_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

Won't catch me doing that.

caught it on blu ray for the first time the other day, very impressed. i'm not normally into this kind of fantasy stuff but i was bowled over. at some points i liked to sit real close to the tv just to admire the pretty colours in hd

Does anybody think there is an emerging critical backlash on this movie in which many people are holding Avatar to the same standards of, say, The Battle of Algiers?

The biggest problem for me is how dumb it gets certain points, peaking right around when the military is destroying hometree. BAD GUYS BAD GOOD GUYS GOOD. Shot of poor native cowering behind tree stump. Shot of evil military guy laughing with a cigar. Shot of Na'avi child running for his life & mom going "Nooooo!". Shot of military guy saying "Die! Die!". Etc. Etc.

Sam Worthington is an absolute, total bore as an actor, God knows what kind of deal he made w the devil to be in all these big budget hollywood films these days. Thankfully he's an unrecognizable alien for most of it. I loved the stranger parts of the movie, where they are exploring the Na'avi homeland and stuff, but the heavy-handed politics and DO YOU REALIZE message -- not the message itself but how it's portrayed -- turns me off. It makes me think of 80s movies aimed at children where you have the big bad gov't and the cute helpless alien. Not that those were bad movies, but they also weren't over 2 1/2 hours long. And didn't take themselves quite so seriously.

Papyrus is the font of day spas run by women who have no formal business training.

― just a moonful of sugar (Abbott), Wednesday, 23 December 2009 05:00 (5 months ago)

ilx posts with a permanent impact on my worldview

i will never purchase specialty oils from you. you have demonstrated that we do not share certain core values.

Watched it at cinema with this amazing new 3D business and thought it looked pretty, so managed to sit through it.
Tried watching it on DVD, only got 20 mins in and completely lost interest. It's a film you barely need to see once.

Are these rumours of Worthington being next Bond true? Seen a few articles mentioning it, but you know, it is the net!

i was just reading a thing and... this film was about the mining of UNOBTAINIUM

unobtainium

y

which has in the past been used by scientists/engineers/gear dorks to describe anything made from a v rare substance, and by Oakley for w/e their frames are made from

it's totally stupid

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Unobtainium

I can see thinking that this is a lame aspect of science fiction in general, but there really isn't anything unusual about it.

I enjoyed this much more in 2D blu-ray at home. That said, the annoying parts are more obvious too.

Also tried out 3D tv with glasses at best buy and it was horrible.

Also tried out 3D tv with glasses at best buy and it was horrible.

― Spencer Chow, Friday, August 6, 2010 7:26 PM (51 seconds ago) Bookmark

Yes wtf. They're rolling this out too early.

I've noted it before, but kids are the canary in the coal mine. "Avatar" is an outlier. Most 3-D movies are aimed at kids. Kids hate 3-D. It's uncomfortable for them. Parents hate taking them to 3-D, because it's more expensive and they have to make sure their kids keep their glasses on, lest they watch a blurry screen. I took my daughter to see "Toy Story 3" a second time, in 2-D, and she greatly preferred it flat over 3-D. Heard numerous similar stories from other parents.

They are indeed rushing this shit, backwards, rolling out the technology before they have enough product that will truly benefit. If they can get 3-D sports to take off, good for them, but what kind of lame Super Bowl party requires you to sit in one spot with $100 goggles on?

i saw this

welp, pretty damn good tbh, at least structurally and visually and in terms of action scenes. however the villains were just too evil and some of the dialogue bits which were clearly equating this with our recent misadventures overseas were a little on the nose.

also i liked how michelle rodriguez apparently spent about an hour putting on warpaint, then got in her helicopter and promptly bought it after some ineffectual dogfighting.

haha yeah, that was actually one of my favorite parts of the movie

still don't get what's so visually stunning about this.

omar otm - esp about the structure. i think cameron actually gets underrated as a writer because his dialogue's so wooden, but his movies are always very fluidly paced. evil villains is a valid complaint but i didnt mind it so much because i thought ribisi and lang were awesome with some pretty wooden roles.

