Spoilerific Thoughts: ‘Avatar’ is No ‘Dances With Wolves,’ and More…
by John NolteSpoilerific means there are spoilers. I hope that’s clear, because now that these films have been out for a while it seems safer to give away more information regarding plot and go into greater detail as to what’s so terribly wrong with them. In the case of “Precious” and “Up in the Air” there was more I wanted to say in the initial review and didn’t. With “Avatar” I just want to address the “Dances With Wolves” comparisons.
Avatar vs. Dances With Wolves
Comparing Kevin Costner’s elegant and moving Oscar-winning Western to the junk that is “Avatar” is unfair. There are similarities in the messaging, but when it comes to the execution and storytelling – the only thing that counts — the juvenile “Avatar” is a Scooby-Doo episode compared to “Wolves.”
In the first twenty-minutes (heck, in the trailer), the ham-fisted James Cameron telegraphs every plot point, character arc and moment, right down to the natives’ trendy spiritualism and insufferable sanctimony, all the way through to the protagonist’s eventual decision to turn on his own people and fight for his nobly dull new friends. The climax of “Titanic” is more surprising than ”Avatar,” and there are drivers-ed films with more humor.
“Wolves” is nothing like “Avatar.” Costner’s timeless epic not only gave the Sioux very human and relatable qualities but also a winning sense of humor. The eventual confrontation with the whites in “Wolves” is not telegraphed Avatar-style. Which means that when the Union soldiers do arrive it’s a major shock to our system. Wisely and intentionally, Costner doesn’t give the audience any more information than our protagonist. We are completely with John Dunbar and living in his mindset, and for two majestic hours we forget all about the whites and are just as drawn to and emotionally invested in the Sioux as he is. This is the difference between dull, childish preaching and mature storytelling, the difference between characters reduced to pious symbols of leftism and real living beings.
All the 3D and CGI might make the initial attack on the Na’Vi Home Tree “way cool” for people who like to watch other people play video games, but the actual moment is so preordained that on an emotional level it rates a just below a zero. Compare that to when the Union soldiers first arrive in “Wolves.” The moment is emotionally devastating. Our own harmony and peace is as shattered as the characters in the movie. We’re just as caught off guard as they are.
It’s also worth mentioning that in “Wolves” the first threat to the Sioux’s way of life are not whites but another tribe of Indians; the bloodthirsty Pawnee who are just as “imperialistic” in their goals to steal land and take slaves as any white man.
“Wolves” is a legendary piece of filmmaking and much more complicated and worthy than some of my fellow conservatives give it credit for.
Precious
In my review I called “Precious” pointless and all but said the story was nihilistic. Those who disagree say that’s unfair because the protagonist overcomes her abusive life and heads down a road towards becoming a good mother to her two infant children. Yes, that’s true, but near the end of the film, in one final ugly and pointless twist, we learn that when she was raped by her father, Precious contracted AIDS.
“Precious” is set in the eighties, so the screenplay has just intentionally handed the poor girl a death sentence. Which means that all that escaping abuse and trying to be a good mother stuff is now pointless. Those kids won’t have a chance after their mother’s dead. Where are they going to go?
As the end credits rolled, in my mind I fast-forwarded a few years and realized that in all likelihood the children would either end up in foster care or in the exact same situation Precious escaped from: living with Precious’ mother — their grandmother — a sexually and physically abusive welfare-addict from hell.
Giving Precious AIDS undercut the theme of the film and struck me as reaching for importance at the expense of what would’ve otherwise been a hopeful and uplifting narrative. It was as though someone looked at the story and saw that all the politically correct boxes had been checked except AIDS.
Up in the Air vs. Shampoo
After years of enjoying emotional detachment from the world as he made a healthy living flying around the country firing people, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) predictably meets his match in Alex (Vera Farmiga) and predictably falls in love with her. My review went that far but what was so disappointing about the film I felt I had to leave out.
Once Bingham realizes he loves Alex and needs her to fill his empty life, he dashes through an airport, shows up at her house unannounced, and discovers that she’s happily married. A few minutes later we fade to black basked in the irony of Bingham staring at a list of airplane flights with no idea where to go.
What should’ve been an emotionally devastating turning point for the character (and the audience) is handled with cliches (running through an airport?) and that infuriating detached irony that’s starting to define the adult drama (which is one reason the genre’s failing).
In my review, I compared Jason Reitman’s film to Hal Ashby’s masterpiece “Shampoo,” a similar character study of a womanizer (the fantastic Warren Beatty) who prides himself on his casual emotional detachment and uses his job as a hairdresser to target sexual conquests.
