Merridian wrote:Dances With Wolves sucks

Could you elaborate a bit?

Merridian wrote:Avatar at least looks pretty.

So do some girls, but veneral diseases they carry are very ugly. That is essentially the analogy for Avatar that I am going to use. Don't bother asking into in it very further until I find a better one.

And I haven't even seen Avatar.

Don't bother. Go see Shutter Island. Better narrative and cinematography and pacing.

I forgot to add a snippet about Avatards. Awesomely shitty post was updated.

ran1 wrote: Could you elaborate a bit?

:)

ran1 wrote: So do some girls, but veneral diseases they carry are very ugly.

looking at pretty girls does not give me venereal disease.

Though I DO plan on seeing Shutter Island, preferably in theatres but probably not since I have no one to go with and I’m lacking in funds to do so. :( But it IS very high on my list.

Brik, I liked that review. I was getting sick of the back & forth hate/worship going on surrounding this movie. I still probably won't ever see it, but it's nice to see something middle-of-the-road.

I saw this film over a month ago, but for some reason haven't posted in this thread. Well, I probably don't have anything new to say on the matter, the characters were one note, the story done to death, the conflict black and white, but I enjoyed it strictly for immersion and special effects I guess, while my mother and grandmother thought it held some profound intellectual message and argued with about how 'everything I like has to be different and blah, blah, blah,' when I told them that they're wrong and can't debate, then when I told my friend my impressions of it he's just 'blah, blah, blah, nobody does anything but bitch anymore', although I did like the film and I had to explain to him the difference between bitching and criticism, 'criticism is a good thing, it makes things better, blah, blah, blah', pretend I was never here.

Finally saw Avatar today, now that I'm back in the English-speaking world. The effects were stunningly good; one time where 3D on the big screen really took the film from mediocre to landmark status. The few scenes with heavy Navi - human interaction were absolutely jaw-dropping; it's incredible what you can do with half a billion dollars' worth of artists, and hopefully this is a harbinger of the future.

That being said, acting, plot, etc., etc. It's a simplistic revival of the Noble Savage myth, although if there were a planet with such an interconnected ecology, then, yes, industrial activity would take on whole new meanings and moral import.

I can understand why the Chinese pulled the film from theaters (presumably for subversion). It's certainly inspirational.

It's doubtful that I'll find much reason to watch this film again on DVD, but I would go see it again in a 3D theater tomorrow.

Merridian wrote:[very disturbing images.]

Well, I asked. And I got an answer. Okay.

BrikHaus wrote:This just in: [url]http://awesomelyshitty.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/avatard-me-up-aka-everyone-is-an-idiot/[/url]

This is the best thing you've ever written Brik, and even though I haven't seen Avatar I agree with what you're saying entirely. I also find it consistently maddening that people watch a film that is so obviously about its revolutionary VISUAL effects and then complain that the WRITING is bad. WTF? If you want good writing, go read Faulkner or something.

ran1 wrote:I'm still going to reiterate that watching a two hour video game cutscene is still not good cinema. It's cinema, but not good cinema.

Honestly, I don't get the "video game cut scene" criticism. Video game cut scenes and CGI is as much "moving pictures" as cel animation or live action film. I don't see much of a difference in terms of them being equally cinema. I'm not saying they don't have major differences inherent in their mediums, but as far as being cinema/movies go, they're equal. It's really all about what someone does with them.

I still don't understand why Avatar's visuals are supposed to be so breath-taking. It looks like every other big budget sci-fi movie made in the last ten years--the money is spent in ways invisible to the audience. To be honest, the trailers didn't look that great, but I figured blue cats in space would look better with 3-D glasses. Nope. Still just blue cats in space.

I still don't understand why Avatar's visuals are supposed to be so breath-taking. It looks like every other big budget sci-fi movie made in the last ten years--the money is spent in ways invisible to the audience. To be honest, the trailers didn't look that great, but I figured blue cats in space would look better with 3-D glasses. Nope. Still just blue cats in space.

QFT.

Avatar's visuals are great if you watch it in 2D, but the only thing about it coming close to being "groundbreaking" is that the CGI is really quite impressive.

The usage of shallow focus in the 3D version is quite literally an eyesore.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:

BrikHaus wrote:This just in: [url]http://awesomelyshitty.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/avatard-me-up-aka-everyone-is-an-idiot/[/url]

This is the best thing you've ever written Brik, and even though I haven't seen Avatar I agree with what you're saying entirely. I also find it consistently maddening that people watch a film that is so obviously about its revolutionary VISUAL effects and then complain that the WRITING is bad. WTF? If you want good writing, go read Faulkner or something.

uhh, wow

You do realize this same defence can be used for every crappy blockbuster ever made, do you

Eva Yojimbo wrote:

BrikHaus wrote:This just in: [url]http://awesomelyshitty.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/avatard-me-up-aka-everyone-is-an-idiot/[/url]

This is the best thing you've ever written Brik, and even though I haven't seen Avatar I agree with what you're saying entirely. I also find it consistently maddening that people watch a film that is so obviously about its revolutionary VISUAL effects and then complain that the WRITING is bad. WTF? If you want good writing, go read Faulkner or something.

Well, I've considered James Cameron to be a good writer with his Terminator films. Not that he was the best ever, but he was able to balance a somewhat complicated plot with solid entertainment. So AVATAR seemed to have more potential when compared to Cameron's earlier sci-fi works.

It's not that I hated AVATAR (I actually quite enjoyed select scenes from the first viewing); it just seemed synonymous with all of the other big-budget gimmick tricks pouring out of Hollywood, and I therefore don't see it as having a very, credible long shelf life. And when this big-budget fad does die out, it's hard not to see at least one large Hollywood studio go bankrupt due to a billion dollar production failing in the box-office somewhere down the road.

The thing is Cameron COULD write in past. Both Terminator films and especially Aliens are full with memorable lines and character moments.

Avatar?

nil.

Cameron truly lost something down the road

My favorite AVATAR review so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o9Fod9KigU

here's the thing:


Pocahontas sucks

the first thing that comes to my head when thinking about Ferngully is that bat. No enviromental messages, not the fairies, not the colors or even Tim Curry as Hedora '92. Just the bat

Never saw Dances With Wolves or The Last Samurai


so i'll just watch Avatar again. that's all.

So is anyone going to see the re-release that comes out on Friday?

My guess would be not too many.

nah, I rather see "The Last Exorcism"

plus, I rather spend money on the special edition DVD, not a re-release cut in theaters

Extended? No, no. It's going in the wrong direction. I'd watch it if it was cut down to 90 mins. to 2 hours and had Colonel Miles Quaritch as the main character. I'm sorry, but in a movie where I didn't "like" the hero or "hate" the villain, the winner is the coolest man out there. And he was, good sir, the coolest man out there.

When Colonel Miles was on screen my thought wasn't "Why don't you use your powers for good?", it was "Why isn't this movie about you?!"

The movie should have been about nocturnal predators with more gunfire thrown in. I'm actually hoping The Expendables and Vampires Suck will beat the re-release. Doubt it'll happen, but if it does I can smack Cameron fans in the face with it (you seriously have no idea how much those people annoy the hell out of me).