Well whaddya know—I kinda thought Avatar was the shit. It’s me and Avatar all day today at The Auteurs’—first, I cast a cold eye on the pot-stirring nay-sayers in my Topics etc. column, then I give an account of the film itself in a review. Comment here, there, anywhere; it’s all anyone’s gonna be talking about for a while in any event.
Well, of course we’re gonna see it, Glenn. Even if we think the Na’vi look like they walked straight off of FERNGULLY.
Snarkiness aside, though, I always feel like Cameron’s films are enjoyable, even if I don’t necessarily go “all in” as some others do.
In regards to THE ABYSS, have you seen the extended version? Do you have a problem with that cut as well? What are your problems with either version?
As a Cameron ‘groupie’ from way back I find it hard to express fully how much it means to have Cameron ‘back’. This is a guy that I actually love on a certain level, for filling my teenage imagination with the sights and sounds of The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2 and True Lies (which is still the last good action blockbuster IMO – as Jan DeBont said at the time “How do you top that?”, turns out nobody could, until now perhaps).
Disappointed you don’t like The Abyss though, personally I find it to be Cameron’s most interesting film.
Dammit, Glenn– I was all set to ignore this film and mock its trailer some more on Facebook, and then you had to go and drop those Kirby and Steranko references, and now I kind of want to see it (it also looks like we like/dislike the same Cameron films). Love the comparison between Kirby and Cameron’s dialogue, too– a very apt comparison, I think, but one I hadn’t thought of before. Thanks for the very cool review.
People always criticise Cameron’s dialogue, but I guarantee we’ll all be quoting it happily before long. What’s the alternative – Kurtzman and Orci? I wouldn’t let them near a shopping list.
“This despite the fact that it wouldn’t be a stretch to interpret the picture as a call for worldwide jihad, and its hero Jake Sully as a more competent, successful John Walker Lindh. Okay, I’m playing here. A bit. But man, those buzz phrases “shock and awe,” “fight terror with terror” and “preemptive war” didn’t come out of nowhere. We can discuss this further after you’ve seen the picture. Which you ought to.”
No thank you.
After watching an advance scene online, I got worried that the film would be too overloaded with hyper-viewpoints and impossible physics, with lots of crowded swoops, like the dinosaur sequence from Peter Jackson’s KING KONG (a sequence I loathe). Is it more coherent than that, visually? I’m hoping so…Cameron’s stuff in the past has been at least clean, from a mise-en-scene perspective.
I’ve been waiting for an excuse to get excited about this, so thanks. My only qualm is about the 3D; would you say Cameron uses it artfully? I tend to find the whole 3D thing rather obnoxious, but I acknowledge that there are artistic possibilities therein…
I enjoyed a lot of the film – great to see Sigourney Weaver in any form, thought Zoe Saldana really created a character even through the motion capture, and felt the final 45 minutres were truly kick ass.
Was the whole film groundbreaking? I don’t know. I still haven’t seen 3D used in the same change-the-form way that widescreen (or color, or souund) was. And for all the press, this motion-capture/CGI was slightly better – but not much.
Again, I had a decent enough time. A fun one, honestly. But, yeah, what I found really annoying as the film went on was Cameron’s taking a 22nd-century story, and then using it to overlay ‘7os antiwar politics on top of current events.
I mean, I get the whole better-I-betray-my-country-than-my-friend thing that at’s the heart of our hero’s rebellion. And the re-purposing of our 19th-century-American colonialism to address other, modern sins is obvious (and accepted) in films from “Soldier Blue” to “Little Big Man” and beyond.
But Cameron then takes all that evil Army-against-soulful-Native-American-warriors stuff and tries – very clumsily – to use it for an anti-Iraq-War message. (He even, as you note, has characters talk about “daisy-cutter bombs” and fighting “terror with terror” and a “shock-and-awe campaign.”)
And yeah, you can be totally against the Iraq war, for a number of reasons. I was, and am. And you can think the Native Americans came out the losers in a long-ago genocidal war with John Ford’s soldiers. I do.
But you can’t just take “Dances With Wolves,” stick it in space, add some contemporary references, and think you’re making a statement about Basra.
Because, whatever you think of our policies in the Middle East, the one thing they AREN’T about is a war in which a superior technological culture tries to wipe out an endangered world of sensitive, New Age eco-warriors.