But watch the last sequence in “Shampoo” (above) when the Beatty character realizes he’s in love with Julie Christie and and begs her to marry him. Suddenly this crude, R-rated and very adult dramedy turns downright sentimental as Beatty’s character completely breaks down as he confesses his love to her. The moment is heartbreaking, poignant and … real. No irony, no too-smart-for-itself reach for an iconic moment.
Detached irony is lazy and takes no courage to execute. If it works on paper it will most likely work on film because it’s only about that particular story beat and requires nothing more from the actor than remaining safely understated. On the other hand, Beatty’s performance took real courage. Scenes like that walk the edge of a cliff where mawkish and over-the-top are a constant threat. And Hal Ashby has to be right there with him making sure no one falls.
Those final redemptive moments of “Shampoo” make you want to see the movie again and again. “Up in the Air” doesn’t have the guts to aim for an emotional target and so it shrugs instead and settles for trying to be “clever.”
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?
811 Comments
After getting over the shock of those clothes and that hair, I kind of want to see Shampoo now. Even though I know how it's going to end. I want to know if that other guy is really such a better choice!
I still disagree on Precious. Most people (especially in 1987) would've given up on life after contracting AIDS. Yet Precious moves forward with her 2 babies.
LA natives might be familiar with activist Ted Hayes. He has been saying for years that socialism and the welfare mentality have been destroying the black community, keeping them down in a state of perpetual need.
Let a liberal watch Precious and then scoff when a conservative talks about the need for family values.
Im really getting fed up with the Avatar video game comparisons. If anyone new the amont of work that went into a CG movie versus a video game wouldn't make such ignorant statements. Every fully CG frame of Avatar (framed separatly for both eyes for the 3D effect) took 50 hours to render on computers several times more powerful then the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360. A video game in order to remain interactive to the player must render the game at at least 24 frames per second. Due the math. It would require a game console well over 100 million times as powerful as any game console we play today to render Avatar quality CG. Even low budget CGI television series are sometimes able to top the best game console graphics much less the most expensive technologically advanced movie ever made. There is debate as to whether or not the next generation of consoles will be able to render graphics equal to Toy Story released in 1995. Nobody is seriously talking about video games that render Avatar quality effects in anything other then science fiction movies.
Sorry, John,
I often find myself in agreement with your reviews, but "Dances with Wolves" was pure liberal romanticism. Yes, he gave the Sioux plenty of depth and humanity, but could he have bothered to do the same for one single white person who wasn't Dunbar or his girlfriend, both of whom renounced their heritage to become "noble savages"? The rest of them, soldiers or no, are without exception slovenly beasts or demonic mass murderers. A little bit of balance might have saved the film, but without that it's just another sermon.
Only people in movies wore their hair like that and by the time the common folk got up the courage it was the 80's. This explains the phenomenon of 80's hairstyles.
I agree with the sanctimony in Avatar. It's typical 'romanticism of the oppressed.'
Very good point. Praising Dances with Wolves politically while condemning Avatar makes little sense. Sure Avatar may be more predictable but predictability and politics are very separate things.
It took 50 hours per frame to render? That's insane!
I thougt this had pretty good CG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk2wViKSh_M
Precious is "saved" by the welfare state. It's not as if she found God and got a job. Public hospitals, homes, social worker, school programs… The movie worships the welfare state. Mom just abused it, that's all.
I never praised the film politically. I simply said it's more complicated and am mainly arguing that it's a very god film regardless of politics.
http://www.hdwallpapers.in/walls/jake_sully__neyt...
http://www.ps3news.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/...
I suggest comparing a high resolution shot from Avatar to the Uncharted 2 Among Theives in my opinion the best looking video game on any console. You will see that even compared to the best video game graphics there is (minus a couple very high end PC titles) the level of detail in the game doesn't come within the smallest fraction. Look at the Navis skin and all the small poors and imperfections or the whites of these eyes with the relections. That is an amazing level of detail and even the best game won't come close to replecating for at least 20 years. The difference is even greater in motion as video games frequently have to cut corners on movement to keep the frame rate high compared to Avatar with a motion capture system that nailed realistic movement and facial expression. It had none of the dead face effect that hurt Robert Zemkis's animated features just pure lifelike motion. This comparing it to a video game has to stop and stop now.
My sister tried to make me go see Avatar. She kept trying to get the geek in me intrigued by touting it's "state of the art" graphics. Problem is, I'm a gamer. The cinematic cutscenes for a lot of the newer games are both visually more striking (sand blowing across the screen, a desert that *looks* both dry as bone and like it could burn your feet), and emotionally striking. One need only watch the trailers for games like Assassin's Creed and Final Fantasy 13 to see that Cameron is trailing the electronics industry in all aspects with this movie.
http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/feature.php?id=755
Yup. 50 hours a frame. That is for both eyes however. 3D effects must render a slightly different frame for each eye to achieve the 3D effect. Also read on the massive render farms used to render the effects.
