It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” ā some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it ā I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury ā he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” ā and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging ā I was with her at that moment ā she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy namedā” “Yeah, sure ā you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that Iām on the phone with you now, after all thatās been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didnāt seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereās not a case of that. He wasnāt using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had ā if that were what the accusation involved ā the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. Iām not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, āYou know, itās not this, itās thatā? Because ā let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. TimesĀ piece, thatās what it lacked. Thatās what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Unrelated but KNOWING makes Ebert’s Top 10 mainstream films of 2009. Hard to see this here when if memory serves he had high praise for UP which did not make the list.
“$200 million has been done by non-Japanese films only twice.”
Perhaps more tellingly (although perhaps not in this context) $200 million dollars has been done by a Japanese movie only once (unless you adjust for inflataion, of course). Howl’s Moving Castle came close though (and the tenth “One Piece” movie is making a lot of waves) too.
In any case, I doubt Japanese love Cameron quite as much as they love Spielberg. It took ten years for Porko Rosso too beat “E.T.”, for instance.
Still, I have no doubt a movie like “Avatar” will do well in Japan. But $200 million? Doubtful.
“Unrelated but KNOWING makes Ebert’s Top 10 mainstream films of 2009. Hard to see this here when if memory serves he had high praise for UP which did not make the list.”
Maybe Ebert was looking for a reason to show that all that praise he gave Alex Proyas for Dark City wasn’t entirely unwarranted?
Nah, it seems genuinly fell for the flick. But can I still say that his decision to put out two (occasionaly weirdly divided) unnumbered lists was a bit of a cop-out?
“(btw, Public Enemies is now within 6 million of being Michael Mann’s highest grossing film, worldwide, in history.)”
As someone who really admires Michael Mann I really hate to say this but the above statement means very little especially considering that ‘Collateral’ was a lot cheaper.
P.S. I don’t know why I always have a tendency to spell ‘Porco Rosso’ in such a way as to make it sound even more non-kosher than it already is š .
Ebert has done this non-top ten for a couple of years now. I much rather that than some photocopy top ten like everyone else. Apparently critics only saw about 15 movies this year!
I like that Dave has the numbers for Avatar in Australia and yet the Australian websites don’t even have them yet!
Totally offtopic but I just realized that Public Enemies could make for the all-time worst porn spoof title. Try to pun it and see how far (or low you can get).
Or you know, don’t.
I’m glad there haven’t been a lot of PUBLIC ENEMAS jokes already.
Public?
If Ebert still had a face, his placement of Knowing on his top ten would make me want to slap it.
Well you could do me a favor and slap Michael Phillips for placing “Once” in his top five in his top of the decade list.
No problem! That movie smelled like unemployed European musician to me.
Agreed. No offense to low budget filmmakers everywhere but sometimes what you got is what you get.
And can I just say that “Falling Slowly” was overrated too?
(And what makes me sad is that he could have just as easily picked something truly brilliant like “Before Sunset”, which incidentially had the most meaningful song out of all movies I’ve seen this decade).
I’ve just had this conversation on another blog. Literally one minute ago! I sorta loathe Once. And we were talking about how one’s enjoyment of that movie relates directly to one’s enjoyment of the songs.
I like “Falling Slowly” in a general sense, but it’s all a bit wishy-washy, as is the rest of the soundtrack. Like, it’s pleasant, but I’m not big on that acoustic guitar and googly-eyed vocals and when it’s an entire movie of it? Yeah, not so fun.
Alas, there’s also the fact that I find the main girl to be one of the most mentally unstable characters of the decade (THAT VACUUM!) and found it impossible to even like her in the slightest possible way, let alone sit there with my face framed by my palms and looking goofy at the two of them thinking to myself “boy, i hope those two kids make it work” etc. Dreadful.
Kisses was a much better two-people-walk-around-ireland film if you ask me.
Allow me to defend Once – I can confidentally say it was the best musical against the decade. There was more heart and genuine emotion in that movie than Chicago, Mamma Mia, and Dreamgirls put together. I do have a soft spot for Moulin Rouge and it would be a close second.
Great movie – top ten for the decade? Not quite, but probably my Top 20. I can see how it can bug some people, but I found it very charming and heartfelt. I mean, how could you not like the scene where they’re working the stuff out in the studio and then driving to the beach to listen to the finished CD?
