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I was right to leave so much time between my first and second viewing of Avatar. People stopped talking about it. Even my chatter had subsided along with the early indignation (pathetically misplaced in hindsight- it’s only a movie for god’s sake) that something with such a meagre core could be generating so much buzz.

So sitting down for my second visit to Pandora, I allowed all the unnecessary parts to be trash-dumped like an overfilled diaper of detail doo-doo.  What you’re left with is something so stripped back it goes beyond the lazy recycling of old myths (the white man and the noble savage) and topical terrors (the Invasion of Iraq, shock and awe); the superficial  characterisation; the illogical plot; the flat and ugly dialogue.

Avatar might not be the great movie everyone wants it to be, but it certainly speaks to people on an experiential level. Like a camp fire story or primitive tale that lacks enough substance on first telling, but gains solidity and strength through the application of imagination.  To many it is the ultimate spectacle, part rollercoaster part fireworks display. To people like me it is a travelogue. A soul-stirring journey into an alien world. And to a rather strange, though no less enthusiastic group, it has become a transcendent experience. A cult of being that has generated talk of people threatening suicide on finding out that the planet Pandora does not exist.

Picking up on my response to the movie, Avatar may lack the subtle poignancy of a Richard Attenborough documentary. This is more an American mutation. Things are picked up, molested, high 5’d over and not just observed without outside interference.  It’s more akin to Bravo’s ‘Deadliest Warrior’. But even with this heavy-handedness, taken in this way, detached from narrative responsibility, you have something far more primal.

It’s going back to the beginning. A new start. And it’s probably why Cameron wastes so little time on Earth’s backstory.  This is a new start for humanity, specifically Jake Sully. It’s not really a surprise he makes such a feeble hero. He’s ignorant, disobedient, brash, insensitive, inarticulate because in many ways he’s regressed back to the state of a child. In fact when Neytiri berates him at the first meeting for being exactly that, she’s already falling in love with him. He exists in a state that is closest to the state of innocence and purity that the Na’vi and Pandora value most.

The problem is, when Jake steps out of the Avatar chamber after every exhilarating transfer to his Na’vi body, he is removing himself from a womb built from technology, not nature. One that leaves him weak, depressed and useless. Jake is desperate to get back his legs and Quaddritch uses that desperation against him, promising that the corporation will repair him. The truth is, it is the natural state of Pandora that is the only means of his salvation. The synaptic womb found at the Tree of Souls might not have saved Dr Augustine (Weaver), but it will save Jake.

This is a little hokey, and the Gaia hypothesis isn’t particularly revelatory as a central conceit, but what makes it work for the most part are the Na’vi as a feat of CGI.  While the 3-D is at times mind-blowing, especially if, like me, this is your first exposure to it, it’s because it’s so judiciously applied that you’re barely aware of it. It drops back into the overall experience of the travelogue. Instead observing the Na’vi and how they interact with the environment takes up most of your time. It’s genuinely wonderous.

A lot of that can be explained by Zoe Saldana. She is extraordinary behind the big, beaming brass eyes of Neytiri. Saldana’s yelp, her syntax, her behavioural tics are so well judged as part of an overall performance that not only am I surprised that there isn’t an Oscar campaign for her, it makes you want to reassess Andy Serkis’ brilliant work as Gollum. You’re not afraid to acknowledge Neytiri’s beauty because it is all Saldanas’. You’re not embarrassed to see yourself through her eyes as she falls in love with Jake Sully’s Avatar. It isn’t two actors falling in love, it’s two fully fleshed, deeply feeling aliens. It makes sense that Cameron made the female Na’vi – Weaver being our first contact, her smile coming through with striking similitude – the most arresting. They are the most connected with the planetary deity.  The astonishing level of articulation, texture and expression, communicating perfectly all the anger, pain and joy that they elicit through the story.

What an exploration and understanding of the Na’vi tells us is that humanity is still not ready to search out new life. It is too devoted to a technology and science that leaves it single-minded and destructive. Quaritch, as a career soldier, has little interest in expanding his mind beyond conquest and subjugating the natives. Spirituality is an unnecessary distraction. The spectacular geography of Pandora with its floating mountains like some surreal aspect of a Dali landscape defy scientific explanation. They exist outside of that narrow point of view.  They’re not there to be understood by one person definitively, only expressed infinitely, by everyone.

This all sounds very positive, but this being a James Cameron movie he has to overdo it. Even though we are bombarded with imagery signifying connection – synaptic global networks, human and Avatar, Na’vi and Pandora, a 3-D immersion in action- he overcomplicates things, leading to disconnect. We know from even the briefest look into cinema’s history that it might take only a single, simple shot to bring an audience to their knees, and yet Cameron has to embellish and turn that emotion from deep to derision.