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/...
Please read my above post that totally debunks the "Avatar looks like a video game" nonsense
I actually own Assassins Creed and though the videos of Renesance Italy are incredible the detail of Avatar isn't even remotely close to being replicated.
regarding the public school system, liberals are for 'social advancement' which pushes failing students forward for 'social' reasons. That's why there are 16 year olds who can't read. Precious was put in a charter school of sorts which actually put education ahead of labor. (teacher's union)
I don't think the social worker saved her; just gave her a venue to evaluate her relationship with her mother. Same with her teacher. It's not entirely Leftist to have a dedicated teacher impact your life. "Workfare" was criticized in favor of getting a real job, independant of the government because those jobs are b.s.
Her mom abused the system along with everyone else. They make a point of showing her neighbor abusing her daughter and saying, 'just sit there and shut up. I gotta make sure my sh** doesn't get cut off." That's where we (and Precious) see the destructive cycle of abuse that is welfare.
That's just wrong.
And although she didn't necessarily find God, she did dream about singing in a church choir with her baby, a dog and make-believe boyfriend.
The life she wanted included a loving family, a non-government assisted job and possibly to go to church. Possibly.
I'm sorry Thomas but that's pure rationalization. "of sorts" "don' t think social worker." "Workfare?"
It was purely the STATE that supposedly saved her. Gub'mint. Gub'mint. Gub'mint.
No Priest, not free enterprise. Caveat it all you want…
I don't care about render hours, it still looks like a video game or a CGI animated film.
Never once did it look organic, never once did it top Jurassic Park in the selling reality department.
50 hours per frame or 500 it still looks gamey.
Despite your lucid argument, the parallel that unfortunately comes to mind is of constipation.
No matter the strain, energy, or time required to achieve the end result,
what you get is still a piece of …
why don't they just hire some tall Somalis, paint them blue, and carry on? Really, nerds make their lives so difficult.
My main problem with Dances with Wolves was that The Girl, who had been part of the Sioux tribe for years, had a curly hollywood hairdo. Bad.
awesome movie
It seems that when non-religious people want to give a slight acknowledgement to religion, they head straight for the choir. Everyone knows that religion is meaningful to people when they are down and out. And what is the quintessential church experience for everyone who knows nothing about church? The fact that people who go to church stand in rows and sing.
Every now and then you get a movie like Dead Men Walking, where a non-religious cast and crew treat religion as a character worthy of respect. But most of the time religion in the hand of leftists is either tyrannical, or reduced to singing and high-fives.
Put your hands together for Sexual Chocolate!
So, Avatar has a LOT of detail, like skin pores, etc. Great. I'll rush right out and watch it, even if it is minus 40 right now…
Jurassic Park animated 6.5 minutes of CG dinosaurs against live action environments. Dinosaurs are about as easy to animated as any creature could be. No hair, no feathers, no floppy ears, and no facial expressions. Feeling expressive humaniods like the Navi require far more more work and processing power to get right. Not to mention that Avatar used digital effects for the entire world not just its creatures. Even ignoring all that Avatars world and its creatures are far more realistic and lifelike then Jurassic Parks dinosaurs. Im not trying to belittle Jurassic Park. It was an amazing achievement that propelled digital cinema forward (not to mention a damn good movie) but to say its more lifelike then Avatar couldn't be more wrong.
Jimbo you are completely correct and John has no idea what he's talking about.
The oppressed need and deserve a voice. It's a good film that does a valuable service in doing so.
One of the many problems with Dances With Wolves
Whats more is that the you can only tell the Navi are animated because there blue and have unhuman body dimensions. If the Navi were shorter, white skinned, and didn't have tails you would believe these were actors. Avatar is the first movie with truely photorealistic CG characters. Gollum came close. Beowulf had some stunning moments but you could ulitmately always tell they weren't real. Avatar nails everything. Facial expressions and character movements not to mention amazing realistic detail is nailed. Its far beyond anything else. Peronsally Id like to compare Avatars CG to real images and see if you could see the difference once all otherworldly elements are removed. Bet you and everyone else who complains about Avatars effects would be fooled.
I liked Sexual Chocolate.
I own Dances With Wolves and it is the same kind of very watchable tripe as Avatar. In fact, it is worse when criticized solely for its negative aspects, because the notion that a wolf can be a friend to a man in the absurd way depicted is in itself enough to dismiss Kostner's flick as sentimental nonsense. On Pandora, anything can be true since it depicts a fictional future rather than a supposedly "real" past.