And making a movie in which the “happy ending” consists of the hero killing hundreds of his former comrades – while the rebel women ululate war cries – is either the biggest balls-to-the-wall radical stance I can think of or just plain stupid.
And I’m going to say the latter.
@ Stephen: I know what you mean. I was wondering if I was going a little over-the-top with my “it wouldn’t be a stretch…” interpretation, and I think I was, anticipating that SOME chucklehead will eventually make that interpretation in earnest…but, yeah. The buzzwords aren’t even on a dog-whistle level, and that ululating bit—just one shot, but a real WTF? moment—is the sort of thing that studio executives are good for. As in, “Jim, lose the ululating bit.”
So, as the commercial says, “It’s in there.” DId it spoil the movie for me? Not entirely; such are the joys of being something of a formalist. Is it going to change young hearts and minds? Very doubtful. Is it, as you say, stupid? Yeah. Or if you want to take a kinder stance, extremely ill-considered.
I’m probably gonna blow this thing off for a few reasons: 1) as a writer, the dialogue in the trailers makes my head hurt; 2) the plot makes my head hurt even more; 3) it’s almost three hours long; 4) I just don’t like the alien character design.
Unrelated aside: The Abyss is my favorite Cameron movie.
@Glenn
And, as a p.s., I think the REALLY amusing media question is – what are the angry yellers at Fox News going to make out of this, coming as it does from their sister studio? Rage and fulminate, as they would if it were coming from those degenerate, cosmopolitan Weinsteins? Or somehow, conveniently, give it a pass?
I always *liked* Kirby’s dialogue, “on-the-noseness” and all. Like his art/storytelling/wealth of crazy-ass ideas, it’s like he’s punching you in the forehead with his dialogue. I can see where it doesn’t necessarily fit every story– or even most stories– but when you have the Black Racer– it’s Death on frickin’ skis!, or, to be more accurate, a paraplegic Viet Nam vet who transforms into Death on frickin’ skis! – it kinda fits.
As to whether or not that sort of dialogue works for Cameron, well, that’s a whole ‘nother story, and being that I haven’t seen Avatar yet, and probably won’t for a few weeks yet, I don’t have an opinion on that, per se. Though his dialogue in his science fiction films worked a lot better for me than his dialogue in Titanic; like George Lucas, I think the farther Cameron stays away from “romantic” dialogue, the better.
@ Stephen: Unless Prince Rupert really wants to appear obtrusively meddlesome, there’s no way that Fox News will be able to let this lie; just as it drives a certain segment of conservatism, it is also driven by that segment. It’ll be interesting to track once the film comes out.
@ Tom: Flippa DIppa lives! I come to love the awkward earnestness of Kirby’s dialogue (and captions), which of course has nothing at all to do with whether it’s “good” or not.
Dammit, Glenn! Now I actually want to see this. Sam Worthington does kind of have the face for a Kirby hero…I could actually see him playing Orion in a New Gods movie. I was always more of a DC guy so the Kirby stuff in my collection is mostly New Gods/Fourth World, and I can sort of see shades of that in the clips and screens for Avatar.
After reading Stephen Whitty’s assessment, I must say I can’t wait for John Nolte’s review. And that isn’t because I’m certain he’ll hate it–the man did give a good review to Che.
On other hand, this is a cinch to turn Debbie Schlussel as blue as Zoe Saldana’s character. Good times ahead, folks.
Titanic was definitely a left-wing reading of that catastrophe, so the Avatar themes as Glenn describes them don’t surprise me. But I will also be very interested in seeing how Cameron’s underappreciated flair for the romantic/women’s picture angle plays in Avatar. You guys find your references, and I’ll find mine. 😀
James Cameron, the anti-Ozu. It’s for this reason that “Aliens” is his best movie, because a woman not wanting a small girl from being eaten alive by vicious, genocidal imperialists is more emotionally real than making love to a woman once, getting her pregnant, and dying shortly afterwards.
So everyone who has seen AVATAR seems to agree that it’s a blatant Iraq war allegory that apparently roots for the death of American soldiers at the hands of peaceful (in Cameron’s version) terrorists, and yet all anyone seems to care about is how crazy this is going to make conservative critics. That’s interesting.
