THOR and CAPTAIN AMERICA will be post-converted into 3D: set phasers to “rage”
Jul 15
This comes straight from the bad news department: Marvel Studios is planning on converting two of its biggest 2011 films into 3D in post-production, Thor and Captain America (annoyingly subtitled The First Avenger). This bodes ill for people who don’t like 3D, people who specifically didn’t like the 3D in Alice In Wonderland or Clash Of The Titans, and people who are obsessed with continuity, who will inevitably bemoan the sudden addition of an extra dimension halfway through the Avengers intro film series (The Incredible Hulk and the Iron Man films were in regular-D, remember?).
Kenneth Branagh — Kenneth fucking Branagh — is quoted as saying “We came to feel that in our case 3D could be the very good friend of story and character for a different kind of experience.” He’s in charge of Thor; what does Captain America director Joe Johnston have to say? He’s more pessimistic on the subject, but he does reckon “pictures that deserve to be in 3D will continue to be [in 3D].” (Go here for full quotes.)
I guess this means Joss Whedon’s Avengers movie will also be in 3D, in which case it already has two strikes against it in my mind.
Thor comes down from Valhalla on 6 May 2011 in the US; Captain America re-starts World War 2 on 22 July 2011; both in delicious / disgusting 3D (depending on your preferences).
Top 10 reasons why I didn’t like AVATAR
Jul 13
I reviewed Avatar on opening day. Fresh from watching the film, my mind had a tendency to focus on the trees rather than the woods, and, while the review still holds up, it could use some clarification.
Eight months have passed since then, the dust has settled, everyone’s absorbed Avatar into their consciousness, and the film’s due for re-release in six weeks’ time. What better time to reflect on the cultural phenomenon than now?
Here follows a list of the ten main reasons why I – me, myself, and only I – couldn’t appreciate Avatar like everyone else (and their dog) seemed to.
10 – The 3D Doesn’t Really Help
Avatar is a visually busy film. Vibrant colours, eye-catching character designs, constant movement, and a lush aesthetic already do enough to overload the visual centre of your brain; putting it all in 3D didn’t help clarify it for me, it just helps to make it even busier.
Plus I wear glasses in everyday life already; having to wear another layer of plastic in front of my face for two-and-a-half hours gave me uncomfortable eyestrain.
9 – The People vs Pandora
Sometimes I felt like the people in the movie were dwarfed by the planet. I don’t mean visually; I mean thematically. I understand that James Cameron really wanted to immerse us in the world of Pandora, but the way to do that is to set the action against a detailed and fascinating backdrop. I’m not stupid. I can see that the backdrop is interesting. You don’t need to constantly derail your scenes just to rub this in my face.
8 – Science Fantasy
In my review I went to great lengths to bemoan things like the blue skin and red blood of the na’vi, the four-eyed faces of the native fauna, the breathing holes on the creatures’ chests, and the na’vi’s distinct separation (physiologically) from every other species on Pandora.
Basically what I was trying to say was that Cameron was blending science fiction with fantasy, two incompatible systems. Either you go for realistic plausibility (e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey), or you throw realism out the window (Star Wars); trying to marry both disappoints me for some reason.
7 – The Uncanny Valley
Motion-capture bugs me. It’s not so bad when it’s aliens that are being rendered, as in Avatar, but the uncanny, rubbery faces still hurt the characters for me. I was aware that what I was watching wasn’t a human performance, but a computer-enhanced one. This annoys me for the same reason Justin Bieber’s hideously auto-tuned voice annoys me: it’s disingenuous., and it puts up a barrier between me and the characters on the screen.
6 – Meanwhile, Back On The Earth
All the way through Avatar, I wanted to see Earth as it was in whatever year the plot’s set in, because even a glimpse of the world at that time would have helped shape the universe as a whole. Where does Cameron see us going in the future? That’s important information in service of shaping the thematic content of the film. We hear mention of an Earth overcome by pollution. Could we please see that for some perspective, please?