When Sully bonds with his ‘Dragon’, why does Cameron spin the camera so wildly, and not simply drop it just behind his head for us to enjoy the vertiginous descent in the same dizzying way as someone sky-diving from a plane. This tainted all the action that came later. No amount of clever choreography brought that same sense of expectation. For a movie that features pioneering 3-D effects this is unforgiveable.

Similarly when the Na’vi attempt to the save the life of Dr Augustine, it is the coupling between her human form, and her Avatar that is so touching. The glowing fibres of the planet encasing and then connecting in an umbilical embrace.  But just as you are being transported Cameron decides to throw in some tribal whomping and wailing that seeks to lift us to a place we’re already at. Again, the connection is broken and we are dragged back to the reality that this is just a movie. And not a particularly good one at that.

It’s been almost no time at all since I snapped up the opportunity to join Amber Wilkinson and help out with some festival coverage for Eyeforfilm.co.uk. A mixture of apprehension and excitment as it’s another step on the slow road to realising my potential. No cynicism. No self-help psychology guff. It’s also a big leap out of my comfort zone which I’ve been craving since a last minute trip to Thailand last year and my 6 month backpack an age ago.

All things being good I’ll be linking to the capsule diaries over the 4 days I’m at the festival and as long as I’m not plastered with party invites..and potentially plastered..there’ll be some full reviews of the 9 films I’ve got locked in for the schedule.

Adeus.

You could say that as a technical endeavour Cameron deserves directorial recognition. You could say as a piece of spectacle the film deserves acclaim. But if we’re saying Avatar is the future then we’ve got to start opening up these award ceremonies to other firecoaster films.  Because as a story Avatar just doesn’t cut it. In fact I’ve got to give Cameron credit for not bursting into flame as he went up to collect the awards. When placed alongside the other nominees, and believe me, this isn’t some super-snobbery, there’s kind of an embarassing dearth in originality and storytelling verve at its core.

One thing that did surprise me was the slight smidgen of disappointment at Clooney not winning for Best Actor.  I love Jeff Bridges to bits. Don’t think he’s given a single bad performance – coughKingcoughKong – and it was high time that fact was rewarded. However, now that I’ve had time to digest Clooney in ‘Up In The Air’, I’ve realised how much I enjoyed him in the role of Ryan Bingham. He’s both an incredibly good-looking and charming actor and he does a fine good job of dialling that back just enough to allow you to accept that this man could exist in such a strange bubble, and, in the brief moments he allows himself to step close enough to the edge,  be wounded so terribly by a woman. I haven’t had the chance to see Bridges in ‘Crazy Heart’ so I do hope that it’s a triumph and that, if he does beat Clooney again at the Oscars, it’s well-deserved.

I’m not sure I like the continued ‘Up’ idolatry. There’s a quite heartbreaking passage at the beginning of the movie, sure, but once that’s over it’s like the bi-polar freak remembered to take his medication, and we’re in a jungle and there’s a talking dog..and..and…

As a capper, you must, without a shadow of a doubt, catch the Martin Scorsese tribute. It’s got both a brilliant montage tribute and the master schooling a rather awestruck crowd. Either that or they’re bored. In which case, fuck Hollywood and fuck the Golden Globes. Good night.

Give me ‘Before Sunrise’. Give me ‘Before Sunset’. Even ‘Brokeback Mountain’ had enough in one shot and 3 words to drop anyone with a heart.

In short, give me a love story you feel you’re intruding on rather than one you’ve got VIP access to.

We know Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) loves what most calls arduous. He turns the grind of check-in and sit-down into a performance. A slick montage dance of silky luggage manoeuvres, card swipes,  and mantric greetings. He fires people for a living, and here’s he’s downsized the stress of catching a flight and turned it into an art form. In one beautiful composed shot we see him looking out at the planes and runways like some laird of the airs; the airports, his kingdom.

And yet it’s what behind him that speaks more about the man. The milling people caught in silhouette like shades of a life he has no interest in. For someone who spends most of their life moving through the most emotionally vibrant places on earth, he is alone. Disconnected from life, estranged from his family, his home a hotel room. When we meet him, however, things are about to change.

As you’ll come to realise with a movie this unconventional, Reitman takes the familiar and flips it. Looking at our emotional ties from a fresh perspective, much like the aerial city views that mark a new chapter in the story. A meeting in an airport lounge between Bingham and the frequent flyer femme fatale Alex (Vera Farmiga), turns Hawksian. They’re flirtatious like Bogart and Bacall, but it’s dictated by a loyalty card lexicon, size is measured in miles, and the click-clack of keystrokes coordinating business schedules replaces the cocking of a gun.