And Knowing was not that bad – solid end-of-the-world thriller, kind of dug it and I usually can’t stand Nicholas Cage. Do I think Ebert has a true weakness for Alex Proyas? Sure, I do think Dark City was pretty overrated, too.
Kam, I can kind of see your point – with these kinds of movies, it’s tough to like if one of the main characters really grates on you.
I actually felt the same way about 4 Weddings and a Funeral – I kind of liked the movie, Hugh Grant was charming. But man, the Andie McDowell character was just…..ugh, could not stand her, she just seems to be messing with the guy for the whole duration of the movie.
Same with (500) Days of Summer – really well done movie, but wow, Zooey Deschaanel plays just a genuinely unlikeable character. But the ending just makes it awesome.
Love “Once,” and “Falling Slowly” makes me choke up like a little girl. Devastating movie.
Kam, thank you for bringing up the vacuum cleaner! I hate that thing and hated how they made sure it was in every shot the girl was in.
And the girl, was beyond annoying. And with her personality, I could see no reason why the male character would fall for her at all. Really grating.
It had one good scene in though, I admit that but it wasn’t enough to make up for everything else that went on.
I’m sad to say but just about the only thing that movie achieved for me is to significantly lower my desire to ever want to visit Ireland.
And how is ‘Once’ a musical?
It’s a story where the characters communicate to each other (and sometimes the audience) through song. Not your typical musical, but I would think it qualifies – the scene where the girl is walking around listening to the CD player and singing aloud is a great example.
And man, what is every one’s gripe with the vacuum cleaner??? Not really that big a part of the story..
To each his own, I found both characters in Once very appealing and genuine to each other. I did not feel the same way about Zooey Deschaanel’s character in 500 Days of a Summer, but I know there are many who just love her and that character.
Geoff, I haven’t seen 500 Days of Summer yet but I think the reason everyone keeps bringing up the vacuum in ‘Once’ is because the movie sucks.
On a more serious note, the fact it isn’t a major part of the movie is the whole point, it’s not that important yet it’s given a lot of attention. Anyways, I think I’ve said enough on that matter.
I’m just curious, have you seen “Before Sunrise/Sunset” or “Lost in Translation” and if so, what did you think.
So now that a sort of de facto “worst of” thread has started, let me add FUNNY PEOPLE to the mix! Just saw it over the weekend…what a bloated, self-indulgent piece of shite! Seriously, it took A YEAR for several stand-ups to write that gawd-awful material?!
The story was an incoherent mess! If Sandler had told everyone off, sold all of his possessions, then found out he was going to live and had to start over, scrapping against Seth et al for a role on Hey Teach, that would have been a movie!
OR, Leslie and her tots comes to live with him and they get married to make his final months happy, then he realizes he’s going to live and, whoops, wants to go back to whoring ways, THAT would have been a movie!
Talk about an annoying love interest! The neighbor with Asperger’s?! Seriously?! Is that who geeky guys find attractive? And every time Leslie Mann starts her patented blubbering, I want to deck her.
Love everything else Apatow, going back to the Stiller show, so we’ll call this a rare mis-step.
jennab: I’m a huge Apatow fan but still haven’t managed to see FUNNY PEOPLE yet. But Larry Gross’ article on the MCN home page, “The Most Unreported/Misreported Stories Of 2009” includes a rave review of the film. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground on this film, or maybe even Apatow in general. Can’t wait to make up my own mind now that it’s on DVD.
Ok, Gonzo Knight – I am going to have to respectfually disagree with you that Once did NOT suck.
As for Lost in Translation, loved it – Scarlett Johansen has truly never been better, love the cinematography, and great soundtrack. Actually made me want to visit Tokyo.
I liked, but did not love Before Sunrise and Before Sunset – both solid movies, but for some reason, Ethan Hawke just grates for me, probably in the same way Zooey Deschaanel does.
No problemo. Glad to hear that we both totally agree on Lost in Translation though š .
Saw Avatar last night and enjoyed it very much. It’s not the second coming of Jesus H. Christ, or even Oswald P. Christ, but definitely the best of the big budget bonanzas of 2009.
Here’s my question…
As is my M.O., I’m reading some reviews of the flick (always avoid them prior to seeing it) and notice that Ebert, Berardinelli, and other critics dish out the same line about how the military is assisting the corporation efforts, blah, blah. Did I miss something? From the dialogue in the opening scenes, I thought it was pretty clear that this was a private military contractor staffed with former grunts = ala Blackwater – doing the heavy lifting and not a government sanctioned operation. With that distinction in place, it heaps even more of the moral naughtiness on the shoulders of those fucknuts because they were all willing to kill for cash. The soldiers can’t even fall back on the old standby of, “Geez, I just shot the big, blue, cats because I was following orders.”
