James Cameron's Avatar
A while back I posted a bunch of videos from Red Letter Media which comprised a 70 minute review of The Phantom Menace. He’s back with an 18 minute review of Avatar, and while his quick wit, and strange-sub narrative are present in these videos as well, the review itself misses the mark in a few places.
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Star Trek the Movie
I have loved movies since I was a kid, and in the summer of 1989 my buddy Ryan and I saw every flim that opened except Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Return of the Swamp Thing. That summer I decided I wanted to make films for a living. I went to school for TV production and did a brief stint in TV land, as a production assistant, editor, and graphic designer before discovering my true calling – the internet.
Since the arrival of Kaylin and Maks it’s been harder to get out and see movies, but since moving to London we have a combination of built-in babysitting (thanks Grandma), and Char and I go out some nights on our own to catch movies individually.
It turns out I saw a lot of movies in 2009! Good for me. We had a new theatre open up near us this year, the Westmount VIP is about a 5 minute drive from our house, and it’s a spectacular facility. I’d say I saw about 80% of my movies there. The VIP part is that you can pay about $5.00 more for a ticket with reserved seating in a theatre where they have plush leather seats, concession people come to your seat, and because it’s licensed it’s 19+ (which means no annoying kids!).
Here were my favourite movies of 2009 in alphabetical order (because ranking them 1-10 is kind of pointless).
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Ooooo, Foreshadowing!
Okay, we all know that The Phantom Menace was a bad movie. But WHY was it a bad movie? This dude explores the minute details of what sucked over the course of seven 10 minute clips…and they’re fascinating, while still being funny (inappropriate, curse filled in some points, but freaking hilarious).
James Cameron's Avatar
This has been a big year for movies. There was a lot of really good stuff. Star Trek set the bar of how good Sci Fi could be and rejuvinated a tired franchise. The Hurt Locker set new standards for what tension could be. Inglorious Basterds reinvented the war movie. UP showed us that even when the concept is baffling on paper, Pixar can make it work (seriously, who expected a movie with a cranky old dude as the main protagonist to be an action adventure flick?).
It was also a year where special effects became boring. I sat through both GI Joe and Transformers, and was pretty much bored the entire time. Both Stephen Somers and Michael Bay have forgotten that in order for action to have impact, you need pauses for the audience to catch up.
James Cameron finally showed us what he’s been working on for the last decade and a half, and while the story itself is a rehash of existing material…the technology he showcased and the art direction entirely redefined movies as we know them, and made me a believer in 3D which up until now was a weird gimmick I had little interest in looking at.
I could go on at length about how beautiful it was, how Cameron once again pushed technology to its’ limits, or how 3D may be the silver bullet that kills movie piracy.
Instead of that I’ll tease you with one word.
Wow.
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Michael Jackson's This Is It
Michael Jackson is my generation’s Elvis Presley. We grew up with his music, and for many of us, his songs are the soundtrack of the 80′s. I remember in grade 6 when Ms. Hutchinson gathered us all on the 2nd floor to watch the brand new Michael Jackson video for Thriller, and how it made me realize that you could make a movie in 8 minutes.
Much like Presley, Jackson was not known for his performances in the end, but rather the circus that surrounded him. He became a bad punchline to an unfunny joke. Unlike Presley ugly allegations surrounded Jackson and rumours of inappropriate conduct with minors.
The last decade of his life far outshone the first four decades, his death (ironically of drug abuse much like Presley’s) came as both a shock, and to no real surprise. We had seen him literally fall apart before our eyes for years.
Still, Michael Jackson left a legacy of music that can’t be overlooked. He’s the most important pop figure of the last 30 years (with only Madonna arguably being in his stratosphere), and this film is a chronicle of the preparations for his final European tour.
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Disney Pixar's Up
I’ve actually managed to watch quite a few summer movies this year, and other than Star Trek, I haven’t mentioned any of them. So this is a quick blow out review list of Wolverine, Fast and Furious, Up, The Hangover, and Drag Me To Hell.
I’ve still yet to see Terminator Salvation and Transformers 2 (both pure popcorn movies), and I really want to see Away We Go (although I doubt it will play in London), but so far I’m really impressed with the summer movie crop.
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Star Trek the Movie
I love a good science fiction film, and in the last decade there have only been a handful of really great ones. I also love the original Star Trek series, not enough that I know trivia, or would die if I ran into Leonard Nemoy or anything (though I would go mental if I met William Shatner). I love Star Trek 2, 6, and First Contact, because they’re sci fi first and Star Trek second.
The new Star Trek abandons all of the continuity of the original series, but keeps the archetypal relationships, the technology, and keeps the spirit of the original without being a slave to the cannon of the various Trek series.
JJ Abrams took all of the elements that worked, turned them up to 11 and discarded the rest.
Dr Manhattan from Watchmen
Today Char and I got to catch a matinee of Watchmen, and it was…
Watchmen, for those of you who don’t know is the adaptation of a 12 issue mini-series produced by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in 1987 (and available on All New Comics as a softcover and hardcover edition). It is about big ideas, treating comic book superheroes as if they were in a real world setting, and the changes that would happen to history if this were the case.
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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Char and I were able to get out to a movie this evening (thanks to the stellar babysitting services of my Mom and Dad), and we caught The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I’ve been wanting to see since the first trailers were released nearly a year ago. David Fincher is a great director, and even his films that don’t totally engross me (such as the Jodi Foster vehicle “Panic Room”) still have moments in them.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button however is epic in scope, gorgeous in execution, and tells a haunting and memorable story.
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Hellboy II The Golden Army
The first Hellboy movie was a good film. It had spectacular visuals, it had a good protagonist, it had cool villians, and it told a decent story.
It wasn’t great though. For all of the “good stuff” about it, there was something missing. I feel this way with all of Del Toro’s movies (although Pan’s Labirynth was the closest he’s come to having a complete film). There’s something missing, and I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what it is that would take his stuff to the next level. That’s why the French call that certain something a “je ne sais quoi”.
The same is true with this movie. It was good, but it just wasn’t great. It’s a case of the sum of the parts not equaling up to the whole.
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