Whoa, Bill. I don’t think the film actually roots for the death of American soldiers. I think it uses certain symbolism and terminology very irresponsibly (that’s not my preferred term, but it’ll have to do at the moment), and I’m not cool with that, and neither is S. Whitty. There are a bunch of dimensions to this situation to be discussed, but let me make clear that I find a lot of what’s in “Avatar” pretty off-putting, and am a little surprised at what, say, Nolte did NOT notice.
Oh, I’m sure if you asked Cameron if he rooted for the deaths of American soldiers, he’d be aghast at the very idea. But, I mean, look at what Whitty (and, clearly, I shouldn’t have said “everyone”, but the more I read, the more pissed off I become, and so I wrote my last comment in the heat of that – I apologize) and, well, YOU, lay out as evidence for the film’s irresponsibility, and then acknowledge – I’m not wrong about this, am I? – that the villains in this film are the American military (and yes, corporations, of course), and then consider, if not what I proposed, then what IS the film rooting for? At least regarding the combat scenes.
Look, it IS problematic. It might have been less so had he not made the Earthling invading force so largely identifiably American. I don’t know how much actual practical effect the film’s “irresponsibility” will have. But I’m not interested in whipping things up, which is maybe why I prefer speculating on how other parties might whip things up. All I’m saying is that this particular aspect of the film WILL be a pertinent aspect of the debate about it.
Bill, if that’s really what the film seems to be “saying” (or at least raising, however unintentionally or unconsciously), I would be aghast, too. But I’m still intrigued by Glenn’s descriptions of the film’s visuals and their links to comics and other media models I’m really interested in, and I wonder if what might seem like simplistic or offensive concepts on paper (er, blog-screen) become more complex as they unfold through those visual choices. For me, that doesn’t mean they’re not still worth criticizing (indeed, maybe they’re MORE worth critiquing because of the way they draw on our enthusiasm for sci-fi, Kirby, etc.), and as I say, I’m very much in sympathy with the concerns you raise. But given how thoughtfully Glenn writes about them here, I’m curious to see what that relationship between form and politics (or whatever term we prefer) is.
Cameron has pointed out that the film is not specifically an Iraq war allegory, but drawn from all the examples through human history where invading forces have displaced an indigenous race for means of profit, from the Conquistadors onwards.
“Cameron has pointed out that the film is not specifically an Iraq war allegory, but drawn from all the examples through human history where invading forces have displaced an indigenous race for means of profit, from the Conquistadors onwards.”
But of course he is.
But of course he DID, that should have said.
I dunno…Iraq War, Conquistadors.…
All the image above brings to mind, for me, is William Wallace. “YOU’LL NEVER TAKE…OUR FREEDOM!!”
But I suppose bringing Mel Gibson into this is the last thing I should be doing right now. 😉
I gotta say that the purported political content, and the resulting furor, has raised my interest in this flick by a couple of notches. A couple friends have agreed with the “story is adolescent, but the experience is so VISCERAL” assessment, but we didn’t have time to get to the politics.
What would be interesting is if people (left, right or in between) manage to keep straight the notion that an allegorical critique of a particular war or policy – such as the Iraq war or the, ahem, recent escalation of the Afghanistan war, is not the same thing as being Anti-American or in favor of terrorists.
“Yes, it’s an Iraq War allegory. And yes, in this allegory, the US military is compared to terrorists. And yes, the allegorical terrorists are the good guys. And YES, the US military are portrayed as monstrous villains. And, okay, YES, in that sense, you’re rooting for the terrorists over the military. But that doesn’t mean…”
Save it.
While I thought the dialogue in Titanic was atrocious, The Abyss had a pretty tight and cringeless script. Maybe it was easier for him to write about a relationship on the rocks than it was to write about people falling in love. Or maybe it was because Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio were the ones delivering it. But I don’t remember anything cringeworthy in that film.
And I agree with whoever else said it was their favorite Cameron film. His Close Encounters, with more identifiable characters and groundbreaking effects that came off very natural (compared to the too-eager-to impress work in the overblown and extremely pandering T2). Even if the message was a little heavy-handed.