The bird strike in this movie comes in the form of ambitious Natalie (Anna Kendrick) who ‘types with a purpose’ and allows her complex flow charts to dictate both her business and personal life. It’s her new videoconferencing system that could bring an end to Bingham’s plane tramp existence as well as his dream of hitting 10 million air miles. Tasked with this new protégé, Bingham crisscrosses the country educating her to the realities of his existence. Here the film opens up, scraping the light froth from the top of this screwball comedy cup and taking a harder look at the film’s spiritual heart.

While Bingham does everything possible not to put down roots and commit, he finds himself in a rather unusual simulation of a family. Even though she’s a threat to him, he can’t help but want to protect Natalie and instil some of the compassion that’s so desperately needed in this recession environment. Kendrick is loveably neurotic in the part and does well to set-up an odd couple charm with Clooney, even puncturing his supposedly bullet-proof charm on a few occasions.

Similarly, he surprises himself by drawing closer to Alex, with Clooney making excellent use of his almost apologetic charm and Farmiga oozing sex appeal. It’s such a delight to watch the two sparring seductively – a crooked smile here, a teasing look there – that even though the film doesn’t demand or need one, you’re almost fooled into wanting a happy ending.

It’s a shame then that in adapting the film Reitman has leaned a little too heavily on the word and not the image. Razor-sharp banter is one thing, but when the women come together like a Greek chorus the dialogue turns from deft to on the nose and repetitious. And it’s not like Reitman isn’t assured with the visuals. As a video-firing lead by Natalie turns sour, one simple camera tilt from the anguished face on a computer screen to a distorted figure behind some frosted glass, shows the disconnect in Bingham’s world far better than words ever could.

As Bingham says earlier in the film. His job is to guide these lost souls through limbo and, on a spiritual basis, he too is a wandering soul. Doomed never to find rest. Forced to keep moving like the shark or die. His one act of redemption at his sister’s wedding – his big attempt at something approaching normalcy – is tainted by the eventual outcome of his relationship with Alex. It’s a realisation that there is no such thing as real life for him.

There’s almost a transcendent element to the film, evidenced by the peculiar cameo from Sam Elliot. It recalls his character in ‘The Big Lebowski’ who seemed far more than the simple cowboy who enjoyed imparting wisdom and sipping on a sarsaparilla. It’s something to ponder with the film’s final images of Bingham finding himself back at the airport staring at the timetables, finding his gate, before turning heavenward once again.

With Avatar smashing through the $1 billion Box Office ceiling, and James Cameron already self-proclaimed ‘King of the World’, I wonder what delights we can expect at this year’s Oscars. Is ‘Master of the Universe’ a little too camp?

A foot of snow has fallen overnight.

Some potentially exciting news coming up.

That is all.

Just to refresh minds still weary from the first working day of 2010, here’s my review from the now defunct TheDish:

There are two moments in Kathryn Bigelow’s new movie, the cinematic sledgehammer that is ‘Hurt Locker’, that articulate better than anything else the dehumanising effect of war. The first comes when Staff Sergeant James (Jeremy Renner), newly recruited leader of the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) unit, rejects the use of a robot device to monitor a potential bomb threat, electing instead to suit up and face it head on: Saint George to his detonator Dragon.

An act of foolish bravado, one might think. To his colleagues Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) it’s certainly a serious bone of contention, but it’s not until the final scene in the movie – a dreadnought figure lumbering towards the horizon – that we realise the truth.

These are not the reckless sociopaths we’ve come to expect from Hollywood. Nor the braying and brain-dead soldiers indoctrinated by the media into thinking their actions good and just. These are barely men. And certainly not heroes; at least not self-styled heroes. His superiors might want to paint Sergeant James as one, counting off  the bombs he’s disposed of like enemy kills, but he rails against it.

As the insert quote that opens the movie rather pointedly suggests, he is an addict. But not one of flesh and blood. He’s a desensitised machine. Disconnected from family and his past and living solely in the moment. Cocooned in armour and wired into rituals that create the rush which allows him to function in the face of terror.

And war is terror. Bigelow turning the streets of Baghdad into adrenalised arteries at the end of which lie true hearts of darkness. Where no sermons are spoken, the ears too deafened by the precision cacophony to hear anyway. It’s a battlefield where James’ Zen Cowboy swagger butts heads with Sanborn’s rigid adherence to military script. So good are the performances of Renner and Mackie respectively that they recall the opposition of Dafoe and Berenger in Platoon. The mysticism jettisoned, but the violent antagonism still evident with Geraghty’s raw recruit, Eldridge, caught in the middle.

While cameos from all too familiar faces like Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes threaten to disrupt the carefully orchestrated reality – along with an on-the-nose subplot involving an army doctor counselling Eldridge, unnecessary Hollywood compromises -  the main trio are magnetic enough to keep the momentum going.  

