John’s Movie Musings

James Cameron’s last film was Titanic.  You  may have heard of it.  It made a few bucks at the box office.  Can you believe that was in ‘97?  Since then, Cameron took his new fortune and invested in 3D technologies.  He dived into the Atlantic Ocean and shot 3D footage of the real Titanic and explored the nuances of filming with two cameras. All of that knowledge and experience?  He put it into Avatar.  He just had to wait until the technology in the theaters could catch up with his vision.

Cameron just wasn’t learning about 3D this past decade.  He was also developing a process to animate believable, human expressions on CG characters.  That Uncanny Valley is too great of a challenge to just sit there, I guess.  WETA (The Lord of the Rings guys) mirrored real, full body performances of the actors onto blue, ten-foot tall CG aliens.  Before Avatar’s release, there were plenty of doubts about if this could work.  If it didn’t, you could bet there would be drinking games around all of the Smurfs and Thundercats jokes.  Fortunately, it all came together perfectly.

So there’s two paragraphs of me gushing about the technology in this movie.  The plot?  Wellll, it’s a story you’ve heard a few times.  But that’s not to say it’s bad.  In fact, other movies who have used it have won Oscars.  None of them had blue aliens, but neither has anyone created a world so amazing as Pandora (the planet).  The Discovery Channel could film a sequel to Planet Earth, call it Planet Pandora, and it would be just as good, or better than the orig- our real planet.  It’s an incredible feast for your senses.  And the best part?  No time is taken to explain the marvels of this planet.  It just exists, yet retains the wonder and mystery.

Avatar is meant to be seen in 3D.  But even if you take a trip to Pandora in 2D, go.  You’ve never experienced anything quite like it.

Grade: A

Cracked.com has some of the best writing out there. I love reading their stuff. Anyway, they’ve got an article posted on those things Hollywood “recycles.”  It’s great and pretty eye-opening if you’ve never read these things before.

Read it here.

In Pulp Fiction, Jules proudly exclaims, “That is a tasty burger” after a healthy bite of a Big Kahuna.  I bring up that scene, not just to highlight tasty burgers, but to remind you of the other fellow.  The one who can’t say anything but “what?!”  Food, Inc. reminded me of that scene due to its focus on meat, but also because as I was watching, I could say nothing else but “What?!”

There’s a saying in highly complicated manufacturing processes that it’s all “a bit like making sausage.”  You’ll enjoy the end product, but you really don’t want to know how it’s made.  Food, Inc. shows how all of our food is a bit like making sausage.  Those packages of meat at the grocery store go through a process so bizarre, you’d be tempted to go vegetarian if you knew how they got there.  Sadly, vegetables aren’t much better.

I first saw posters of this movie in Chipotle.  That restaurant pushes its “Organic” ingredients so I kind of knew what to expect going into this.  Still, actually watching how we raise and slaughter our chickens, pigs, and cows turned my stomach.  There’s a Proverb that says, “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.”  In your eyes, slaughtering animals for food may be cruel in any capacity, but I don’t go too far down that road.  There’s a lengthy scene in the movie where we watch an organic chicken farmer slaughter chickens.  It’s graphic, sure, but when compared to how the large chicken farms are harvested, there is a very clear line between humane and cruel.

I’m not sure what effect this movie will have on people.  I’ve heard some say we’re just at the mercy of evil corporations, but I was glad to see Food, Inc. show that’s not the case.  Corporations follow the money.  If we want healthier food, it’s our responsibility to shift our spending that direction.

Grade: A

Ain’t It Cool News just posted these.

*drool…

Back when I was working in Corporate America, I’d be forced to take seminars teaching how to protect against corporate espionage.  They were always filled with badly acted short-films where some hottie approches an engineer at a bar and seduces the company secrets from his pants.  It all sounds Bond-ish and awesome, but I’ve never known anyone getting in situations even close to that.  But hey, it makes great movies, right?  Right?

Duplicity looks at the exciting-because-we-tell-you-it-is world of lotions and creams.  You’ve got two CEOs of megacorps who hate each other and will do anything to get the upper hand.  This includes hiring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen as spies.  Perfect.  When those two are working with a bunch of lotion engineers, no one would ever pay any attention to them.  Completely invisible, I tell ya.

So the movie tries to throw a bunch of different twists to get you all confused.  But the reality is that you’re watching two people try and steal a secret formula from one multi-billion dollar CEO to another.  That’s about exciting as making a movie about stealing the Colonel’s secret blend of herbs, spices, and fortnightly craving additives.  Actually, someone needs to make that.

Duplicity has a few high points, but it is pretty much average in every way.

Grade: C

Robert Zemekis is a madman.  Yes, the same director who gave us Back to the Future has now established residence in the Uncanny Valley (wiki) with the insane task of bridging it.  For three films in a row (Polar Express, Beowulf, A Christmas Carol), the loonies at ImageMovers have used a process that morphs real actors into 3D avatars with the intention of making them look real.  Madness, I tell you.

For A Christmas Carol, Jim Carrey gets lured into the wackiness.  And you know what?  Zemekis is getting good.  Each successive movie displays great strides in the animation quality as well as the 3D effects.  Carrey plays/voices Scrooge and all the ghosts (plus a few others) and every character looks more human than anyone in Beowulf or Polar Express.  That’s not saying much, since Zombie Tom Hanks is looking frighteningly dated these days

The only reason to see this in the theaters is for the 3D.  Directors are now out of the gimmick phase of 3D (well, most of them), and starting to use the extra dimension in artistic ways.  The Toy Story 3 trailer makes the characters go dark when they pop out of the screen.  This looks like they have left the bright light of the screen world, and into the darkened theater.  It’s awesome if you haven’t seen it.

For A Christmas Carol, Zemekis also tackles light and shadow effects to great effect.  Watching a light fade “down” a hallway creates an effect I have never seen in film.  On the other end of the spectrum, the shadow of the Ghost of Christmas Future is used to create fascinting scenes of dread.  Pay attention if you go see this.

One word of caution.  This is the scariest version of the story, by far.  It’s animated, so you may be tempted to bring your little ones.  One couple did the same in my showing and had to leave early.  If you’ve got kiddos who scare easy, avoid this.

Overall, A Christmas Carol is a hard movie to review.  You know the story, so that’s not much of a draw.  There were enough technical feats to satisfy my inner geek, but he’s probably crazier than Zemekis.

Grade: B-

If you didn’t know, Hollywood is remaking Clash of the Titans.  I grew up on that movie and I still stop and watch when I see it on TV.  Ain’t it Cool News has some teaser posters for the film and they look incredible.  My ten-year-old inner geek is leaping with anticipation.

See the rest here: (Ain’t it Cool News)