buffed out, scarred, Ryan Seacrest looking soldier who is hell bent on solving every problems with guns and thinks humans are awesome and alien sucks. Never has anyone done so much with such garbage lines ("You're not in Kansas anymore. You're on Pandora.") Rounding out the cast is Sigourney Weaver, who's horrible, and Michelle Rodriguez, who's good.

The reason that this film took so long to make is the tech that Cameron used. It is an evolution of the motion capture tech we've seen in Lord of the Rings and King Kong. Never has it been done on this scale and never has it been done as well as Cameron has used it here. We see every twitch of the Na'vi faces, and it is really something to behold. The problem is, at no point do we ever forget we are watching mo-cap and it creates a buffer between the film and the audience. It's just hard to care about something you know isn't real at all. It's also tough to care about the Na'vi when they are nothing more than blatant stereotypes of native americans. Again, you spend $300 million creating a world and the creatures, and then you give them no traits of their own. That's just bad writing.

Not only did Cameron create the race with mo-cap, he also used digital 3D when creating the entire planet of Pandora and all of its other creatures. The various alien animals are impressive and look good, but the designs are nothing more spectacular than Pan's Labyrinth. Also, creating a world, while never seen on this scale in movies, has been done in video games for years. And that's really what Avatar is. It's a video game you can't play, and that's no fun.

At the end of the day, when you advertise your movie as a "game changer" and your tagline is "Movies will never be the same" people will expect things from your movie, and Avatar doesn't just not deliver on it, it's just a average movie by any standards. Don't get me wrong, it's very nice to look at, but if you're someone who likes a little more than some pretty pictures moving on screen, then you should probably look elsewhere.

UPDATE: Upon rereading this, it feels as though I'm saying I am the only person in the movie nerd community who sees this movie for what it is. That's not the case. There are some very good bloggers out there who have written articles on Avatar's problems, mostly notably CHUD's Devin Faraci and Cinematical's Elisabeth Rappe. There are others, and I did not mean to paint the community as a whole, though I am still disappointed in the vast majority.

Invictus

Clint Eastwood used to be a badass. Really, this guy was awesome. He's responsible for Unforgiven, which could be the best western ever (yeah, I said it.) He also made Mystic River, a great movie that would have won a ton of Oscars if not up against the juggernaut of Return of the King. Since then, he's made a movie about lesbian boxers, a WWII double feature that was only half good, a period piece that nobody saw, and a horrible movie about racist old men and his neighbors who can't act very well. So, instead of going back to smaller movies that have worked well for him, or possibly going back to westerns where he could eventually become an all time great, he makes a period piece about rugby. Damn, what happened to this guy?

Invictus suffers most from being just plain boring. When you can explain the entire movie in a sentence, you've got problems. Don't get me wrong, things happen on screen. But if you ask yourself exactly what important events happened, you realize there weren't any. Eastwood obviously didn't read my article about how to make a good sports film, because he went against pretty much everything I said, except for not casting Dennis Quaid (thank god).

Not one character in this film has any sort of depth. It took me a while to realize that I wasn't watching Morgan Freeman's character from Robin Hood, but rather a movie about Nelson Mandela. Eastwood throws some character traits about Mandela at us, but we're just told them, never allowed to see them blend in with the character and feel real. Yes, he has good intentions and wants to unite the country, but we never see what's below the surface. At least Freeman actually does things in the movie. Poor Matt Damon was a glorified extra. He gets a few lines of cliche dialogue and that's about it. His accent was pretty good though.

Another thing I said about making a sports movie is don't make it all about the big game. Good thing this movie isn't all about winning the rugby world cup. Oh wait, it is. Well shit. All we're told to care about the whole movie is this game, not the players, not the country, but this game. Luckily the actual rugby games aren't really awkwardly shot so I have no clue what's going on. Oh wait, they are. Well shit again. At least we don't have to deal with another "slo-mo, ball in the air for the final shot" cliche ending. Wait a minute, we do. What the hell Clint?