Anyway – just a bit of confusion on my part.
Oh, and since we’re actually on THIS topic, my take on 2009 cinema is that I’d rather have my testicles slowly crushed by a jar of pickles than have to again sit through Funny People. God, I hated that movie.
Yes, that was a specific point that was made in the movie. I love Ebert, but sometimes his attention to detail is severely lacking.
And ha ha, I actually really like Funny People. Not as much as 40YOV, and yeah, overall its structure is a mess, but it has enough great individual moments that I can forgive it. By the way, all successful stars of sitcoms live in apartments with multiple unemployed tubby losers, right?
I sorta thought the POINT of Zooey’s character in 500 days of summer is that she’s ultimately unlikable. It takes that charming, kooky archetype she plays in every other movie, and reveals how inevitably unpleasant someone like that would be if you allowed yourself to fall for her.
The human mission in Avatar is very, very vague. The operations we see are clearly orchestrated and overseen by a corporation and there’s nothing that says they were assisted by a government.
That all leads to a bigger question. The movie very clearly states that Earth is a “dying planet.” But nowhere does it tell us that anything the humans do on Pandora is meant to save their homeworld. They never tell us what unobtainium is for! Ribisi says it’s very valuable, but never that it’ll solve any problems back on earth. The only motivation we’re given for being on Pandora is pure greed.
The movie would have been more interesting if unobtainium was somehow Earth’s only hope for survival, but Cameron clearly wasn’t interested in anything but straight-up good guys/bad guys.
Eric, I completely agree with your last point. Wouldn’t it have been funny if the last scene of the movie was the Na’Vi whooping it up at a victory party and then we cut to the miserable victims of poverty and disease on Earth huddling over unobtanium-fueled trashcan fires?
“The movie very clearly states that Earth is a “dying planet”. But nowhere does it tell us that anything the humans do on Pandora is meant to save their homeworld. They never tell us what unobtainium is for! Ribisi says it’s very valuable, but never that it’ll solve any problems back on earth. The only motivation we’re given for being on Pandora is pure greed.
The movie would have been more interesting if unobtainium was somehow Earth’s only hope for survival, but Cameron clearly wasn’t interested in anything but straight-up good guys/bad guys.”
actually, i’ve seen it twice and i’m fairly certain nowhere is it stated that “earth is a dying planet”, unless i’m going deaf (which isn’t beyond the realm of possibility)
anyway, re: your comment above, eric, i find this line of reasoning quite fascinating. the movie would have been more interesting if unobtanium was earth’s only hope for survival? why is that? because that would make you as a human feel better about imperialism and the slaughter of native peoples in the name of manifest destiny?
is our planet earth drilled & strip-mined, forests felled and habitats destroyed for oil/gold/diamonds/uranium/timber/grazing land/etc in some grand noble effort to save the earth? hell no, quite the opposite, earth is sacrificed every minute of every day for the almighty $. greed is god.
so why is it when this EXACT same thing is done on pandora because of the rare mineral there (and cameron is on record as saying he deliberately left the use of the mineral unstated because it doesn’t matter what it’s for, it’s symbolic of ‘we want what you’ve got and we’re going to find a way to justify taking it’ paradigm), this isn’t enough for some reason?
why can’t the motivation be good old-fashioned, realistic greed? humans excel at good old-fashioned greed. why do you need the bullshit, cliched cop-out, ‘WE NEED THE UNOBTANIOUS TO SAVE OURSELVES!’ rationalisation? to make it feel less like the humans aren’t just greedy assholes on other planets like they are on own own planet and pander to the human ego?
cameron actually took the REALISTIC option
Ribisi is awesome beyond belief in Avatar, as is Lang… Perhaps coincidentally, they were both awesome in “Public Enemies,” too. Did both of those guys get a new agent this year or something? Because even though they’ve both been around for a long time and have always worked a lot, they’ve taken it up a notch in ’09.
Leah, doesn’t someone have a throwaway line about how the humans had “destroyed their Mother” — ie, “Mother Earth” (ROLLS EYES, what is this, a 1993 Belly song?) — implication being they’d plundered and savaged Earth and were now doing the same on Pandora?
