Sword Saints

Avatar

I got out this weekend to see Avatar (in 3D). Impressive. Most impressive. The story, while basic, was enough to carry the whiz-bang special effects. I mean, it was basically Dune, except the desert was a hostile alien jungle, the sandworms were the flying creatures, and the spice melange was the mineral unobtanium. It was a wild ride, and I'd see it again in a heartbeat.

I'm puzzling over all the critics who call the film anti-western or anti-capitalist, though. As I saw it, there are four foils for the protagonist, Jake Sully: the doctor (knowledge), the colonel (power), the company man (profit), and the Na'vi (tradition). The doctor is, for the most part, willing to turn a blind eye to any abuses as long as she's able to do her research. The colonel is unhinged and just looking for an excuse to blow stuff up. The company man wants money, no matter the cost. And the Na'vi want stability regardless of the threats that they may face. The film is not trying to communicate the message that knowledge or power or profit or tradition are necessarily evil in and of themselves. What it does communicate is that, if pursued as ultimate ends, these things will devolve into evil.

Jake Sully is perhaps the most pro-western character in the film. He doesn't let his disability get in the way of navigating the waters between power and profit and knowledge and tradition with ingenuity and determination, even when everyone else is trying to exploit him. The colonel wants to exploit him for intel on the Na'vi. The company wants to exploit him to negotiate a deal with the Na'vi. The doctor wants to exploit him to study the Na'vi. And even the Na'vi want to exploit him for the sake of their traditions. And that, I think, is the running theme of the movie. It is not an anti-western or anti-capitalist movie. What it does carry is a strong anti-exploitation message. That gets a thumbs-up from me.

Wednesday haiku

Which is more Star Wars:
hacked-up originals or
prequel trilogy?

Send in the clones

I'm not sure what the critics were expecting from the latest Star Wars offering. What would I expect from an animated feature on the Clone Wars? Clones. War. Lightsaber battles. And Star Wars: Clone Wars did not disappoint. It had clones. And war. And Jedi jumping around slicing up droids with their lightsabers. I mean, were the critics expecting high art or something? Had they already forgotten the prequel trilogy?

Mr. Lucas did lose some of his few remaining credibility points for Jabba the Hutt's lisping gender-confused uncle. C'mon, George, this is supposed to be a movie for kids. Jar Jar Binks and the ewoks (and even the baby Hutt in the latest movie) are forgivable next to that ridiculous character.

I spent a fair bit of the movie puzzling over where it fit in the overall chronology, especially with respect to the animated The Clone Wars that showed on Cartoon Network a while back. Best I could figure was that the events took place between chapters 21 and 22, or maybe in the midst of 22. Not that it really matters. Except that it does. Except that it doesn't. Anyway.

In summary: Clones. War. Lightsaber battles. A story line simple enough for a six year old. Yup. It's Star Wars, all right. Worth seeing if you're into that sort of thing, or if you have kids that are into that sort of thing.

Colonial Marines threaten Iran

From the AP story Iran test-fires missiles in Persian Gulf:

Gen. Hossein Salami, the air force commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, said the exercise would "demonstrate our resolve and might against enemies who in recent weeks have threatened Iran with harsh language," the TV report said.

From the movie Aliens:

Gorman: Apone! Look... we can't have any firing in there. I, uh... I want you to collect magazines from everybody.

Hudson: Is he &^@#$*% crazy?

Frost: What the #@%% are we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?

Wall-E

It was reading about James Lileks' hate-mail for his Wall-E review that pushed me over the edge into really wanting to see the movie over our vacation instead of just kinda wanting to see it. There was also the symmetry with the fact that the last movie Margo and I had seen together was Pixar's Ratatouille the previous year when we were up north (we generally don't like wasting babysitters on movie dates, obviously).

We tried to sneak out one night to see it shortly after our arrival, but we were too loud and Nicholas awoke in a panicked screaming fit. Then we left everyone with the stir-crazy toddler on the one rainy day to try to see it, but the line at the theater was practically around the block (our comeuppance for being such bad parents, kids, and siblings, all in one fell swoop). But we finally managed to get out of the house one night with Erich and Stacey to see it at the local theater. (As an aside, judging by the trailers, Disney should just abandon any movies that don't involve Pixar. The level of Disney trailer suck was literally jaw-dropping.)