As for Avatar, I’m wondering why Cameron’s lesson about white invaders exploiting natives and their resources is somehow a more impressive sci-fi idea (and more worthy of respect) than George Lucas’s critique of the Bush Administration (or in more general terms, the examination of decaying democracy) in Revenge of the Sith. Lucas certainly could have completed his saga without even addressing that parallel so directly, and it’s a more interesting subject than Cameron’s fairly worn-out liberal guilt.
“What would be interesting is if people (left, right or in between) manage to keep straight the notion that an allegorical critique of a particular war or policy – such as the Iraq war or the, ahem, recent escalation of the Afghanistan war, is not the same thing as being Anti-American or in favor of terrorists.”
Bill seems to be confused about this already.
God forbid the US military (150 years in the future, no less) be portrayed as anything but the sensitive, goodwill-spreading bunch of chuckleheads that they are.
I gotta run to the department store. I’m sending out smallpox blankets for Christmas.
I agree with Zach in principle, and would be relatively on board…EXCEPT for the shot in which the Na’vi heroine gives her ululating war whoop. It was off-putting as I was watching the film, and the more I think about it the more agitated I get at how cutesy and in-your-face the shot is. Call me insufficiently multicultural, but I find ululating pretty creepy in the same way I find Pentacostal speaking in tongues creepy, and I’ve never been particularly crazy about the contexts in which I’ve seen it done. So there’s something that’s repellent about Cameron’s evocation here.
Yes, John, I’m confused, because Cameron has constructed something so very complex. Read again what has been described as appearing on-screen, because you’re clearly failing to retain it so far.
I was pretty sure I was going to have to hate this film on GP, imperialist smallpox notwithstanding (hi, Bill!). I’m more cold than hot on Cameron’s oeuvre – put me very much more in the Alien camp over Aliens (and isn’t Paul Reiser’s corp drone there pretty much transferred avatar-whole-cloth to Giovanni Ribisi’s character here?), and as much as I enjoyed the first two Terminators, his auetuerist bonafides are a disaster absent disaster.
But all this Kirby/Steranko talk does get my inner 13-year-old’s heart racing a mite, and the comparison between Kirby and Cameron’s artless pulp writing styles is telling and something I never would have put together before – thanks once more, film criticism and blog commentary.
Along these lines, I’m happy to see Stephen Lang turn up again – talk about your all-exclamation Kirby-esque villains! He’s someone I’ve been all WEHT, recently even. His mid-80’s work in everything from Manhunter to Crime Story to the Dustin Hoffman Death of a Salesman is all superb, even when he red-lines it. How is he in Avatar? I’m hoping he stays some distance away from Billy Zane camp…
Yes, Lang is very fine. I’ve always thought him both a vivid and understated screen presence, but here he’s all the way out there all the time. And he goes from being a relatively sympathetic character at first—all pro fighting man just doing a dirty job—to a thoroughly heartless prick to insane but not Zane-esque villain without ever seeming to change his demeanor, although of course he does. One of the more interesting instances of scenery chewing I’ve seen in a while, and of course there’s an awful lot of scenery to chew.
Is scenery chewing less fattening when it’s all CGI?
Why the snipy attitude Bill? Haven’t seen you like this on here before… did Cameron wrong you somewhere down the line?
I’ve heard that AVATAR could also be read as a slightly strained metaphor for the war on Christmas. True/false?
“A very powerful and technological superpower trying to take over a country of peasants was big on my mind”
‑George Lucas describing the impact Vietnam had on “Star Wars”, Première, April 8, 2005.
The Empire = American soldiers in Nam? Or could be it that George Lucas, like many artists, absorbed the then-current cultural climate and it spilled out in an indirect form. Or how about Tim Robbins in “War of the Worlds” saying, “Occupations always fail!” To reduce such a comment to an example of a perceived anti-Americanism is intellectually lazy at best. Was Cameron literally comparing colonial marines to American troops in Vietnam and the VC to drooling, phallic aliens in “Aliens”? No. But he appropriated Nam slang and imagery for the purpose of making sn indirect commentary on Vietnam, a muddled one, perhaps, but not at the expense of providing riveting entertainment. I look forward to seeing the film, but I am not expecting anything resembling a coherent commentary on the Iraq War, or any war.
