Posted on 12/13/2009 2:22:55 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Absent from the big screen for over a decade now, Oscar-winning director James Cameron returns armed with a reported half-billion dollars, a story he’s been desperate to tell for 15 years, and the very latest in cutting-edge visual technology. The result is “Avatar,” a sanctimonious thud of a movie so infested with one-dimensional characters and PC clichés that not a single plot turn – small or large – surprises. I call it the “liberal tell,” where the early and obvious politics of the film gives away the entire story before the second act begins, and “Avatar” might be the sorriest example of this yet. For all the time and money and technology that went into its making, the thing that matters most – character and story – are strictly Afterschool Special.
What a crushing disappointment from one of our most original and imaginative filmmakers.
Set in 2154, “Avatar” is a thinly disguised, heavy-handed and simplistic sci-fi fantasy/allegory critical of America from our founding straight through to the Iraq War. Sam Worthington is Jake Sully, a paraplegic Marine Corporal sent to the planet Pandora after the untimely death of his brother. In a plot-thread built up to promise much that never pays off, Sully has none of the training his brother benefitted by: years of schooling in the Avatar Program to prepare him to infiltrate the indigenous species of Pandora called the Na’vi, who are the only things between Earth’s RDA (Resources Development Administration) and a precious energy resource “ironically” called Unobtainium.
(Excerpt) Read more at bighollywood.breitbart.com ...
“Dances with Smurfs” ~ watch it. Great way to save $10
Im waiting for sherlock holmes
Reading “Dalgren” again has the potential of exceeding the literary value in Avatar apparently.
I figured that out just from the trailer. Sigourney Weaver ain't gonna save it.
Dhalgren, maybe?
Checked the spelling on the Internet and there are several complete with reviews (pro and con!) and multiple references.
It has been judged to be the dullest and least meaningful book in world history.
Dollars to doughnuts(donuts) you haven't read your copy yet.
Exclusive raw-set footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZWdzfTjk0Q&feature=sub
LOL!, talk about reading to much into something and an over the top article!
Yeah, I saw it when I was a kid, but I am interested in how the special effects will look now.
Maybe next time James Cameron can make a movie that ONLY appeals to old Ethiopians - and gives the finger to every other racial and age group... then be stunned it doesn't pull in the big bucks.
That said, I'll wait to see the movie - Cameron is usually entertaining and always worth the price of the ticket. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now - and hope he didn't really give half the people in the United States - the middle finger. Including me.
Liberals are sooooo hateful. I wanted to like this movie - I've always enjoyed Cameron's movies. I was looking forward to seeing it. But if this is confirmed - and I guess it probably already is - guess I'll stay home. Did pre-world-warII Germans make films bashing Jews? I'll bet Jews didn't bother going to the movies back then either...
I feel sad.
Why do you care? I don’t need to justify my film/book/play/game choices to anyone. No freedom loving person would ask someone else to justify their film choices. It’s only the kind of person who enjoys being lost in the ‘group-think’ mindset that would ask someone else to justify what they like to read/watch.
I don’t care what you watch/read. As a free man, I cannot. It’s not my business. You want to go and spend your money on a film that’s you. Personally, I think anyone who owns and watchs television is a moron because television is obviously for the weak-minded. It’s trash. But I don’t ask people to justify to me why they want to watch it.
I don’t take it personally that they watch it. For example, if you want to watch Barbra Streisand movies while dressed in replicas of her evening wear, that’s you. It’s not my concern. What ever floats your boat. You know?
It has been judged to be the dullest and least meaningful book in world history.
Great book. Loved it. I'm glad the rest of the world doesn't like it- makes me like it that much more.
Best quote I could find about it was by Philip K Dick (from wiki).
"When Dhalgren came out, I thought it was awful, still do ... I ... threw it against a wall." Dick called Dhalgren "a terrible book" that "should have been marketed as trash. ... I just started reading it and said this is the worst trash I've ever read. And I threw it away."[11]
LOL, I love that quote! Dick is one of my favorite all time authors. It tickles me to no end to see that he hated the book when I liked it so much. To each his own. It's what makes life so cool- we each have to walk our own path.
Thanks you guys for bringing that book up. Read it the first time in about 1987-88 (somewhere in there). I reread it again in 2000. I might have to see if I can't find a copy of it and give in another peruse in the coming year.
The folks really high to see this movie remind me of the people who like those Japanese hardcore cartoons, and animal-people sex stories. Cameron sounds like a jerk, and while people say 'Yeah, but his movies rock', I find his stuff tedious and childish. Imagine if someone with a Peckinpah or Kurosawa-like sensibility had these tools to make a movie. Their politics might not've been mine but they had more going on in their movies so one could ignore any disagreements there, which is the case with great art almost all the time.
Cameron's got the taste of a brat, and some of the things that turn him on are freakin weird. Endless battles? Well, I dunno--I'm in my forties, seeing stuff blow up just isn't that interesting to me anymore.
Now that sentence is funny all by itself.
Personally, I think anyone who owns and watchs television is a moron because television is obviously for the weak-minded.
But the internet you're so fond of using is a haven for geniuses? Do you make a generous TV exception for your friends and family, or do you just consider them all to be morons? Seriously, television is only as highbrow or lowbrow as the channel you choose to watch. Your broad "everyone with a tv is a moron" statement is, well, pretty moronic. Furthermore, your rant about how what you watch is nobody's business kinda rings hollow when your introductory contribution to this thread was a statement announcing to everyone that you were going to watch Avatar.
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