Think it’s sort of amusing that McDonald’s is serving their 32-oz tumblers of cola in an AVATAR promotional cup. ‘Cause there’s nothing the Navi, whose technology is stuck somewhere between the discovery of fire and the whell, enjoy more than some tasty McNuggets.
“Leah, doesn’t someone have a throwaway line about how the humans had “destroyed their Mother” ”
yeah, i’m pretty sure neytiri says that, but coming from a navi i think you can take that with a serious grain of salt, given that you could accidentally leave a styrofoam coffee cup outside and the navi would see that as an offence against the purity of the mother (certainly the industrialisation/militarisation of earth reflected in the type of weaponry and machinery the humans bring to pandora would be seen as ‘destruction of the mother’ in the navi eyes, and earth is already there; in order to assume that earth is in fact in peril or destroyed that would need to be made clear in the human narrative, and i don’t believe that’s the case)
as a side-note, was it necessary that the ship ‘the nostromo’ in ‘alien’ – returning to earth from a successful mining expedition in deep space with a full payload for ‘the company’ – should have been ‘saving earth from destruction’? nah, it was all about the shares
Leah, Jake’s closing narration says the humans “returned to their dying planet.” I remember it because he also refers to the humans as “the aliens,” which I thought was pretty interesting.
And you asked if a scenario in which the unobtanium is necessary for earth’s survival “would make you as a human feel better about imperialism and the slaughter of native peoples in the name of manifest destiny?” The answer is yes. Survival would justify the humans’ actions to a degree that mere profit does not. That’s a very different thing than “manifest destiny.”
I really like the movie, but the villains in particular were paper-thin. I’m surprised Cameron didn’t give them mustaches to twirl.
Leah, I’m sure if you asked, say, an ExxonMobil executive why he wants to drill in, I don’t know, Nigeria and uproot Nigerians from their homes, he wouldn’t say “Because I’m greedy.” He’d have an answer about how it was his job, and how the company was responding to global supply and demand. And if he was really on top of his game, he’d probably ask what kind of car the questioner drove and what their local municipality’s primary source of electricity was.
This is what ultimately rubs the wrongest about the movie: the bad guys are cardboard villains and the dramatic conflict is simplistic. Not simple, simplistic. Good drama comes when you’re torn between two equally compelling forces. Bad drama comes when you preach to the converted.
I have now seen Avatar twice and I’m sorry, I think you guys have it a little off about the “villains.”
Stephan Lang does a kick-ass job playing a kick-ass character – he’s fun, compelling, and passionate about his job. The guy just loves his work and he’s damn entertaining to watch.
I mean, damn, that climax where he’s not only breathing in the toxic air in the power loader, but he breaks out a big fucking knife!!! And Lang completely makes you buy every moment of it. Isn’t that enough? I mean, when did we always need “motivation” for a good villain?????
Did it make Robert Patrick any less cooler a villain in T2 because we didn’t know what drove him? Was Hans Gruber any less entertaining or compelling a villain because he was just driven by greed? Hell, the Wall Street sequel is coming out in a few months and I know I’ll be there opening night, among others, just to see the return of Gordon Gekko and from what I remember, his only motivation was “greed.”
Hell, compare Avatar to Star Trek, which I liked, though not nearly as much as Avatar. Eric Bana’s villain, as written in Star Trek, has very compelling reasons to seek out revenge – his family and his planet was destroyed. Meanwhile, Stephen Lang in Avatar just loves his job, kicking blue alien ass. And which character is more memorable and fun to watch? I rest my case.
“Leah, Jake’s closing narration says the humans “returned to their dying planet.” I remember it because he also refers to the humans as “the aliens,” which I thought was pretty interesting.”
right, he does indeed, i spaced that. so there are definite hints that earth is in trouble, but the mining for unbotanium isn’t connected to this issue so i’m not sure it changes the dynamic much; but just for the sake of argument, if we assume humanity has fucked up the earth royally and we need unobtanium for some reason, does THAT then give us the right to go to another inhabited planet, ‘relocate’/slaughter the indigenous population for what is on their land and start the plundering process all over again?
“The answer is yes. Survival would justify the humans’ actions to a degree that mere profit does not”
WHY, eric???
honesty, isn’t this precisely what gets us into trouble time and time again, justifying taking what we want with a disastrous toll because we are so…special? entitled? why are humans automatically entitled to the resources of another inhabited planet (or country or what ever parallel one might draw) after we fucked up our own patch, why are we entitled to do the exact same thing to other worlds, to take what we want/need, because…why? funnily enough, this is exactly the question avatar poses.