The best way to describe Invictus is that it's a movie that never had to be made. Nothing good comes from it. It'll either be forgotten in years when Eastwood gets back on track or it'll be the movie that defined him as a mediocre filmmaker for the rest of his career. Either way, nothing good. Eastwood is in a rut right now, and I really hope he gets out because he's got an eye for making certain movies. Go back to westerns Clint, and remember, nobody cares about rugby.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

As a English major, I like to think of myself as someone who is good with words and can be an eloquent writer when I so choose. I'm also legally old enough to not enjoy various alcoholic drinks (anyone who says that alcohol is better than yoohoo is a liar), so that means I'm mature, or at least I should be. I'm going to throw both of those out the window in my broad generalization of stop motion animation as "moving poop." Yes, it's juvenile, but out of all the various statements I've made on film, I don't think I've ever said anything more accurate. So, now that we've got my feelings on stop motion out of the way (seriously though, it's like some colored poop and it is moving, but I digress), let's address the film at hand, The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Throughout this horrible excuse for a movie I found myself trying to understand the origins of the title. Is it supposed to be ironic, because it's the exact opposite of fantastic? Don't worry, my lawyers are already drafting a letter to director Wes Anderson's people to deal with this blatant false advertising. While I await a response, why don't I tell you why it's so bad? From the first frame, I knew this wouldn't be a movie for me. While this is not claymation, it is still stop motion which is just the most aesthetically off-putting visual style I can ever imagine. Maybe if there was a plot or or humor or emotion then I could see past the visuals, but none of that is existent in the movie. Instead we are presented with dry attempts at humor and a plot that any 5 year old child can see through. I've never been the biggest fan of Wes Anderson's humor, but I laughed during Life Aquatic, so I can find it funny if it's done right. Instead, TFMF is a serious of zany comments and off beat jokes. From a plot standpoint, it's about a family of Fox's that keeps digging deeper to get away from a group of hunters above them. How about you stop going down and start digging sideways to get away?

While I may hate this movie (yes, Mom, I know hate is a strong word; I wish there was a stronger one), I am still enough of a movie man to be impressed when something is done right. I certainly appreciate the work that went into the animation in this movie. Each hair on the animal is an actual hair. That level of work is insane, I just wish it was used for a better movie. Anderson has a few continuous shots that impressed me and for those seconds, I forgot how much I hate stop motion. The most interesting thing that came out of this movie is something that we will never see, but is rather how Anderson got the voices. Rather than place the actors in a sound booth, he brought them to a farm and had them act out the movie. This creates a much fluid, conversational tone between the voice actors and allows the voices to feel more natural as they are actually doing the things that their animated characters are.

Whatever good things this movie has going for it are overshadowed by the dumbass narrative song sequence in the middle of the film. Remember that dance sequence in (500) Days of Summer? Well, this is the opposite of that. It takes the movie from "hmm, this is pretty bad" to "oh my god, this is horrible." I could probably come up with a witty ending to the article, but I'll leave you with what the kid behind me kept saying: "Mommy, why is that funny?" I wish I knew.

The Road

Earlier this year, I opted not to review Watchmen because I didn't trust my ability to separate the movie from my love of the source material. The same argument could be made about The Road, but I think I'm a much more awesome and accomplished blogger now (wouldn't you agree, my 5 readers?) and this is a movie that will definitely be in the awards conversation at the end of the year.

Really the quickest way to cover what I think about The Road is to say it's very good. It's right on the cusp of greatness, and I would never fault anyone for saying that it's great, or that it's just good, but as it stands now, I view it as a very good movie that lacks rewatch value. That probably comes off sounding like a shot at the movie, but it's not. The Road is a slow, dark, depressing movie that packs an emotional whallop. It is made to weigh on you well after you leave the theater. If you could watch this multiple times in a week or month, I'd say the filmmakers failed to do there job. Any movie I like as much as this, I usually see about 2 or 3 times during it's theater run. There is no way I will watch it again until blu-ray because I just can't take that much drain again.

If this sounds like a bit too much for you, then you can stop reading now (but stay and read some of the other stuff.) Everything about this movie is deliberately done. The world that director John Hillcoat creates is most realistic representation of a post-apocalyptic world I have ever seen (Yes, even more realistic than McG's Terminator Salvation.) Everything is covered with dirt and devoid of any color, including the people. The violence and visuals are uncompromising and graphic, exactly the way the book intended them to be. It is a style of filmmaking that just wears on the audience, but it is really something special to watch.