[...] Read the Full Article @Big Hollywood avatar, Celebrity, Dances With Wolves, Film, Film News, Hollywood, Hot Gossip, james cameron, News, Politics, Precious, Tinseltown, Up in the Air, “Shampoo”No Comments » [...]
If you'll notice (or rationalize) Nurse John gives Precious $20 out of his own pocket. Ms. Rain gives another student money out of her own pocket. And lets Precious stay at her home of her own free will and expense. Socialism is being generous with other people's money.
And "workfare" was an actual project in NY back in the day. it didn't work.
Of all these movies I've only seen Dances With Wolves (which I was too young to appreciate possibly) but I just wanted to tell you that I've been following you for more almost two years now and I really love your insight into movies (even ones I've never seen nor plan to see!). Still miss the daily Dirty Harry's Place lecture series on film but I love love reading your opinions here. I've learned a ton and look at movies with a different angle. This was a great article.
Anyway, not to be all fanboy but thanks for all the hard work and keep it up!
You didn't spoil anything by the way. These movies were already spoiled.
Dudes!!
Jar-Jar Binks is, like, so totally real!
The "ironic moment" exists as a plague upon adult movies because the people who make them believe in nothing but their own ego and importance. They worship … themselves.
It is utterly, utterly empty.
No one can make movies about something because they only believe in themselves. Why did Clooney make "Up in the Air" and why has it failed (as most of his films have failed)? Because Clooney movies are about being George Clooney, an arrogant SOB who knows he is better than you, and is, and triumphs over other arrogant SOBs for the title of most arrogant SOB. They aren't actually about anything, and Clooney squandered his early 1990's likeability out of TV for … being a Tabloid superstar.
Which makes him happy but not audiences. I went from liking the guy and his performances in "Out of Sight" and "Three Kings" (which were movies about something, a guy trying to stand for something good beyond himself) to dreading any trailer he was in.
I definitely wasn't trying to dis Sexual Chocolate.
Maybe I'll get flamed for it, but I always liked "Dances With Wolves." I was in college when it came out though, so maybe the liberal indoctrination I was receiving at the time made me susceptible to liking it. I haven't watched it in years– I wonder if I'd still like it as much now that I'm *cough* older.
Point well taken.
Final Fantasy 13 looks like a plastic barbie doll version of a Korean drama, to even compare to the models and technology in Avatar is humorous at best. You're a gamer, I get it, doesn't mean you gotta say stuff you know nothing about.
I love games, hell I work for video games as a career, but to say that Avatar is trailing game technology is very untrue. I have yet to see a pre-rendered Final Fantasy cutscene as visually perfect as those presented in Avatar. Plus, most game characters look fucking weird up close. The pipeline is significantly shorter in a game than in a movie, they have to take shortcuts, with Avatar, they went all out, I've never seen facial expressions that well done in any game.
[...] more here: Spoilerific Thoughts: ‘Avatar’ is No ‘Dances With Wolves,’ and More… This entry is filed under America – Blogs, Big Hollywood. You can follow any responses to this [...]
You know, jimbo, I'm not happy with the Avatar, video game comparisons either, Compared to a good video game Avatar pales badly. Sure, Avatar looks spectacular, and the action is easy to follow, but . . . that's about it. Right now I'm playing Dragon Age: Origins, which, as any good fanboy or girl will tell you is lacking in graphics. Long in development, the Dragon Age designers didn't keep with graphics evolution, but . . . the story is deep and immersive, and the character development is mature. The comparisons I would make between Avatar and Dragon Age: Origins are similar to the comparisons John Nolte makes between Avatar and Dances With Wolves. Now, if you just like shiny things Avatar is your baby.
The state provides Precious with the opportunity to better herself, but she makes the decision to do so of her own free will. No one comes in and forcibly rescues her "for her own good," they put out the word and Precious makes the right decision to take them up on it.
(and I didn't even much LIKE the movie…)
I don't know Charlie. I was about on the ground laughing at the dialog in DA. When it got to the romance parts I was literally on the ground.
Now if Avatar is THAT funny, even if unintentionally, I may just like despite the fact that the smurfcats heads are too small.
Alrighty Jimmy, might I ask why exactly you get so "fed up" with people comparing Avatar to video games? I mean, regardless of who like what and who hates what in Avatar, you're really coming across as a sort of Avatar paladin. I think we all get you like Avatar but goodness.