Bill, your concerns are legitimate, and any film which encourages cheering on the murder of American soldiers would, of course, invite just levels of scrutiny and revulsion, but certain right wing commentators do have a way of making a mountain out of a molehill and lobbing accusations of anti-Americanism rather carelessly to promote a lame and tired agenda. I mean, does it take much to get Michael Medved frothing at the mouth?
“Read again what has been described as appearing on-screen, because you’re clearly failing to retain it so far.”
Oh, I’m retaining it just fine, Bill, but unlike you, I’m planning on forming my own judgments when I see the movie. Myself. It sounds problematic, but I haven’t seen it, so…
Fear not, we all know you’re a patriot, whether you endure this experience or not.
I know I should hold off until I actually SEE the damn thing, but…
The uluation sounds like an allegory too far, taste-wise, but then again…am I missing something? Do the Na’vi specifically target civilians? If not, whence the terrorism charge? Are they being invaded by a hostile foreign force bent on their destruction? If so, then exactly what is the problem with defending themselves, violently, against violence?
And here’s the kicker – if that all hits too close to home for people in favor of the Iraq war, then what does that say about their attitudes and understanding?
Markj – The “snippy attitude” comes from the fact that every review of this film that I’ve read, positive and negative, have laid out the allegorical nature of AVATAR very clearly, and it insults my intelligence when I’m expected to not follow that allegorical thread to its logical conclusion, as if that all falls away during the action scenes, which is when I’m supposed to start enjoying my popcorn.
Mike D – It ain’t just conservative commentators, or even critics who dislike the film, who are making these claims. Read around a bit.
John M – Your just a fount of non-sequitors, aren’t you? First the smallpox blankets, then the war of Christmas line. I think you have a bag of anti-Right cliches that you carry around, and, given the flimsiest excuse, you pull one out at random, as if to say, “Yeah, THAT just happened!”
But I’ll disregard your overriding foolishness for the moment to point out that, no, I haven’t seen AVATAR yet, but the film’s allegorical side sounds to me to be very much part of what the film IS, and one of the core reasons it exists. To pretend that seeing the film would dissuade anyone from viewing it that way would be like asking me not to assume that JURASSIC PARK is about dinosaurs until I’ve actually seen it.
Zach – “if that all hits too close to home…” etc. Don’t assume it hits to close to home. That’s your phrasing, and implies something very specific that has no connection with my offense at AVATAR’s apparent approach to this material.
I take it “ulalating” is supposed to be the Arab version of a cheer, or Rebel yell or what have you. As someone who heard those whoops at her wedding–and found them quite joyous, thankyouverymuch–I have to admit I am not getting the problem. Or rather, I am not getting the problem with the movie.
Bill, it’s ludicrous displays like yours that give the right a reputation for bottomless, pseudo-patriotic whining. Barking at the first whiff of anti-Americanism. Your first comment (“No thanks”…or maybe I read that wrong? It’s so complex!) suggested that you are boycotting the movie because of what you’ve read in the movie’s few reviews–and yet you continue to sputter.
So, good for you. You’ve heard that AVATAR might have a muddled political message that (gasp!) calls out the foreign policy of the Bush Administration, and you’ve decided it’s not for you. After hopping from one review to the next, you’ve already made your mind up, so why keep pushing your blood pressure?
Zach asks above, do the Na’vi target civilians? Are they not fighting an aggressor? Predictably, you engage his second question, but not his first.
@ The Siren: The context for the ululating in “Avatar” is not, as you may have inferred, a wedding or any other such occasion. More like a spear or seven or nine going through some anonymous jarhead’s chest or head, I don’t remember which. It’s celebratory all right, but hardly innocent.
Also: no, the Na’vi do not target civilians. And, they’re also not real people. And so on.
But it’s undeniable that a lot of the code language Cameron uses in his putative allegory is arguably crass and opportunistic. I am rather reminded of Robert Christgau’s misgiving about The Dictators and their album “Manifest Destiny:” “Anyone smart enough to fool around with such terminology ought to be decent enough not to.” I think that cuts both ways.
You spend a lot of time refusing to address anything I’ve actually said, don’t you? You’re more interested in trying to insult me – I mean, Jesus, at least when I insult YOU I try to connect it to your specific comments (such as they are). But I gather you’d like me to speak to one of Zach’s points, which I thoughtlessly neglected. Will do.
