Lightform,

This weekend, I rented "Avatar"(it's just out on DVD in the States) and must confess that I stopped the film, exasperated, five times before finally succeeding in forcing myself to watch it: the writing was sooooooo baaaaaaad. The visuals of the film, however, were spectacular and a good distraction from the worse-than-hackneyed dialogue and characterizations. I felt that it picked up somewhat after the 1 1/2 hour mark, and was suitably thrilling in its battle scenes.

Besides the matter of James Cameron's execrable writing[please, Mr. Cameron, stick to directing, we beg of you], the thing that really bothered me about the story itself was the depiction of the N'avi people. I mean, here he's got a totally fictional race on a totally fictional planet, and they are all supposed to be so much more evolved than Homo sapiens; that's the whole damn point of the film, right? But what does he do with them? He makes the N'avi just another nature-dominating species with a rudimentary consumer-oriented relationship with other living things. The same old bs about thanking an animal you've hunted for the [unwilling]sacrifice it is making to you of its flesh--I mean COME ON! Surely he could have made them mushroom eaters, or something! Anything but what he made them!!!

Now that I think about it, did you see the thing that was going around the internet, where someone took the screenplay treatment, a one-page synopsis, for Disney's "Pocahantas" and replaced all the proper nouns with proper nouns from "Avatar"? They were identical, ha-ha! "Avatar" totally makes sense now . . .

Yeah Tam.
It amazes me how shallow the average persons consideration toward entertainment is. As long as there is some excuse to move one scene to the next, people don't seem to mind how absurd it might be. It is like they are prepared to accept anything that comes on a screen. My brother gave me some advice for enjoying such a movie once in the past, he said "check your brain out at the door".

Thinking about it... I think that a lot of people are probably attracted to the associated pleasure responces of a movies images, rather than anything related to the storyline. A bit like how a glammour magazine or sells. The worst genre IMO though has to be comedy. Most of the stuff that is supposed to be funny these days makes me cringe.

The funniest movie I've seen for a while would probably be Gran Torino, I was chuckling through most of that movie. I generally find that dramas are the best all rounders and usually the funniest too.

Just watched "Don McKay," I'm not sure if it's my favourite but I really enjoyed it. Don't read reviews (spoilers - you want to go in cold), just watch. (But here's the trailer if you must watch it and ruin the movie!)

I just watched "No Impact Man," about that fellow in New York who decided to take his wife and toddler daughter through an experiment in living carbon neutral for one year in the city. Very amusing, and also thought-provoking. I recommend.

Currently, my favorite is "The five people you meet in heaven."

Fast times at Ridgemont High.

Its got bonus stuff on the disc,and the kids in that movie are all mid-late 40's now.

Jeeze.

Vinny

ohh, and for those of you that havnt seen "the five people you meet in heaven" I have to say that it is just one of the most beautiful movies ive ever seen, EVERYTIME I watch it, it makes me cry...in a good way though!

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

I really liked that movie too Curator

i liked the line

Strangers are only family that you havent gotten to know yet

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Yeah, I liked that line allot too, that movie was really wonderful for me, cause ive never been very good at explaining my general outlook on life, and its seemed throughout my life that nobody could really understand what I was trying to say, then I see a movie (adapted from a book), where the writer obviously looks at some things in a similar way to how i do...and it was pretty cool...

"Wives and Daughters"....BBC, 1999....starring Justine Waddell.
I love a good romance, don't you?.....WY

[www.youtube.com]

Just watched 'The Visitor' last night on Comcast. Wonderful tear-jerker of a movie about the complexities and heart-rending results of America's crack-down on illegal aliens. (The illegals in this movie are an Arab and an African, not Mexican migrants.) Sub-plot involves a wonderful professor, a depressed widower, who comes out of his shell as he befriends the main character and his mother. Beautifully done.

Sharrhan:


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Yeah I liked that one Shar
It had me feeling a bit empty at the end though, although I certainly loved the change in the professor by the end.

I just watched the touching French film, "Summer Hours"(L'huere d'été). It was so different from what one would expect from a movie about three adult children dealing with the disposal of their mother's valuable estate after her unexpected death. Interesting take on globalization, but also in what happens when nostalgia meets pragmatism--what wins? Beautifully filmed partly in the Val de Oise. Recommended.