5 – The Misanthropic Principle
Reading between the lines, Avatar wants you to believe that all humans are incapable of controlling their destructive urges, and that the only way to become a better human is to stop being a human, and turn yourself into an organism from a different species altogether.
The na’vi are presented as perfect beings, happy communities with nary a care in the world, while we are presented as bull-headed rednecks with barely a skerrick of common sense between us. This nastiness pervades the film and offended me, denting my appreciation of the story. Plus the only humans who stand up for the na’vi – Sigourney Weaver’s and Michelle Rodriguez’ characters – get killed at the end. Thanks.
4 – Upping The Ante
Following on from #5, what’s the biggest thing the na’vi stand to lose in the plot of Avatar? It all boils down to that big tree that provides the basis for their neural network with the world. The only thing that separates us from the na’vi – hence, the only thing that stops them from being human – is that link with the past, that shortcut to empathy. If you removed that link – horror! – the na’vi would become just like us, only able to generate empathy through force of will. And this is presented as the worst possible thing that could happen to the na’vi – that they might end up like us. Ouch.
3 – Too Long By An Hour
I probably wouldn’t have had time to think of complaints to throw at the movie if only it had breezed along at a steady clip, aiming for a 100-minutes-and-change run-time. The biggest problem here is the Rocky / Karate Kid-esque training montage in the middle of the movie, which goes for about 45 minutes straight. That could easily have been condensed and my butt could easily have been saved the unnecessary en-numbing-ment it unhappily underwent. I know Cameron had to establish the characters and the universe in a limited time, but if George Lucas could do it in two hours in 1977 you can sure as hell do it just as fast in 2009.
2 – Cartoon Villains And Cardboard Heroes
Ultimately, who is Jake Sully? He’s a wheelchair-bound ex-marine with an incongruous Australian accent. That set-up serves the dual purpose of generating sympathy for the character and conveniently proving his suitability for the Avatar Program, but it does little to help define him as a character. He’s stubborn and takes good initiative, sure – but this is generic hero stuff. What really makes Jake Sully who he is?
How about Quaritch and that character Giovanni Ribisi plays? They’re just personal manifestations of nastiness, nothing more and nothing less. (For the record, I actually enjoyed Ribisi’s performance, even at the same time I questioned his relevance to the movie as a whole.)
1 – Everything Is Pixels
Avatar may blend live-action with animation better than something like Mary Poppins, but unlike Mary Poppins it doesn’t have a stylistic justification for flip-flopping between real people and pixellated creations.
The world is presented as being real, but my eyes tell me otherwise. I’m not a fan of animated films to begin with, so that predisposition probably coloured my reaction to Avatar which is, technically, about 80% computer-generated. If it had focused more on the real people I probably would have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more.
Ultimately, watching Avatar for me became akin to looking over someone’s shoulder as they played a beautifully-rendered videogame. The blank slate hero was there, the wish-fulfilling empowerment was there, even the alien sex scene was there (kind of). It was like playing a non-interactive videogame, which is obviously the worst kind of videogame there is.
James Cameron’s big blue baby is by no stretch of the imagination a bad film; I just didn’t like it. I applaud Cameron’s success in tapping into something universal, something that touched a lot of people, and brought a unique cinematic experience to the lives of millions. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
There’s no denying that Avatar came at precisely the right time in history: everyone’s rightfully worried about the environment, and are looking increasingly to technology for escapism from a cruel world full of death, destruction, horror, and electricity bills. The idea of stepping into someone else’s shoes and solving the world’s problems satisfies us on a fundamental level, now more than ever.
I’m thrilled for Cameron’s success, but I think it’s born of good timing rather than masterful storytelling. That isn’t meant to belittle the film’s success in any way, but hopefully I’ve given you food for thought to chew over as you watch Avatar on DVD for the umpteenth time, or go to catch it in its re-release in August.