(my reference to manifest destiny was obviously not literal but in respect to imperialism justified and rationalised as necessary for whatever reason, historically by taking the land already inhabited by others as if it’s the god-given right of the interloper, which has direct parallels to avatar)
“This is what ultimately rubs the wrongest about the movie: the bad guys are cardboard villains and the dramatic conflict is simplistic. Not simple, simplistic. Good drama comes when you’re torn between two equally compelling forces. Bad drama comes when you preach to the converted”
well that’s just not true, jeff. to draw a simple parallel, was darth vader more than a cardboard villain in ‘star wars’ (the original, i refuse to call it ‘a new hope’ via bogus retconning)? was he for a moment conflicted or complex, and should he have been in order to provide more compelling drama in ‘star wars’? no, because star wars wasn’t meant to be a ‘complex human drama’ any more than avatar is. vader was as simplistic as they come, the personification of calm, cool, collected, merciless evil (and please don’t anyone say, ‘but vader is part machine!’ because we don’t know that in ‘star wars’)
i think one problem is you (and others) are bringing certain expectations and assumptions to avatar about the type of movie it’s supposed to be rather than accepting it for what it is, a timeless mythic adventure, a ‘techno/eco-fable’ (i think that’s what christian aptly called it’) with selfridge and quaritch symbols of corporate greed and gung-ho militarism. they are deliberately bereft of any traits that might cause us to feel even the slightest compassion or empathy for them, because WE ARENT MEANT TO, they are vader, they are the empire. whether or not cameron has succeeded with this choice is debatable and it was a risky option to take, but i think you and others are missing the point a tad.
if anything i believe selfridge could have been fleshed out as even MORE of a sociopath, and as for quaritch, i don’t know i’m ok with his soulless simplicity and pure badassery, hell hath no fury like a hardass by-the-book no-questions-asked mercenary betrayed by some damn cripple
geoff, just to ask, did you find avatar better on second viewing? this was my experience and i’m just wondering if anyone else is feeling that, too
Leahnz – yes, I did enjoy it more on the second viewing. I was less focused on the visuals and just enjoyed the adventure of it, more. Watching Lang chew the scenery really made it for me, too.
And sorry, I still not get all these right-wingers going crazy about this thing and how it villifies their worldview – Quaritch is a FUN and memorable character, just like Gordon Gekko, Tony Montana, or Daniel Plainview (I am NOT saying that Lang is as good as those other actors, relax) – what military grunt would not want to emulate or quote him???
The movie has a point about ecology/humanity and it makes it strongly, but Cameron is still too in love with his military hardware and lingo to make it a true humorless environmental lecture – the way some of those “Big Hollywood” folks have been railing against this movie, you would have though Al Gore had a cameo or something.
Also, the second time, the score did not bother me as much – I still think Horner is a little too derivative of his earlier works (enough of those exclamatory horns, already – we get it, this is SERIOUS), but he has some fun with the jungle environment and creating some tension.
And Worthington is very impressive – he really gives a natural performance. I think the Terminator Salvation-anti-hype has really hurt him with critics, but if Bob Hoskins was getting serious Oscar talk back in ’88 for ‘Roger Rabbit, I don’t know why Worthington doesn’t deserve a little.
“Did it make Robert Patrick any less cooler a villain in T2 because we didn’t know what drove him?”
What don’t we know about what drove him? His motivation is that he’s programmed to win a war and preserve his species by killing one person by whatever means necessary.
As for Vader in Star Wars, it is certainly more than hinted at that part of his motivation is to one-up his former mentor, even though we don’t know the extent of that relationship yet.
Ok, LYT, what was Hannibal Lector’s motivation? Antoin Chigurgh? How about Sauruman, while we’re at it? We can do this, all night…..
thanks geoff, i’m digging pretty much all that you said there
(and i should make it clear before the heavens open up and acid rain pelts down and dissolves me down the white of the bone that i did not mean to insinuate that darth vader isn’t a more delicious baddy than the villains in avatar, i made the comparison merely to parallel a famous villain who is an utterly one-dimensional archetype and yet well suited to the genre he inhabits)
“Was Hans Gruber any less entertaining or compelling a villain because he was just driven by greed?”
If that’s all he was, yes. But Gruber has all sorts of unique personality tics and surprises.