No, I’m sure the N’avi do not target civilians. If I’m correct about that, I’d say Cameron’s reasons for that are many, but topping the list is that had he done that, his simplistic attempt to paint the US military as the villains would be dumped right on its ass. It would be a lot harder to root against them if Cameron moved his allegory an inch closer to reality. Which is sort of my whole point.
Needless to say, my previous comment was for John M, not Glenn.
For those scoring at home, this is the sum total of what Bill has “actually said” in this thread. Apparently, I’m missing something. The biggest chunk came in about 50 minutes ago, when he starts explaining himself, or at least explaining his tone. He’s the first commenter to use the word “terrorist.” Behold:
No thank you.
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So everyone who has seen AVATAR seems to agree that it’s a blatant Iraq war allegory that apparently roots for the death of American soldiers at the hands of peaceful (in Cameron’s version) terrorists, and yet all anyone seems to care about is how crazy this is going to make conservative critics. That’s interesting.
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But of course he is.
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But of course he DID, that should have said.
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“Yes, it’s an Iraq War allegory. And yes, in this allegory, the US military is compared to terrorists. And yes, the allegorical terrorists are the good guys. And YES, the US military are portrayed as monstrous villains. And, okay, YES, in that sense, you’re rooting for the terrorists over the military. But that doesn’t mean…”
Save it.
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Yes, John, I’m confused, because Cameron has constructed something so very complex. Read again what has been described as appearing on-screen, because you’re clearly failing to retain it so far.
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Markj – The “snippy attitude” comes from the fact that every review of this film that I’ve read, positive and negative, have laid out the allegorical nature of AVATAR very clearly, and it insults my intelligence when I’m expected to not follow that allegorical thread to its logical conclusion, as if that all falls away during the action scenes, which is when I’m supposed to start enjoying my popcorn.
Mike D – It ain’t just conservative commentators, or even critics who dislike the film, who are making these claims. Read around a bit.
John M – Your just a fount of non-sequitors, aren’t you? First the smallpox blankets, then the war of Christmas line. I think you have a bag of anti-Right cliches that you carry around, and, given the flimsiest excuse, you pull one out at random, as if to say, “Yeah, THAT just happened!”
But I’ll disregard your overriding foolishness for the moment to point out that, no, I haven’t seen AVATAR yet, but the film’s allegorical side sounds to me to be very much part of what the film IS, and one of the core reasons it exists. To pretend that seeing the film would dissuade anyone from viewing it that way would be like asking me not to assume that JURASSIC PARK is about dinosaurs until I’ve actually seen it.
Zach – “if that all hits too close to home…” etc. Don’t assume it hits to close to home. That’s your phrasing, and implies something very specific that has no connection with my offense at AVATAR’s apparent approach to this material.
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You spend a lot of time refusing to address anything I’ve actually said, don’t you? You’re more interested in trying to insult me – I mean, Jesus, at least when I insult YOU I try to connect it to your specific comments (such as they are). But I gather you’d like me to speak to one of Zach’s points, which I thoughtlessly neglected. Will do.
No, I’m sure the N’avi do not target civilians. If I’m correct about that, I’d say Cameron’s reasons for that are many, but topping the list is that had he done that, his simplistic attempt to paint the US military as the villains would be dumped right on its ass. It would be a lot harder to root against them if Cameron moved his allegory an inch closer to reality. Which is sort of my whole point.
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Needless to say, my precious comment was for John M, not Glenn.
Of course, “precious” at the end was my typo…that teaches me to retype, rather than cut and paste.
Remember when the word “precious” wasn’t so loaded? Damn you, Oscar Race 2009!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, you freakin’ lunatic.
Note to self: Do not seat Bill and John M. near each other at next “SCR Commenter’s Ball,” whenever THAT happens…
And done.
If tempers are flaring this high between two people who haven’t even seen the movie yet, it seems safe to say that the movie will ruffle some feathers, no?
Just in time for the holidays.
Clearly, your work is done here. Now go! There are discussions elsewhere to which you still have time to add nothing!
Will do, Bill. And you keep on changin’ minds, will ya? Might I suggest a thread for teens or tweens? They might be more receptive to your brand of bitter sophistry.
All right now, fellas. Don’t make me fetch the virtual crowbar. (Or, rather, invent the virtual crowbar, as such a thing doesn’t exist.)