As always, I’m keen to hear your thoughts on this – comments are welcome and appreciated.
Top 5 movies you didn’t know were science fiction
Jul 10
Following on from my list last week about movies that people innocently mistake for science fiction, here’s a list of the opposite: five popular movies that people don’t usually think of as science fiction.
Science fiction hasn’t really been popular since the Golden Age ended forty years ago, but, following in the wake of Avatar, it’s likely that we’ll see a resurgence in the genre, so it helps to know what we’re talking about. What better time to not only help define sci-fi, but also remember some classics of the genre rarely recognised for what they truly are?
On with the list!
5 – 28 Days Later (2002)
Most zombie movies get by without a skerrick of explanatory exposition. “Er, because Hell is overflowing,” floats just as well as “um, because they watched TV for too long” in most zombie flicks — but that wasn’t good enough for Danny Boyle. He needed a semi-plausible scenario for his film, dammit, otherwise Cillian Murphy’s Jim character wouldn’t seem quite so far up the creek when he wakes up in hospital to find the universe abandoned in one of the best opening acts of the decade.
Why nobody thinks it’s sci-fi: Because it’s tense and frightening, and horror has the monopoly on scares, doesn’t it?
Why it is sci-fi: Animal testing is a reality. Diseases are a reality. Animal activists are a reality. 28 Days Later puts all these together not only to scare and entertain you, but to prod the thinking-centre of your cerebellum. The fact that 28 Days Later bases its premise firmly in reality helps it to blur the lines between science fiction and horror, to great effect.
4 – The Stepford Wives (1975 / 2004)
Even if you’ve only seen Frank Oz’s abysmal 2004 remake, you know the premise of The Stepford Wives: a bunch of men become unhappy with their liberal-minded wives and have them turned into robots to serve their every whim. The original film plays out like a thriller as Joanna struggles against the odds to uncover the conspiracy, while the remake plays out like a comedy, partly on purpose, and partly because it’s so bad.
Why nobody thinks it’s sci-fi: Again, the frights often make people think a movie is just a horror / thriller. The fact that it focuses on social issues probably confused people, too — isn’t that what dramas do?
Why it is sci-fi: Because it focuses on social issues, funnily enough; because the men use technology — robots — to solve their problem; and because doing so says something about the mindset of the times: some men would prefer obedient toys to real wives. Now that’s a scary thought.
3 – A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Stanley Kubrick’s nasty masterpiece is an exercise in dread. You just don’t know what Alex is going to do next. Beatings, rapes, verbal abuse, idiosyncratic dialogue and sinister voiceover– it makes for a generally unpleasant time at the cinema. Then there’s that final-shot dream-sequence what-the-heck moment that makes you question everything you just watched — it’s no wonder A Clockwork Orange stays with people long after they’ve seen it.
Why nobody thinks it’s sci-fi: Because A Clockwork Orange is a “classic,” and classics are often thought of as existing entirely without genre. People often forget that classics are also westerns, crime dramas, thrillers, horrors and — yes — science fictions.
Why it is sci-fi: Because it takes elements of modern society and extrapolates them into the foreseeable future, and uses that set-up as a way to comment on the human condition. I don’t know what’s more frightening — teenaged gangs going around beating and raping people on a whim, or the use of audiovisual media to brainwash people into shells of their former selves. It’s difficult to grapple with, ethically and intellectually, and that alone scores Clockwork a spot on this list.
2 – Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
I’m going to go ahead and let the cat out of the bag up front: I didn’t like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Could be I was too young to really get it at the time, could be the moody aesthetic registered as “wanky” in my brain, or it could be that the non-linear narrative overwhelmed my developing brain and caused it to report an unsatisfactory experience. Whatever the explanation, Sunshine has been on my to-watch(-again) list for some time.
Why nobody thinks it’s sci-fi: Because it’s all, like, indie, and hip, and stuff, and science fiction is many things, but none of them is “hip.”