Despite taking place in this dreary, run down world, this is not an adventure movie or your typical post-apocalyptic movie. At it's heart, The Road is a film about the bond between a father and a son and how they survive once the world falls apart, which is why this film would die without outstanding performances from it's leads. Thankfully, Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee are perfect. I'll make an official prediction list closer to awards season, but Mortensen will get a nomination. His interactions with McPhee are great, and he has other fantastic moments with the other inhabitants of this world, but it is Mortensen's eyes that will get him nominated. In all my year's watching movies, I have never seen more expressive eyes. They carry all the love, sadness, and hope his character has and it is truly beautiful to see. All of the other actors are great as well, but special mention goes to The Wire alum, Michael K. Williams. His one scene with Mortensen makes for one of the most powerful in the film.

The one knock that I have on the film is that it is slow. I'm fully aware that this is not the fault of the filmmaker; I would make the case that it is Hillcoat's intention for the film to be slow. But the fact remains that the movie moves at a very slow pace, and it does not have any sort of usual plot structure. Events just unfold at varying speeds and then the film ends. This is mainly due to the novel, and I'm not faulting the film for this, just if you go to watch it, be warned. As a fan of both the book and novel though, I can say this is a near perfect adaptation, and I really couldn't see the film be done in any other way.

If it seems like my tone on this film is dark and unsure, let's pretend I'm a really good writer and I made the tone of my article mirror that of the movie. Truthfully though, this is a movie that everyone should see, because it will stay with you for days after seeing. Whether or not you like cannibals or post-apocalyptic movies, The Road is about love and family, and that is something we all can relate to.

The King Speaks: How to Make a Proper Sports Movie

Hey folks. It's been a while since I wrote something and even longer since the last (and first) installment of "The King Speaks." Sadly, I've already used the "lack of reviews is my review" joke, but the very low quality of movies during this post-summer lull has really taken it's toll on me. Couple that with having actual school work to do and working on my own short movie (I promise to post links when it's done and I promise you'll be underwhelmed), and I just haven't had the time to make it to the movie theater. Anyway, after Thanksgiving linner, I was in the mood for an uplifting, semi-cliche, family movie and The Blind Side was everything I wanted.

Now, that probably wasn't the best way to sell the film to you, but stick with me for a moment while I explain why it's not the normal cliched sports crap we usually see. The modern sports movie involves a rag-tag band of misfits who could never play together or a rag-tag individual who has a different skin color/hairstyle than the other players. Eventually, they are all united by a coach who plays by nobody's rules, not even his own, and they make it to the big game. Either they win the big game, or (more often nowadays) they lose the big game, but are winners in life. Apply this formula to Remember the Titans, Coach Carter, The Express, or Friday Night Lights and you'll see that they're all pretty much the same movie.

Enter The Blind Side, which from the trailer, looked to fit this mold, with the addition of a fiesty, southern Sandra Bullock (more on her in a moment). In actuality, TBS is a movie about a character who happens to play sports, rather than about the sport itself. After being mentioned in the first few minutes, sports don't show up again until mid to late second act. This isn't about a football player and his sport. It's about Michael Oher and how his life was changed with the help of a caring family. This isn't about the big game. We aren't even shown the big game, but rather told how it ends. Any time we're given glimpses of a football game, it has a purpose. It shows us who Michael is and how he is growing as a person. What a pleasant change it is to not have to sit through another drawn out, slow-mo, ball in the air climax, but rather get a character driven climax that has nothing to do with football. The movies message had nothing to do with sports (although sports precipitate the message) and that is quite the feat for a sports movie.

It also helps that the movie is anchored by good performances. Newcomer Quinton Aaron plays Michael and does a very good job. He has the tough task of delivering the movie cliched lines and does them in the least cringeworthy way possible. He also does a spot on Michael Oher delivery, and gives the performance without allowing it to become an impersonation. Aaron is good, but the movie dies without Sandra Bullock. I've never been a Bullock fan, and I absolutely crushed her earlier film of '09 (The Proposal) and I would have crushed All About Steve if I had seen it. That being said, she was great in this. For the first time I ever, I viewed her not as Sandra Bullock playing a part, but as Leigh Anne Tuoghy. She is the driving force of the entire movie and delivers a believable performance in a role that could have very easily earned a spot in the cliche Hall of Fame. This performance moved me from "not a fan" to driving her Oscar bandwagon. Yeah, Sandra Bullock is in the Oscar discussion. I'll give you a second to let that sink in.

So there you have it folks, the new formula for sports movies: start the character, and move outward; have a strong presence other than the main character; have a message that isn't sports related; and have strong performances in all the roles, which means never have Dennis Quaid in your movie (I'm looking at you The Express and The Rookie). All that really matters is that The Blind Side is a great movie that you should all go see.