The reason the game comments pop up is people "see" the CG in Avatar and realize it is CG. That's a very important distinction. I don't think anybody is claiming a video game is anywhere near the processing power required to make Avatar. (The latest video games aren't even a fraction of Pixar's films.) What they seem to be claiming is that the CG scenes in Avatar -remind- them of a video game simply because they recognize where the CG is. The suspension of disbelief is broken for people who see the CG. It's nothing to get fed up at. I'm sure there are plenty of people that can't see it and are completely fine with the small cat heads.
But regardless of all of that…. this Avatar thing really isn't worth getting upset over. I think there are more important things to get upset at currently.
Dances with wolves was a lousy film because of Costner. He is a stink bomb, that narration had no emotion at all. He should have use Robert Mitchum voice at least it would have given the film character. You can take Costner out of that film and still have something interesting. Graham Greene and they other lead Indian were the best thing in the film. This film is all leftist crap just like Avatar, its pure ego run amuck to cover the fact that both these so called filmmakers are no talent hacks.
I must have a perverse sense of humor, Mago, that's what I liked best, especially the cross-talk within the party–nearly as good as Mass Effect.
I will say out of all the companies out there Bioware probably does the best. Unfortunately that isn't saying a whole lot. (I mean, think of Oblivion. Aside from being pretty (if modded) that was a major FAIL all over the place plot wise.) Oh, and I completely agree about the lack of decent graphics in DA. It's TERRIBLE. But hey, plenty of laughs to be had with that cliched plotline and wonky dialog.
Also… out of all the commercial gaming companies…. Bioware has got the inter party cross-talk down fairly well.
That said, I've played some player made stuff that makes Bioware's plots and party interaction seem amateurish.
Faramir,
At some point in the future I'll be writing a lot more about this film for my FOR CONSERVATIVE MOVIE LOVERS series, but for now I'll just say that John's right: DANCES actually does a great job at RESISTING liberal romanticism. Frankly, your charges here are pretty indefensible (contrary to what you state so factually, plenty of whites are portrayed with "depth and humanity" in DANCES, Dunbar and his wife don't "renounce their heritage," and not a single white is portrayed as a "slovenly beast or demonic mass murderer").
I've been gritting my teeth these past few weeks watching the masterpiece that is DANCES WITH WOLVES get sloppily linked to a piece of mindless leftist propaganda like AVATAR. If there is one film that DANCES merits linkage to, it's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (another film that gets slammed as anti-Western and pro-"Noble Savage"). But I'll save the details for my (God willing, forthcoming some day) essay.
Since your handle here is "Faramir," I have to ask: what did you think of the hatchet-job Peter Jackson gave that character in his (awful, in my opinion) adaptation of Tolkien's books?
Dammit, Fonz, that was funny. You´re sooo mean.
You're not alone in this, I like the movie as well. Athough I have the theatrical DVD, I've watched the newer editions of the movie when it's on network TV, the ones with scenes added, and noted that Costner had many scenes that were cut out of the original that painted the Souix in a less than positive light, the torturing of the buffalo hunters for example. I always thought he should have left those scenes in, thus making a very decent film better.
I think Dances with Wolves is a liberal movie, but mostly in the context of knowing that the left has been exploiting white guilt for political gain at every opportunity. In a sane world where history hasn´t been turned into an ideological battlefield and the basic superiority of western civilization isn´t constantly questioned but frequently celebrated, few things about the movie would strike us as particulary galling.
Without that same context Avatar would still be a silly story badly told.
Most of all, it is well told and made: gorgeously photographed, with a magnificient score and plenty of excitement and heart, told on an epic scale. You know, what Hollywood is supposed to be good at but increasingly can´t b bothered to provide.
This is exactly the point I was gonna make: The Avatar/video game comparisons do video games a disservice. The most linear, rigid RPG tends to have a story with more depth than Avatar.
I thought LotR could have been much worse. They did get many choices right, starting with the courageous decision to do three movies. I love the look and feel of it. But I have my long list of disappointments and what angers me is that all of them have absolutely nothing to do with money or running time. Jackson needlessly departed from Tolkien in ways that made the movies weaker, and it got worse with every movie, "Fellowship" being easily the best. By the time you come to the extended scenes in "Return of the King" you can´t help thinking that they lost interest in what they were doing. The character of Denethor, for example, was completely mishandled. So was Grima. And many others. The most stupid and unnecessary scene must be when Sam finds the Lembas bread on the stairs and decides to go back. You mean he didn´t know if he had stolen it or not? WTF?
I love your series, by the way. Very much looking forward to future installments.
"(the fantastic Warren Beatty)"
Yeah, he played Dick Tracy with all the manliness and gusto of a pile of Silly Putty. Sorry, but I've never liked Beatty in anything.