Tamukha Wrote:
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> I just watched the touching French film, "Summer
> Hours"
Tamukha.....David Edwards didn't give the film a very
good review. I personally never liked sub-titles...something seems
to be lost in the translation....WY

[www.youtube.com]

I don't mind subtitles, I'll check it out. There seems to be so much more feeling and way less sensationalism in films made outside of the Hollywood genre. That Avatar movie made me sad and kinda sick. What a farce, all that pollution they created during production to make a movie about loving nature. Some people just don't get it. I could have done without that one, that's for sure.

Some films I'm thinking of at the moment ~ Raise the Red Lantern, Eat Drink Man Woman, The Scent of Green Papaya, Red, White, Blue (the French trio). I've seen some pretty freaky Russian films too, I had a roommate who was a P.A. in Uni and he brought home the Weirdest movies! The weirdest and the best.

I saw The weeping camel tonight. Fairly cool movie if your into culture studies. It's set in the Gobi desert of Mongolia and is about a typical extended nomadic family who live by their animal heards. It has some real nice footage of the nomadic way of life, and a real interesting story about one of their traditions.

Billy Elliot. Makes me cry at the end every time I see it. I wish it wasn't rated R (for the terrible, terrible language!) so I could watch it with little but I just can't let him see that yet. Too bad, I love Billy, he's such a charmer.

I saw two movies the other day, one was called : An Unfinished Life with Robert Redford, about a hardened old rancher who lives in a small town with a dependent bear victim friend. This was a tale about the healing of broken lives through forgiveness and reunion, and has a theme of a noble character who finally lets people back into his life after years of bitterness. All in all it was a decent movie with a nice conclusion.

The other was called : The Stone, about this scottish college student who decides to go to england and steal back a famous scottish emblem ( a slab of stone ) and restore scottish pride. This was a great story with humour and colourful characters. It has a little pace to it with the story centering around a heist, and yet distinguishes itself by having a moral underpinning and natural storytelling. I definately enjoyed this one.

I saw the first and liked it and the second sounds familiar though I suspect I only saw a preview of it. Thanks for the reminder to order it from the library!

Watching the "Rocky" series lately.

Vinny

-What's Your Current Favorite Movie?

NOT Alice In Wonderland. Sheesh, what a catastrophe. A monumental waste of time, irritatingly so. You let me down Tim Burton. You messed with a classic and you blew it. Even the special effects can't redeem that piece of crap. Yeck.

coco Wrote:
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> -What's Your Current Favorite Movie?
>
> NOT Alice In Wonderland. Sheesh, what a
> catastrophe. A monumental waste of time,
> irritatingly so. You let me down Tim Burton.
He missed it with Sweeney Todd also....too bloody!!
I do like Johnny Depp. He was very good in "Ed Wood".
One thing about Tim Burton movies....he spares no expense in
the making......WY

Aw, bummer, I was gonna rent "Alice in Wonderland"! I avoided seeing it when it was out in theaters because the reviews made me leery--those are two of my favorite books from childhood, and it was distressing to think that with all that material, a film adaptation/retelling could fall short somehow. I mean, how is that even possible? So I wanted to see for myself how right the critics were. Now I'm balking again, because the opinions of people here carry more weight . . .

Yeah, I saw "Kama Sutra." It didn't stay with me, however. Not like the movie,"Gabbeh," which came out the same year. It's a magical retelling of a Persian love story that comes to life from the kilim into which it is woven. Very poetic and dreamlike.

Will have to look it up. I don't think I saw Kama Sutra when it was new, I hardly ever go to the theater. I miss everything unless someone recommends it or it looks good on the library shelf .

im the same coco, I almost never see a movie in the theater,lol.

Ok.. if any of you are sci fi buffs then I highly recommend Moon. This was the best one I've seen in a long time, probably since The Forgotten. It had a real damn good story ( gasp ), the kind that you could still appreciate if it had B grade everything else, but it just shone in all regards. It is amazing what they pulled off for an independent movie production.

There were a few decisions that the main character made that seemed odd to me, and the end left me feeling that I wanted more, but otherwise it was just awesome.

Lightform,

"Moon" is probably one of my favorite films of the past few years. I thought it was wonderfully done--the sets, blocking, pacing, acting--all effective. And that score! I felt so . . . desolate when I finished watching it. Very good film making. And the director is David Bowie's kid!

Is this your current favorite movie or favorite current movie??
There is a difference there.

Viny

It's just sort of morphed into a general movie discussion I think.