Don’t take this to mean I’m a Big Hollywooder or anything, but… eh, I was kind of ROOTING for Lang and Ribisi in a Jimmy Conway kinda way.
They’re both SO entertaining in their Method way, and the Navi seem like they just… pray to trees and grind on each other, only a few of them having defined traits; Sure we automatically root for Jakesully, and Zoe’s AWESOME, and they’re great too look at, but…
Despite Cameron’s window-dressing concession to the fact that THESE GUYS ARE MERCS NOT OUR TROOPS, let’s face it… They’re TOTALLY our troops. And you can skew as left and love the environment and hate greed all you want… But something kind of clangs about watching OUR GUYS get fired on and being asked to cheer on primitives so ungracious they refused all of Weaver’s well-intentioned education and opportunities or ANYTHING NORTH OF FIRE so they can continue rubbing on trees.
And, I may have said this before, but isn’t a 3-hour sermon on getting back to the purity of nature and away from technological advancement just a little disingenuous coming from a guy who’s basically the filmmaking Steve Jobs? The most techno-crazed auteur of ALL TIME (except MAYBE Lucas) suggesting we should all go rub sticks together and hunt venison like Hawkeye?
Yeah, Lex, we were all quietly cheering the Na’vi and their trees being blasted by big mechs.
And this might be too soft for you, but Cameron seems to be propogating “balance” not “elimination” — the heroes were scientists utilizing technology.
I was celebrating Michelle Rodriguez’s tank top.
“i think one problem is you (and others) are bringing certain expectations and assumptions to avatar about the type of movie it’s supposed to be rather than accepting it for what it is…they are deliberately bereft of any traits that might cause us to feel even the slightest compassion or empathy for them, because WE ARENT MEANT TO.”
This may well be true; I have no problem, therefore, in assuming that I just don’t like the kind of movie you’re describing.
Obviously that’s not true though, because I love 4 of the 6 Star Wars movies and all 4 Indiana Jones movies and so on.
What makes it problematic for me is ultimately a matter of tone. I don’t mind the villains in the above movies because Spielberg and Lucas have pitched them as larger-than-life romps. In Cameron’s movies, though, he establishes them in something closer to the ‘real’ world, taking place in a more realistic, less campy tonality. So in Cameron’s movies, I expect a greater degree of ‘realism’ which might sound like a stupid expectation, but there it is. And it’s especially true when the movie’s intended to be explicitly political.
The Ribisi character was the biggest fault with Avatar. All Billy Zane in Titanic, but without the camp. And if you’ve already got a great villain in the form of Stephen Lang (who has his own variety of camp I would say) why another one that is so thin and flimsy?
“And man, what is every one’s gripe with the vacuum cleaner??? Not really that big a part of the story..”
Because a woman dragging a stupid vacuum cleaner through the streets of Dublin is a stupid bloody thing to do and it got the movie off to a disastrous start when I’m sitting there going “oh dear, this woman is clearly deranged! why is he falling for her?” And then there’s the scene where he’s telling her and telling her to not ride the motorbike, but she won’t SHUT UP about it!
Lots of great talk here. I’m going to try to respond without going on too long…
If humans needed unobtanium for survival, it wouldn’t give us the right to take it from another planet… but it would at least be understandable. Cameron touches on a great number of themes in Avatar but doesn’t really engage with them in anything but a superficial way. The pillage of nature, the clash of civilizations, and the issues of identity are all a part of the story… but Cameron is so eager to get to the action that they all fall by the wayside.
And that’s okay! As I said above, I really really liked the movie– it’s one of my favorite of the year. And that’s largely because the action is AWESOME, and no director on the planet can do it as well or as big as Cameron. There are many many successful elements of the movie, but subtle characterization is not one of them.
So next we have some folks acknowledge that fact– but with the disclaimer that Cameron wanted it that way. And to that I say: maybe, maybe not, but he clearly tried to make his two leads a little more complicated. So if he just purposely made the villains one-note evil, then that’s an unfair stacking of the deck. It gets back to the thematic shallowness– if the villains are really that evil, then it’s no accomplishment to oppose them. By the time Jake chooses to defend the Na’vi, it doesn’t come from within his character, it comes as a reaction to the sheer evil of the other humans.