Bill, we’ll obviously all know better when we see the thing – unless you’re serious in implying you’ll boycott it. But until then, I’m with you in this argument. I don’t give a damn if a movie is “anti-American” or not, since that can be either dumb or smart and I thought the world of THE HOST. But Cameron’s would-be Iraq parallel just sounds appallingly stupid to me, and exactly like what I would have predicted of him at his worst.
“Bitter”? Now THAT is a blast from the past.
Tom, I am genuinely tempted to boycott it. After all, I don’t really like Cameron that much anyway, and why invest the time and money in a film that I feel confident will only increase my already shocking level of bitterness?
You should go and see it Bill, if only to make sure you are critiquing the film on a fair basis. How can you comment fairly on something if you haven’t even seen it?
As for me, I can’t wait. I’ve sat through the shoddiest decade of blockbusters ever (courtesy of The Hack Pack – Michael Bay, Stephen Sommers, Roland Emmerich, JJ Abrams, McG, the Wachowskis, Bryan Singer, Gore Verbinski and the Rat – thanks guys!!!) to finally get to a film where the director knows what he is doing. Wednesday can’t come soon enough.
Markj, how do you know that Cameron knows what he’s doing if you haven’t seen it yet?
And so on. We all do this.
Well I was talking primarily about the action sequences Bill but point taken! 😉
And just for the hell of it, can I put in a lonely good word for Billy Zane in Titanic? He’s the only one who’s in period, for crissakes. It’s because nobody else is that he looks eccentric.
Tom, you know what I think of TITANIC, but I can see where you’re coming from. I’d sooner take down Kathy Bates in that film than Zane. Personally, I’d rather put in a lonely good word for Victor Garber, because he’s the only one who actually think is good in the film.
I forgot Victor Garber, but you’re right that he too at least makes you half believe he’s living in 1912. So does Eric Braeden, still most beloved by me under his birth name of Hans Gudegast in “The Rat Patrol.”
Oh yeah, he was good, too. As was, if memory serves, Bernard Hill. I always like Bernard Hill. So I guess really some of the periphery actors were pretty good, but the closer you move to the core, the more your teeth begin to grind.
@Glenn: Crass could be applicable to certain aspects of Titanic, where Cameron’s anger over the relation between ticket price and survival rate led to his disinclination even to grant the plutocrats dignified deaths (which they did have in real life, as much as anyone could on a sinking ship).
However, of the major movies about that disaster (and TV series and oblique take-offs like History Is Made at Night), Cameron was the one who really went after the big moral questions about the survivors, even if he did with a cudgel and not a scalpel.
And it sounds to me (as someone who hasn’t seen the movie, but now wants to, much to her own astonishment) that here we have Cameron going after our comfortable notions of good-guy-dom. For myself, if he’s really trying to get us to take a hard look at our more controversial military forays and the civilian death tolls they’ve racked up, I say more power to him. It doesn’t sound subtle, but broad isn’t necessarily bad. As Flannery O’Connor said, when you’re talking to the deaf you have to shout.
Siren, it feels like lese-majeste to dispute you. But remember that Cameron has his own “comfortable notion of good-guy-dom” himself. I hate the Iraq war and did from the start, but which brush you use to blacken it matters all the same.
Heck no, Tom. Say whatever you want, no matter how vile, as long as it’s in support of my politics. Don’t you know that’s how it works these days.
I zoned out trying to read through all the comments midway through the second page. So at the risk of bringing up a film that might’ve been mentioned already…well, ask me if I give a fuck.
Anyhow…
War of the Worlds.
Spielberg already did the occupation analogy 4 years ago, and he probably did it in a more complex manner, too.
Anyhow…
Tom, point taken about Cameron. Can’t tell whether or not I will approve of his tools until I have seen the film. When I was re-examining Titanic last year I found all sorts of things going on in that movie that I hadn’t noticed in the theater. You can’t call him subtle, exactly, but he packs a lot of things into his big, baggy monster-size movies and they aren’t always apparent when you’re swept up in the moment.
As for Bill, right now I am about as offended as I can ever recall being in the blogosphere. Nothing I have ever said, in this thread or indeed anywhere else, deserved that insult.