Why it is sci-fi: The challenges facing Jim Carrey’s character were put there by technological means, and his reactions mirror that of people in general. As such the movie says as much about people as it does about technology; a defining characteristic of any work of science fiction.
1 – The Truman Show (1998)
Peter Weir’s jaw-dropping satire of reality TV ironically came before reality TV became really big, in the early noughties. Besides being a fascinating tale of “what if?”, The Truman Show is also a tightly-wound narrative propelled by Jim Carrey’s breakout dramatic performance. It’s one of the defining films of the 90s, and even though it loses impact with repeat viewings, it’s still a good watch to this day.
Why nobody thinks it’s sci-fi: Because it’s so full of warmth and humanity, and science fiction is all about aliens and robots, right?
Why it is sci-fi: Because it’s an extrapolation of our current environment into an exaggerated future. As technology progresses, what’s to stop us from putting a man in a fishbowl and filming him 24 / 7? The Truman Show answers that question with enough emotion to break the heart of a convicted serial killer, and tells a ripping yarn to boot.
Looking back over this list, every single one of the films listed takes place right here on Earth, in the not-too-distant future; they all feature strong human characters, exhibit strong plots, and feature in pop culture consciousness to some degree or another; but they don’t get lumped into the same category as 2oo1, Blade Runner, The Thing, Starship Troopers or Children Of Men.
I often wonder why that is, and the only reason I can think of, as hinted above, is that sci-fi just plain isn’t cool; all those naff 80s and 90s budget flicks, Alien knock-offs, and Transformers films have given sci-fi a bad name. So when a great film comes out with elements of sci-fi in its framework, people ignore the sci-fi and focus on the film’s brilliance.
The best thing about Avatar, for me, has been the veritable deluge of sci-fi film projects announced in the wake of Avatar‘s impressive performance: Dune, Flash Gordon, The Forever War, Foundation, Neuromancer, John Carter of Mars and The Martian Chronicles are all in the works, and that’s just the beginning; who knows what other new or classic sci-fi flicks we’ll see on the silver screen in the decade to come?
I can just see it now … in eight years’ time, on the original film’s 50th anniversary, they’ll reboot 2001: A Space Odyssey. It will be directed by Brett Ratner, and it will star Kevin James (who by then will be one of the biggest action stars in the world), and it will be the first in a planned trilogy. Oh, but it won’t be in 3D, because that was SO 2010 …
Hey Jim, buy me a house: James Cameron set to earn $350m from AVATAR
Jul 10
In an ironic twist on the Hollywood accounting nonsense I recently wrote some words about, James Cameron is set to rake in $350 million from the success of Avatar. That’s a lot of dollars.
How come he gets so much? Because he wrote, directed and produced the film; each one of those jobs probably came with a cent-per-dollar contract, and, being in control of the project in every meaningful way, he must have stipulated that he got a percentage of the profit before expenditures were subtracted. See kids? That’s the right way to go.
Apparently the majority of the third-of-a-billion personal payday (bigger than Oprah’s annual earnings) came from DVD sales (of which you reportedly bought a metric shitload). Who knows how much more he’ll make from the August re-release, or the DVD double-dip due later this year?
See Avatar again in August if you want James Cameron’s wallet to explode; Avatar 2 is in the works but James Cameron has to finish saving the world first.
TRON: LEGACY continues to look awesome: 5 new images hit the web
Jul 09
I’ve been looking forward to Tron: Legacy ever since I saw the first trailer in March. It’s not the story or the characters that grab me, but rather the pretty visuals and synthetic soundtrack. Something tells me, though, especially looking at the bike-race-crash stuff, that the movie will be more than a little bit silly when it comes out in December. Nevertheless, it continues to look gorgeous in stills, as evidenced by these five new images gleaned from Empire:
Tron: Legacy is due in December 2010, and I really hope it turns out to be as good as I want it to be.
OPINIONS COUNT