_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

Dude, that was hyperbole. Just on paper, and in practice, there's an awful lot of inaction for an action movie is all. Like, conspicuously so.

But I wasn't all OMG ALIENS WAS SO SLOW IT GAVE ME NIGHTMARES!

The pacing in Aliens is masterful. And Ripley's hallucination near the beginning is actually 10x scarier than the chest-burst in the first one.

Aliens is a structural mess, a pacing nightmare, yet somehow successful despite it.

hard to see how anyone could take this as a face-value negative criticism of the movie

i take issue with the idea that it is a mess, instead of just unconventionally structured

Yes, mess is too strong. Subtract points from my tally.

YES! BOOYA!!!!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6Hb1xxSjffs/S6mSj3eXZiI/AAAAAAAAQxs/hPpkSIsoBR8/s400/NBA-Boomshakalaka.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdCrZfTkG1c

http://www9l.incredimail.com/scache/im//gallery/collections/200902031023/content_13086_prev.gif

http://www.horrordvds.com/reviews/a-m/aliens/aliens_shot5l.jpg

(l-r: josh in chicago, me)

Ha, doesn't that make me Ripley?

(Gloating made you sloppy!)

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.

omar and I are the Tommy Lee Jones and Kevin Bacon of ILX film crits.

Is that a JFK reference??

Ha, doesn't that make me Ripley?

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, December 6, 2010 5:29 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

(Gloating made you sloppy!)

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, December 6, 2010 5:29 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

uh... um.... i was taking the long view, what with the whole events in alien 3

http://www.jfk-online.com/jones.jpg

so has anyone here seen the new Aliens blu-ray? supposedly it looks great!

i have
it does

and you're our aliens checkin cuz

nice.

anyway i watched the avatar blu the same night as the last airbender and despite my mixed-to-negative feelings about this movie, holy shit does every single moment of it blow that stinker out of the water, not even teh same league

at the time were you thinking "goddammit i will watch something called avatar: the last airbender even if i have to put it together myself!!"

haha i actually used that as the peg for my column that week

shymalan just seems incapable of making a film with any forward momentum whatsoever

cameron works better when his villains are not people

stunning insight i know

that's a true lie

i never saw that! the villain was an old telephone, right?

this movie and the Lost finale are my two "never forgive, never forget" media experiences of recent memory. hype hype hype and then soul-crushingly bad writing.

but still, robot knife fight.

i never saw that! the villain was an old telephone, right?

― goole, Monday, December 6, 2010 6:08 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

it was a plane

you're fired

i distinctly remember a telephone hitting arnold in the face

the plane commanded it

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N99F2W3DL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

are you sure it was a plane

avatar didn't totally work for me for various reasons but i gotta say i'm glad cameron is making these types of films, though when i say "making" and "films" i guess it should be noted that he's only made two in 16 years but still...

i think the word 'still' should have been in quotes too

i should have put "films" in in double quotes

tbh i think titanic still holds up

kinda the same structure as aliens

But with the disadvantage that you didn't want to know more about any of the people going on the boat

I know Paul Reiser. You, Billy Zane, are no Paul Reiser.

billy zane owns dude

owns A dude

are you saying he's a slave owner or

I'm not saying... I'm just

omg @ terror train

At a college pre-med student fraternity New Year's Eve party, a reluctant Alana Maxwell is coerced into participating in a prank: she lures the shy and awkward pledge Kenny Hampson into a darkened room on the promise of a sexual liaison. However some other students have placed a woman's corpse in the bed.

where does the train come in

maybe they run a train on the corpse