White washing is not a valuable service.
"Dances with Wolves" strikes me a as good though a somewhat smurfastic movie.
It relies a little to heavily on the reversal of cliches of older westerns to generate it's drama. Like "Little Big Man".
However, if you see it as a (very long) triple feature with "Black Robe" and "Last Of The Mohicans" you get a pretty well-rounded view of Indian life. ie. pastoral hunter/gathers engaged in near constant low level warfare and blood feuds.
Hence, the warrior culture, which is something Avatar leaves out. A warrior culture is un-necessary in the absence of war. Logically, the Na'vi could not have been peaceful little smurfs.
If you follow up, that triple feature with "The Searchers" and "Apocalypto", you get a great context for the tragedy of indian/ Settler interactions as well as a glimpse of what "American" culture would be without Western influence.
Still,
AVATAR: A VIOLENT RIGHT-WING FANTASY
http://naturalfake.wordpress.com/2009/12/26/avata...
Exactly.
To be fair, I've only seen trailers for Avatar, so maybe it's better in theaters, but its special effects are showing. When I saw Star Wars, I said, "Cool, space ships!" When I saw Jurassic Park, I said, "Awesome! Dinosaurs." Seeing Avatar trailers makes me say, "Nice. Pretty CGI." But I never for one second believe that it is anything other than CGI or that Pandora is real.
Avatar shows what happens when you let a good director, write. It's obvious he can't do both so he needs to stick to what he used to do best, direct.
I guess I don't know what a "redemptive moment" is. To me, the end of Shampoo is a you-reap-what-you-sow moment. George falls in love with a female version of himself. He is nothing more to her than any of the other women were to him.
It was Clooney's good fortune that he started trying to be a movie star at a time when the ability to 'open' a movie (once virtually the sole requirement for the job) was becoming less and less important. He's been in some hit movies, but he was never the main reason that they became hits.
I remember when Clooney was starting out in movies towards the end of (and immediately after) his stint in ER, he gave some interviews where he sounded very humble. He seemed to recognize that there was a big element of luck to his success, and that it could all end tomorrow. I wonder now if he later became arrogant, or if he was simply faking being humble in the first place.
Watched Avatar, thought it was predictable, and it was so silly. Watched Up In The Air, it was predictable, then boring.
My favorite comment you have made lately John, is your last review of Precious when you called it:
Precious-By someone who really hates Precious. That was so, so true! I dont want to see this girl's hideous life that she has to keep fighting against, then have the ending with her having AIDS. Not exactly uplifting.
Union soldiers were barbarian pigs.
Wait, my Southern is showing, I'll put it back now. ;p
THANK YOU!!!!
Anyone care to compare Dances with Wolves to Little Big Man? I know – very different movies. But they both kind of broke the mold when it came to depicting Native Americans.
And while I agree with Nolte that DWW is a much better movie than Avatar, I wonder if some of the heavy-handedness in the latter's depiction of aboriginal people has to do with the genre. A sci-fi adventure movie doesn't usually have time to develop its characters in depth. It's probably easier to make them plug-n-play "natives" with a few sci-fi do-hickeys thrown in – like telepathy with animals and a mystical bond with their planet. Whatever do-hickey makes them sci-fi natives rather than regular natives is usually key to the story, but it doesn't necessarily make them interesting characters.
DWW, on the other hand, is mostly about Dunbar living with the Sioux, getting to know them, and finally identifying with them. But he doesn't just simplistically "go native" – it's a gradual process. And in the process, we learn about the Sioux both as a culture and as individuals. There's no rush to get to the final confrontation.
I saw Avatar last night and am sad to report that the reviews are spot on. Its as if Cameron directed it, but left the writing to his 6th grade son. The longer I thought about the movie, the more dissappointed I was in it. Visually, it was great, but the plot was so juvenile, it left me with an empty feeling. The effects were in 3-D, but the characters were 1-D.
General – He's a general in the military so he likes to kill stuff. End of chaacter development.
Corporate Guy – He's a business man so he likes to make money at other experience. End of character development.
Nav'i – They're tribal, so they love their planet and are all good people. End of character development.
So much potential in that movie and it was wasted.
My wife went to see "Up in the Air" with a friend and when she came home she said she hated it. I was surprsied since it had rave reviews (Michael Medved gave it 4 stars) and was on Best of 2009 lists. Your review probably explains why she had that reaction.