Siren, I honestly don’t believe Bill was attacking you. I thought he was just mocking the extremes of what passes for political discourse these days, even though I did blink myself before coming to that conclusion. But anytime you want to compare notes on the semiotics of TITANIC, I’m game. I’ve watched it with fascination more times than I should probably admit in this forum.
@Siren – but “when you talk to the deaf you have to shout” is cool? Look, I wasn’t calling you vile, and I honestly apologize if that’s how it came across. I consider this film’s apparent construction of its allegory vile, and I’m disturbed by the pass some are giving it because it roughly conforms to their worldview. I wasn’t calling you or anyone else here vile.
So much for my brief (and, I hope, charmingly atypical) try at mimicking Kofi Annan. On second thought, maybe I’ll just let you two thrash it out.
No, Tom, your description of what I was going for was correct. My own response could have been warmer, but I was a bit taken aback by The Siren’s reply, and the comment I made that set this off came from being rankled by O’Conner quote in the first place.
Forget it. I’m going to bed.
… One could also debate the ethics, or non-ethics, of spending over 200 million dollars making a film embedded with (fine, interesting, “problematic”) points about oppression and domination and imperialism, when those real-life people who are themselves the receivers of such imperialism could probably use some of that money to run their countries and get out from under the thumb of global debt.
Just a thought.
Bill, please look at the name that begins my comment. Is it yours? I hope that Glenn understood, as you evidently did not, that the Flannery O’Connor remark (which she made about Catholic themes in her work) concerns the way loud, obvious allegory may suit an artist’s aims. I offered the quote by way of furthering the discussion with GLENN about what might have to be done in order to get a point across to the mass audience for Avatar. In other words, Bill, it had fuck all to do with you, especially since you removed yourself from the putative audience for Avatar way back in the thread.
No, you weren’t calling me vile, just my politics, or your caricature of them at any rate. Your every comment here is predicated on two notions: that you have moral scruples above and beyond those of Glenn’s other readers, and that you alone must endure the slings and arrows of outrageous blog rhetoric. It is bad enough having to preface posts that are actually addressed to you with little pats to your ever-ruffled feathers, as I have in the past. I will be damned if I will do it even when I’m trying to engage our host.
Siren, if you read MY comment again, you’ll note (or you should, at any rate) that I don’t specify anyone’s politics. I say that’s how it works these days. If you find your politics in that comment, great, because I see mine, too.
Christ almighty. So you spend a lot of time smoothing my ruffled feathers, do you? That, I must say, is really fucking rich. Have a great day, why don’t you.
Smurfs remain my favorite blue people.
I have the feeling, honestly, that this’ll be a hit in spite of itself. What I’ve been hearing, consistently, is that the first two hours consist of Cameron telling you about the setting he’s DMing and then an amazing battle sequence.
Also, I don’t really see Kirby or Steranko in this. If anything I’m getting a bit of a Frazetta feeling. Or maybe Kubert with more light.
“That Blue Man Group, they’re nothing more than a ripoff of the Smurfs. And don’t get me started on the SMURFS. THEY SUCK!”– Homer Simpson
“What I’ve been hearing, consistently, is that the first two hours consist of Cameron telling you about the setting he’s DMing and then an amazing battle sequence.”
My new goal in life is to somehow play D & D with James Cameron. Though I have a feeling– purely on the director’s reputation as being somewhat autocratic– that he’d be one of those DMs who doesn’t take kindly to sidestepped traps and deviations from his storyline. Still, the saving throws would be *intense*.
On a lighter note – 2 sleeps to go 🙂
I don’t think “boycott” means what you think it means.
Nothing new – the sledgehammer approach was already used in the book “War is a Racket” from 1935, by Major General Smedley Butler, Ret., CMOH x 2 rcpt., who had been on the pointy end of it and plainly stated about the venality of it all, which this film seems to be saying with many esplozhuns and FX, but less truth. I’ll see it just for overkill.
Not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly is a technical marvel. Looked good in phony-Imax digital 3‑D.
My wife and I both loved it, and it’s been added to my own Best Of the Decade list. A few thoughts on the film, including both the Kirby overtones Glenn mentioned and the allegorical thread that’s caused quite a stir here, are humbly offered for the approval of the Midnight Society:
http://turtleneckfilms.blogspot.com/2009/12/best-of-decade-addendum-james-camerons.html