DVD Rundown: What a Horrible Week in DVD

I'm fully aware there's no wit to that title, but since I thought Up was coming out today, the fact that it's not has me looking down on all of this week's movies. Damn do I hate the post-summer, pre-award season lull.

G.I. Joe (full review)

What a poorly put together piece of crap. I went in with my expectation level at 0 and was still disappointed. Not even Joseph Gordon-Levitt could save this one. Maybe if I was 5, I would like this movie. Then again, that's kind of insulting to 5 year old Bryan. That kid likedTerminator 2 and Aliens at that age. What awesome taste. I wonder what happened? FINAL VERDICT: Um, it sucks.

I Love You Beth Cooper (full review)

I stand by my original sentiments that this movie, while not good, was not the god-awful piece of trash that everyone seems to say it is. There were a few laughs, and some solid sentiments in it. Not offensively bad, and not a complete waste of time. FINAL VERDICT: There are some redeeming aspects to it, but at the end of the day, not enough to check it out unless you're a big fan of someone involved (the main reason I saw it is Hayden P.)

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (full review)

This is a solid thriller that is worth one watch. Denzel and Travolta are both very good and had they switched rolls (and maybe hired a new screenwriter) this could have been up there with Tony Scott's other films. Based on that statement, maybe my liking this movie has more to do with that I like Scott's style than the movie itself, but who cares? FINAL VERDICT: No rewatch value, and extremely predictable, but good rental for general audiences (so much condescension in that term).

Where the Wild Things Are

If you're looking for someone to wax nostalgic or talk about how many times I cried (spoiler alert: zero) during Where the Wild Things Are, then you've come to the wrong place. Yes, I read the book when I was younger, and I took the time to reread all 10 pages the other day in the bookstore. Maybe it was because I wasn't a dumb child or because I'm not a late 30's hipster now, but I have no affinity for the book, so I was watching the movie for what it was: a movie, not some love letter to a very overrated children's book, and as a movie, WtWTA is an absolute mess of a movie.

The first twenty minutes or so are actually pretty great, which makes the end product all the more disappointing. Max Records is pretty great as Max, the rambunctious, bipolar little pain in the ass who we follow on his journey. Through the opening, we see everything that we need to know about Max. His relationship with his older sister who is more concerned about her friends. His relationship with his mother and how he is affected by her relationship with Mark Ruffalo. There are some great character moments in opening, especially Max's reaction to something his sister does. It was beautifully heartbreaking and made me wish that we get could get a movie all about Max's life that doesn't involve massive puppet orgies.

Sadly, like most wishes I make, it fell on deaf ears and I was subjected to 90 minutes of wild things. I respect director Spike Jonze more than I could ever explain on this blog (more on that in a moment), and I respect all the work he did to get his passion project to the big screen, but the biggest problem is that WtWTA is a movie that never should have been made. There just isn't enough story and plot to drive the movie along in any sort of satisfying way. Maybe Jonze should have teamed up with Charlie Kaufman for a third time. I'm sure that would have brought about a satisfying script, though I doubt kids would have any interest. Nothing about the wild things was comelling in any way. Look, a giant dirt fight. A ball-shaped house. Really weird owls. I get that this was not an adventure film, but is more about emotion. And I get the allegory of the wild things, but that doesn't mean that I have to care. There are some good commentaries on childhood, but it is all just kind of left hanging in the end. There is really no satisfying resolution.

Back to Jonze, the guy has a great vision for movies. He's extremely modern, and likes weird, off-beat stuff, but his previous two films have been great. Technically speaking, his third film is great too. The cinematography is wonderful and the fact that the wild things were done using puppets really blew me away. The eyes were so amazingly expressive, that I almost cared about the monsters. Then I realized that they are all so one note and predictable that I didn't. The practical effects and action scenes were also visually impressive, but still emotionally hollow.

At the end of it all, I really don't know who this movie is for. It's all about kids and their issues, but it is in no way a kids movie. It's too boring and unconventional for mainstream audiences. It feels to me like an opportunity for older movie nerds to look back and go "That's right, I was a child. Thanks Spike!" Looks like the artsy kids and the bearded weirdos can have their day in the sun. As for me, let me know Where the Wild Things Are, so I can stay as far away from there as possible.