Well Dances with Wolves is a pretty good movie, not the best western ever made. Its worth watching. The West was settled pretty much by Veterans of the Civil War, contrary to what the movies say, There was really very little crime. The Great Plains Horse Culture didn't even have horses till the Spainards brought them to what is now America in the 1500's. Never the least it was what it was, The Federal Government along with the Tribes all had blood on their hands. The Indians were going to loose no matter what and they knew it. The Horse Soldiers of the United States Army were who they were, harden veterans of close combat in the East, They had a hard time in the wide open spaces of the West, never minded about being few in real numbers and poorly supported. The Tribes, well they were behind the eight ball from the get go, in order to get something as simple as a rifle, they had to trade for them, One side had and Industrial base to work with the other did not. And this is what Dances with Wolves tried to tell, I have not bothered with Avatar, from the trailers it looked like crap anyway. I would rather spend the time with "The Searchers" or "She wore a Yellow Ribbon" in other words I will take John Ford over James Cameron any day of the week., There is so many myths about the West between 1860 and 1900, that we take for true because that is what we saw in the movies, that its hard to explain what it really was. Every nation has its historic myths, For Us Americans its the Western as we know it from Book and Film. One of the better ones of a guy just wanting to find a place in post Civil War years is "The Outlaw Joesy Wales" The chat with Ten Bears says it all along with Chief Dan George stealing pretty much the whole movie. And all of the Armies Helicopters are named after the Tribes. The Army is even going back to the Blue Uniform, Going to the Future by looking at the past. My guess Helicopter pilots will be wearing Stetsons and carrying saddle bags again. Go to the movies for the entertainment value, not for any sense of real history with some exceptions to that. I you enjoyed Avatar good for you. Not everybody is going to like every thing.
Beatty's character redeems himself to the audience. FINALLY he's made the leap from narcissist to an actual human being willing to give himself to someone.
He's lost her but he'll never be the same afterwards. He knows what it is to be on the other side of a relationship with himself now. He was never a cruel man, he just didn't know before because he was so self-involved.
OK, heard this before. CGI is not a PC game, but it looks like one, taste like one, ergo it is one for all intents and purposses. To get a bit geeky, Linux is not UNIX, but it looks like it, smells like it, taste like it. Close enough for the non-pro.
Detached irony is lazy and takes no courage to execute.
This should be emblazoned in large letters over, around, behind and everywhere screenwriters and directors work.
Great comment! Especially, " In a sane world where history hasn´t been turned into an ideological battlefield and the basic superiority of western civilization isn´t constantly questioned but frequently celebrated, few things about the movie would strike us as particulary galling.
But in such a world, Avatar would still be a silly story."
i call Avatar "Dances with Ferngully." I consider myself a Cameron fan, but really, it's got some of the same PC BS he fed us in Titanic (class warfare) both Terminators (eco-selfdestruction) Abyss (military full of goons) etc. Only True Lies is somewhat redeeming….at least he got the enemy right that time…
"plenty of whites are portrayed with 'depth and humanity' in DANCES"
Which ones? The dumb, ugly farting guy or the guy who poops his pants? Yeah, real serious portrayals of the human condition.
You will always be able to tell creatures like the ones in Avatar are CGI simply because no such creatures in the real world exist. Since these are made up creatures from an alien planet far far away they aren't going to look real in that since. In terms of sheer realistic details and technological compexity Avatars effects work is unmatched. When a 10 foot tall blue alien holds a live action actor in her arms and both look equally convincing I think thats an achievement for the ages.
Funny thing is many of the story complaints about Avatar Mr Nolte makes I actually agree with and I too was slightly dissipointed with its lack of originality. However as a computer science minor who knows the amont of power and work that went into Avatar I find the video game comparisons insulting. Its basically a blanket all computer generated imagery is the same. Its incredibly ignorant in my mind.
"If there is one film that DANCES merits linkage to, it's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (another film that gets slammed as anti-Western and pro-'Noble Savage'"
I'm at a loss as to how Lawrence is more pro-Noble Savage than Dances. If nothing else, O'Toole is far more disillusioned at the end than Costner.
Avatar is a bit more of a "pop corn" style movie than Dances With Wolves, or perhaps a cartoon version. Look at the comparative other films of Cameron in contrast to Costner… Costner seems to be a more "serious" director. (Noteable exception: "Waterworld"…Maybe a Avatar should be compared to Waterworld more than Dances With Wolves!)
This doesn't change the obvious fact: Despite a wildly different messenger, the message at the heart of both movies is the same. You don't like it – and every article on this subject on this website tries to label it "stupid". But just because you don't like the message doesn't actually mean it is stupid. (More likely it only means that you are threatened by it.)