A good thing, as they appear to be the only existence on what feels like a barren moon patrolled by camo’ed astronauts. Where the only acknowledgement of time and its passage is in the countdown of the unit’s tour of duty and a suicide bomber’s timer. What life there is beyond the shades of people devastated by the liberation, the cackle of children poking out from doorways, is diminished when you realise the horrors we see are their entertainment. The EOD unit moving inch by nail-biting inch past buildings occupied by distant spotters, their features obscured to the point they become little more than slabs of meat attached to detonators.

Bigelow captures the kinetics of war, not the empty, contrived catharsis. Her camera undulating like a desert cobra before striking, seemingly missing its target, only for it to connect moments later when you least suspect. The edit also dupes you. Settling at first for the kind of familiar rhythm that seems to tip you to the action, but just as the tension is subsiding it detonates again. It’s such a violent, primal sensation, you realise, with the dearth of quality thrillers, how unprepared people will be for this. And how exhilarating that is.

But to call this simply an action movie is to do Bigelow a huge disservice. She fetishises action and forces us to confront it in the same way Peckinpah did. An explosive bloom radiating outwards as if it were something communicable: an anti-life wave. Pockets of shrapnel rising off the ground in slo-mo,  like spores from some terrible seed. The body horror of disarming a child flesh bomb. The gooey slurp of a detonator being pulled from the core of an incendiary. A shell casing impacting on the dirt like a raindrop in a nature program. It’s her ability to translate the inorganic into the organic, whether in the opening tragedy or the agonising tension of the sniper sequence that makes events all the more dreadful and all the more gripping.

If the former, it comes as little surprise that they turned to Robert Downey Jr. for this  new incarnation of the legendary Baker Street sleuth. He’s already played the playboy prince Tony Stark. An actor playing an actor who just happens to be a genius inventor and ironclad superhero.

Here the great metalwork being constructed is Tower Bridge, rising up from the Thames beneath skies tinged by the coal smoke from this industrial age. Its shadows hide the murderous machinations of our villain Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong battling admirably with an underwritten role), eluding first capture at the hands of Holmes and Watson, and then the hangman’s noose. Now he is free to commit a final wicked act that could threaten all of England.

It’s a satisfyingly theatrical premise and Downey’s Holmes is no less the performer. He poses, he pouts, he reasons as if delivering soliloquies before dashing off this vast city-stage to solve another elaborate mystery, in as flamboyant a manner as possible. 

It’s not a huge leap for him. A harsher critic might even consider it coasting. While he’s clearly having fun it’s a performance that edges perilously close to parody, lacking the intensity of the definitive Holmes, the wonderfully vampiric, Jeremy Brett. And yet it still retains the essence of the character. His giddy highs when being challenged, his medicated stupor when not. His delight in puncturing the pomposity of those minds he sees as inferior, whether of the lower or upper classes.

What’s most impressive isn’t that Hollywood has left the canon relatively unscathed (emphasis on Hollywood’s idea of ‘unscathed’), but that it’s shed new light on it. Jude Law is very good as a Watson with a gentlemanly charm, military brawn and a mind of his own. Finally. He even has a beautiful fiancée (Kelly Reilly doing well with a tiny part), a fact that sends his partner into jealous convulsions. In fact it’s Holmes that is slightly off-balance here, hunted by the police and almost bested by the formidable Irene Adler (a vivacious Rachel McAdams), a woman who is ostensibly his female counterpart.

At its heart the film is essentially one of the greatest literary relationships boiled down to a mix of banter and bickering and potential break-up, which adds a dash of ‘Withnail and I’s’ strange melancholy to an already ‘Odd Couple’ scenario. It’s a surprisingly winning combination.

As good as the two leads are, though, the real surprise is director Ritchie. None of his usual jitter-edit prepares us for this. His previous works brash tributes to the kinds of people who prey on the likes of Holmes rather than swap quips with him. Here, however, he takes his established affinity with actors and evolves, putting style to work on the story rather than against.

This is what Alan Moore’s ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ could have been. On one hand subtle CGI is used to turn London into an immersive world of dazzling invention (the lightning rod, the remote trigger). On the other, injections of action illuminate the mind of the famous Detective, seen to dazzling effect in a bare-knuckle bout played first in slo-mo, showcasing the whip-smart mind of Holmes, then at normal speed for us to enjoy in a blaze of bone-crunching.

It’s a flashy visual conceit that’s repeated, with slight variations, throughout the film. More something you applaud than get swept up by as part of a larger intrigue. And in this regard the film suffers slightly due to its breathless pace and slightly uneven tone. But considering everything it does right, it’s a fair compromise. Suspend your disbelief, remove that deerstalker, and you’re in for a treat.