As Jeff said, the world Cameron provides is a little more grounded than the Star Wars universe. It’s not a galaxy far far away, it’s supposedly our own future. So I don’t see deliberate simplicity as a fair choice. Ribisi even says at one point that killing the natives would be bad for business… then does it anyway? As Jeff pointed out, any loathsome corporate shill in the world at least provides some excuse for his behavior aside from greed itself. (Even Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” speech was a twisted explanation of the “greater good” of free-market capitalism.)
Finally, even though I thought the characters were shallow, I do agree with Geoff and the rest that Stephen Lang was spectacular and easily turned in the most memorable performance in the movie. When he jumps out of the flaming battleship in the robot suit I was laughing my ass off, because it was just a perfect badass moment.
Cheers all around.
What’s funny is that Lex keeps going to the elite Arclight and repeatedly has somebody sit next to him yapping etc. Every single time.
I saw it at the packed hellish Grove and no talking, texting, snickering, nothin’.
There’s a lesson somewhere here.
Very well said, Eric.
And I was particularly thrilled when Lang, in his mech-suit, got sick of fighting with his gun and pulled out the world’s biggest knife.
“The Ribisi character was the biggest fault with Avatar. All Billy Zane in Titanic, but without the camp. And if you’ve already got a great villain in the form of Stephen Lang (who has his own variety of camp I would say) why another one that is so thin and flimsy?”
i agree. that’s why i thought selfridge should have been fleshed out as even MORE of a sociopathic symbol of greed. i don’t know why he should be more conflicted and have a conscience, tho, how boring and not the point of his character at all. if he weren’t a stone-cold greed merchant, he wouldn’t be able to do what he does in the story, he’d stick with diplomacy and relocation rather than opting for genocide. so a more hand-wringing, caring sharing selfridge would NOT work in the context of the story as it is, because no one with even the slightest semblance of a conscience would be able to do what he gives the go-ahead for. selfridge has to be a complete and utter bastard. is he as fleshed out a complete and utter bastard as he could have been? not even, i think cameron pulled back when he should have gone hard-out.
“Ribisi even says at one point that killing the natives would be bad for business… then does it anyway”
that’s not what he says; he says killing the indigenous looks bad to the shareholders, but no profits looks much, much worse to the shareholders (i can’t remember the exact wording) so he gives the order to roll on the tree. this moment is crucial to his character and motivation (what little there is), which is very clear: $ at any cost
“The pillage of nature, the clash of civilizations, and the issues of identity are all a part of the story… but Cameron is so eager to get to the action that they all fall by the wayside.”
i just don’t think that’s an accurate description of the film. if that were true, the entire movie would be action-packed, and it’s not.
there is a huge lull in the middle act where the story slows right down, devoted to jake and neytiri’s blossoming love, jake learning about the navi way of life in which the prevailing themes of connecting with nature and the spirituality of nature are explored. i think it’s fair to say cameron concentrates on developing jake and neytiri’s characters at the expense of others, but to say all the themes of the movie suffer because cameron just wants to do action isn’t supported by the content of the film.
“It gets back to the thematic shallowness– if the villains are really that evil, then it’s no accomplishment to oppose them. By the time Jake chooses to defend the Na’vi, it doesn’t come from within his character, it comes as a reaction to the sheer evil of the other humans.”
how exactly is that ‘thematic shallowness’? if anything it’s an issue with characterisation, which i don’t agree with. selfridge and the company really ARE that heartless, and jake knows deep down he’s made a deal with the devil to get his legs back; his arc is rooted in a change of consciousness mitigated by the heinous actions of the company
re: the ‘realism’ people seem to be expecting from ‘a cameron movie’ and what jeff mentions about tone, the story is quite a departure for cameron because it ISN’T just a typical cameron sci-fi set on another planet, there are two distinct realms at play: the ‘human’ tech world and the mystical ‘fantasy’ world; how does one meld those two worlds tonally and carry out the story as is? it’s a tricky proposition and for some people it obviously hasn’t worked (i don’t think a more ‘realistic, complex’ depiction of the villainous humans – as opposed to the scientist humans, who are righteous – would have worked at all, the company humans have to be the dastardly villains)
“The most techno-crazed auteur of ALL TIME (except MAYBE Lucas) suggesting we should all go rub sticks together and hunt venison like Hawkeye?”
geeze, lex, this is what you think the message of the movie is? i thought you had all these university degrees and you take it LITERALY, like we should all go live in the forest? hopefully you’re just acting the jackass and don’t really think that’s what cameron is getting at!
sorry, ‘literally’, i can actually spell a little when i’m not typing so fast