Remember when Dark Knight was a worldwide smash, and this site crowed for weeks about how it was proof that the world embraces conservative values and Batman was George Bush? Then Transformers 2 was almost as huge a smash, even though critics all hated it, but it proved that…um…people like robots to have testes, but they like soldiers, too? Now, a billion dollars in 3 weeks(!) later and it seems the world loves tree-hugging, leftist giant blue aliens. Aiiee! Maybe all successful movies prove is that worldwide, people just like big movies, regardless of their ideology?
I was um… quite young when Dances with Wolves came out so I saw it much later. I didn't like it. I thought it was overly depressing and made the Union guys out to be barbarian pigs.
(I won't complain too much though as that American Indian with the super long black hair was gorgeous but that's another story….
)
There was a lot of volume going on on her head, for sure.
Transformers 2 grossed in the neighborhood of Dark Knight or Avatar? If that's true then you may have a point.
Everything I heard about Transformers 2 sounded pretty bad tho.
From Andrew Leonard's recent article about Conservatives and Avatar…
"But what to make of the fact that a movie that portrays a very American-looking military in a profoundly unfavorable light is explosively popular with audiences all over the world? The Wall Street Journal reports that "Avatar" is already the most successful movie ever in Russia, and is drawing huge audiences from France to Brazil. "Avatar" has cleared $350 million in ticket sales in North America, but $670 million internationally.
Anti-Americanism sells — everywhere. Maybe instead of ripping their hair out at the tragedy of the mass enthusiasm for this "'Death Wish' for leftists" — conservatives should be trying to figure out just how such a thing came to pass."
http://salon.com/entertainment/movies/avatar/inde...
You don't like it – and every article on this subject on this website tries to label it "stupid". But just because you don't like the message doesn't actually mean it is stupid. (More likely it only means that you are threatened by it.)
I see we're going light on the Cognitive part of your name today. The articles on this website (and most others) bother to make the distinction between the technical aspects of this film, the strength of the story and the worldview conveyed in the telling/showing of the story.
The film is pretty, it has lots of 'sploshions and it is also shallow, vapid and predictable.
Some messages are stupid and yes, the message of this story is stupid…not threatening…just stoopid.
Second that! My high school concert band played the DWW score, it's as enjoyable to play as it is to listen to!
LOL being a kid and pre-teen during the 70's saved me from the hairstyles, but I still remember being made to dress 70-ish as a child. Of course once i hit 10 I found the wonders of jeans, t-shirts and flannel (long before Grunge made it popular *lol*).
OK, quote of the day RIGHT THERE!
You want to talk about real computing power, IBM's Deep Blue that beat the world chess champion.
As I understand it, the world's best chess players think 4 – 5 moves ahead while playing. Deep Blue was able to mathematically predict every possible outcome from every possible move, 9 moves in advance.
Though in my opinion the engineers did cheat some what by specially designing some computer modules specifically for chess, which essentially turns it into a special purpose computer rather than a general purpose one.
I used to work for IBM, so I was following that pretty closely (I used to work for a test team developing special purpose parallel processing computer for simulating hard ware designs, so I understood some of the tricks).
LOL.. I'm from NY and even I can appreciate that one.
While I never did finish up my comp sci degree (didn't feel like the torture of diff eq & linear algebra) I do have the equivalent of a 4 year degree in comp sci form corp. classes.
I haven't seen Avatar (and have no intention, those type of special effects make me nauseous) I'm not impressed. With the essential doubling of available computing power approximately every 18 months, it was only a matter of time till the hardware was available for these kinds of calculations.
Unfortunately that also means in about 3 years Avatar's CG will look as sophisticated as Toy Story does today.
Live by computing power, die by computing power.
That is exactly the point.
I must admit that the movie looks spectacular and realistic enough to me. It´s just that the sheer application of computing power doesn´t get me excited. In a couple of years Avatar will have been overtaken in every department.
Looks don´t last, good writing does.
and smells rather gamey too.
meesa tinks avatar is muy muy bantha poodoo.
I agree LOTR are three of my favorite movies and my favorite book, but there was some alterations that were just damn ass silly and unnecessary. Like taking Frodo's bets line in the whole series and giving it to a female elf who's nothing more than a foot note in the appendix.
"You shall have neither the ring nor me!"
It's at that point in the story where Gandelf realizes just how right he was in choosing hobbits for the task.
And why in the heck did they reduce the war for freeing the Shire to a minor dream flash back type sequence? That's where Pippen and Merry finally shine as real characters.
this is a great article about the avatar! http://www.moneyteachers.org/Deadmanmusings8.htm
i wonder what color the blue people crap? I mean, I bet James Cameron probably thought about that dont'cha think? He thought of just about everything else. I bet it was magenta.
I agree, though I would stay say the most technically advanced "good" movie I've seen is Team America.
You must be logged in to post a comment.