just used wooden twice, thinkin about boners i guess

or ucla~

hard not to when they pop up, amirite?

yeah i get complaints about dialogue and what not but cameron has really never made a film which had anything other than a tight structure, even the films that 4 days long. well, true lies always seemed a bit sloppy. that one still seems incongruous to me.

stephen lang has kinda always owned the parts he's played.

watched a bit of this at home on blu-ray and actualyl liked the way it looked a lot more for some reason. i think i just hate 3D

seriously tho all that mystical rainforest giggling children shit is horrible, horrible

still don't get what's so visually stunning about this.

The animation was much, much better than anything I have ever seen in a movie. Ever.

what abotu stephen king's sleepwalkers

I haven't seen that! *runs to Netflix*

the wikipedia description for sleepwalkers makes it sound pretty amazing~

it's got were-cat incest

u'd know

A pinch of mystical rainforest giggling children shit never hurts the box office. I'm waiting for more random lolcat content to get dropped into Hollywood movies.

Aliens is a structural mess, a pacing nightmare, yet somehow successful despite it. Also, his most quotable dialogue. But Cameron still mostly sticks to a gee whiz level of comic book dialogue, which is clunky if effective and admittedly miles better than Lucas's version of the same.

how is aliens a pacing nightmare??

well, once they're in that tunnel and the aliens are chasing them, that's pretty nightmarish

i guess the aliens keep up a pretty steady pace, that would be a nightmare

still don't get what's so visually stunning about this.

The animation was much, much better than anything I have ever seen in a movie. Ever.

Yup. Every time before this, whenever I've seen movies that try to create something unreal with CGI, like an alien planet or fantasy creatures or something, a part of me has always noticed the artificial, constructed nature of it, and it has taken some suspension of disbelief to forget I'm looking at CGI, because it's always been obvious it is CGI. Avatar was the first movie I've seen where this sort of cognitive processing wasn't needed, where everything felt immediately real and not "just CGI", as if they'd actually shot the movie on another planet. I'm not sure if this works as well on the small screen, but in the cinema it was helluva experience, no matter what flaws the script may have had.

aliens is just so good, it's basically the most ideal sequel i can think of in terms of being a standalone film while also playing off familiarity with first film in some awesome ways.

In Avatar the point when I figured out the bad guys were evil was when a slow-motion shot of helpless Na'vi running away & being blown up cut to a shot of cigar-chomping soldier shooting at them and yelling "Die! Die!!"

rong that is terminator 2, but aliens is obviously great xp

"Terminator 2" feels like the exact opposite of a standalone film

good point. i actually just like talking about t2. (not joke.)

t2 is a dope film but made lesser by the terminator trying to get in touch with his feelings and generally any scene where edward furlong is trying to teach him about the ways of sullen teens.

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The special edition of Aliens (which for some reason has been the version is def. quite draggy and slow when compared to the theatrical cut.

The theatrical version is so much better, almost perfectly structured to be a roller coaster ride.

well, they're not his long suit, but those scenes are better than the emo scenes in avatar xp

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argh that was supposed to read:

(which for some reason has been the version they show on tv for years now)

Aliens is a masterpiece. But even in the theatrical version, keep an eye on the clock: there's a ton of exposition and set-up before we even meet the Marines. 45 minutes? And then after the first attack there's another huge hunk of time - another 20 minutes, maybe more? - before the next fight. Of course, it's a testament to Cameron's talents that even the "boring" stuff is not boring, but it's amazing how slow this "non-stop action" flick is compared to contemporary non-stop action flicks. Plus, the end of Aliens is indeed so much non-stop action that you quickly forget about all the inaction.

Then again, maybe it's been a while since I saw the theatrical version.

x-posts. couldn't get past the shocking script/acting/story, so the fact it might have looked quite nice was lost on me. the moment i realised it was pocahontas it dragged and i lost interest.

it's a slow build-up to a couple of big climaxes, i don't think that's nightmarish so much as... actual GOOD pacing