But Wall-E: I loved it. Loved it. I put it in my top five Pixar movies the minute the credits rolled. I thought it was that good. And the more I think on it, the more I find to enjoy. But this review from Brant Hansen really sent my thinking in a new direction. Getting your undies in a bunch because of eco-disaster doom-mongering really misses the point of the movie, not to mention all the fun of watching two animated robots with a vocabulary of a few scant words bringing more emotion to their roles than 98% of Hollywood actors.

Entertainment without the entertainment

"Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter, how could Sweeny Todd be bad?" we thought. Alas, good performances and direction simply could not make up for the story. The themes of justice and injustice weren't really explored so much as eviscerated. Pretty gross, and not really worth watching.

I also gave Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare a chance on the X360 with a cheap rental. Apart from modern weapons and fancy graphics, it it exactly the same game as Call of Duty 2 (at least the single player campaign). Your AI teammates are useless, objectives are unclear at best and, try as you might, you cannot thin out the bad guys from a distance before wading in. Until you reach a certain spot on the map, the supply of enemies is infinite. I killed the same three baddies shooing from a balcony about six times before resigning myself to the fact that the game developers want to make the player run into heavy fire. I think that's what I disliked the most: they player is forced to play the game in a certain way, leading to immense frustration if you want to play it any other way. Thanks, but no thanks. And yes, I know, it's meant to be played multiplayer. Fine. Then make it multiplayer only and don't tack on a crap single player campaign. I'm glad I'm only out the five bucks for a rental and not the sixty bucks for a purchase of the game.

Samurai movies

Samurai Fiction is to Kurosawa movies what Kung Fu Hustle is to Bruce Lee movies: cheeky, light-hearted homage. Recommended to fans of the samurai genre.

The book is always better

Based on what I'd heard, I thought I had lowered my expectations accordingly to watch Beowulf. What I really should have done was completely jettison all expectations and jab myself in the eye with a fork.

I think the photorealistic animation used in the movie kind of defeats the whole purpose of animation. Give me something like the people in The Incredibles any day. They're recognizably human, but the animation medium is so flexible that it's really rather silly not to take advantage of i. The cool factor wore off for me very quickly. The monsters were well done, but the people started to look plastic after a few minutes. And what's with the animated butt-cheek nudity? Just say no!

It was the way they butchered the story that really raised my ire, though. Grendel as the son of Hrothgar? The dragon as the son of Beowulf? Monsters are begotten by heroes, now, are they? And it takes an awful lot of brass to have the weak (at least to temptation), lustful, prideful liar that is the Beowulf of the film say, "The time of heroes is dead: the Christ-God has killed it, leaving nothing but weeping martyrs and fear and shame." Alas, but no. The time of heroes is dead because we killed it, preferring our heroes to be like the Greeks preferred their gods – as mirror images of ourselves. A host of characters that would include Gawain, Parzival, Britomart, Artegall, the Redcross Knight, and even modern characters like Aragorn and Dr. Ransom, would put lie to the assertion that Christ killed heroes and instead say that Christ has redeemed heroes.

If you haven't seen the movie, skip it and read the book. At a hundred pages it'd probably take about the same amount of time, and would be infinitely more valuable.

Wednesday haiku

The Beowulf film
will be forgotten quickly,
unlike the poem.

Humor and sadness

Leave it to Jasper Fforde to offer book upgrades. I upgraded our first UK edition of the refreshingly funny Thursday Next: First Among Sequels to include the missing bits (taping the footnotes onto the appropriate pages). Book upgrades. What a novel idea!

Margo didn't make it all the way through Pan's Labyrinth when we watched it. The creepy child-eating thing with the eyes in its hands was a little too much for her. Overall I thought the movie was beautifully done. It was also incredibly sad, but even still I caught an undercurrent of hope in there beneath the sadness. The more I think about it the more I like it, if only for the emotional response it evoked.

I had the Republican debate playing in the background on YouTube this morning. Mitt Romney nauseates me with his oozy slickness. Ron Paul confuses me with his Democrat talking points. Rudy Giuliani amuses me with his wry humor. I don't know why I bother, really, given that there's more than a year until the election. Fifteen more months of clowns to the left of me and jokers to the right. I'm not sure whether that's funny or sad.