Do The Right Thing -- Stand Up For Excellence
September 25, 2024
I Would Have Preferred A More Challenging...Okay, A More Insulting Tone
September 25, 2024
Opposite Peas in Polish Travel Pod
September 25, 2024
Posted 2 and 1/2 years ago, way back in July 2020....time flies when you're absolutely loving your life. Back then there were assholes commenters (like the late "Seasonal Affleck Disorder") who kept writing "what will it take to get Jeff to stop posting about this crap...everything's fine...just write about loving movies!"
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The spooky closing montage is the crowning crescendo of William Cameron Menzies' Invaders From Mars ('53). Without this sequence the film would amount to much less, certainly in terms of present-day esteem. The combination of that eerie choral music (composed by Mort Glickman, orchestrated by Raoul Kraushar) along with those trippy reverse-motion shots still get under your skin.
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I was sitting in seat E5 during yesterday afternoon’s Avatar 2 screening. The “show” started at 2:15 pm, but as we all know that meant the film itself wouldn’t start until at least 20 minutes of trailers had unspooled. As it happened the film didn’t begin until 2:40 pm. During the 25 minutes of trailers two seats to my left were empty, but I figured the purchasers would show up at the last minute. They didn’t, and after a while I started to say to myself “hey, this is pretty good…maybe I can move over and stretch my legs.”
At 3:07 pm the seat purchasers finally showed up. 27 minutes after the film had begun. The fact that both were overweight had nothing to do with anything, of course. Avatar 2 seats are expensive, and they had to have reserved them a good 10 days in advance. How undisciplined and chaotic does your life have to be to cause this much delay? This wasn’t just another movie –it was an opening-day showing of one of the biggest films of the year. Did they forget? One of them couldn’t get out of the bathroom? I gradually pushed these thoughts out of my head, but it took a while.
Avatar 2 runs 192 minutes — add on 25 minutes of trailer promos and you’re talking 217 minutes. That’s obviously part of the exhaustion factor — it’s grueling to be bombarded with loud, floor-vibrating, super-sized images for three hours and 37 minutes. Lawrence of Arabia runs ten minutes longer (227 minutes) but that film doesn’t rough you up like Avatar 2 — it’s visually vast and eye-filling, but huge portions are dialogue-driven.
Pre-Elon Musk Twitter may not have done the right journalistic thing by suppressing the sad, pathetic sagaof Hunter Biden during the ‘20 ejection, but I’m glad they did it regardless. Because the Hunter Biden scandal is nothing, as I explained early last September:
Before yesterday’s 2:15 pm Lincoln Square screening of Avatar2 they showed the trailer for James Gunn’s GuardiansoftheGalaxy, Vol. 3 (Disney, 5.5.23). My spirit sank — anotherMarvelattitudegoofballfan-servicecomedyinspace. The patience of Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill once again tried by Dave Bautista’s Drax the Destroyer…really bad for the soul, man. Pit of depression.
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My God, Avatar2: TheWayofWater rerally romps and stomps like nothing I’ve seen in a long while, and the astonishing CG realism (which I couldn’t settle into at first — it took me 10 minutes to find my way into it) is quite the thing, and there’s no beating that last 50- or 60-minute aquatic pitched-battle, breaching-whale, pulse-rifle-burst, arrow-piercing “woo-woo!” destructathon.
A family that fiercely fights together loves all the more…ThePoseidon Adventure meets a return-to-Titanic sinkathon + TheAbyss drowning trauma + weeping death scene + the wildest, craziest, most vigorously sustained battle lollapalooza ever…worth the price and then some…pays off like a motherfucker.
James Cameron is a drop-dead brilliant action director…let no one ever challenge that statement.
And I’m now determined to practice my Navi cat howl-Māori battle cry.
But so much of Avatar2 is padded all to hell & is too fucking long, man…it could’ve easily, EASILY been 45 minutes shorter. The narrative pretty much stops in the middle section and becomes a bloated, ultra-costly real-estate video + a tricks-of-under-the-sea survival instructional + Club Med acqua-blue travelogue for glorious Pandora Shores.
The tech is marvelous and bracinglyreal & every last dollar seems to be on the screen. But there’s something oddly oppressive and even un-entertaining at times about being vigorously assaulted & smothered by so much CG dough…truckloads & truckloads of cash spent by the ultimate wizardly maestro of wildly expensive holy shit superfuck blockbusters. The film is a titanic grand-slam CG toy factory spendathon…whew!
I like the “family is a fortress” theme but my God, I was exhausted when it ended. I’m not altogether sure I want to see it a second time. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman was right when he called it thin. Pic seems to take as much as it gives.
Only in New York City can you negotiate the price of a large Good & Plenty. “$3.50,” the newsstand guy said. “They charged me $3.00 last week!…right here!”, I indignantly replied. Newsstand guy: “S’allright.” HE: “What?” Newsstandguy: “Three is good.”
Nice location scouting on someone’s part. Unless they somehow erased the apes and tapirs from the original 2001 footage and replaced them with dolls and little girls. Either way, excellent work on Greta Gerwig‘s part.
“You’re a dilletante, a womanizer, unstable, theatrical, neurotic…”
I’m presuming this post won’t last long (attorneys will be swooping down) but given that millions of Avatar 2 viewers are watching this Oppenheimer teaser today, I don’t see what’s so ignoble about posting it here. The cat is out of the bag….let it run free.
Of all the Oppenheimer stars and costars, the only one I object to is Benny Safdie. Hollywood Elsewhere believes that performances by Benny Safdie need to be stopped, almost as much as EEAAO‘s path to Oscar glory needs to be stopped.
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt as Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves (aka Paul Newman‘sd role in Fat Man and Little Boy), Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Rami Malek as Mystery Man #1, Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush. Not to mention Kenneth Branagh, Jason Clarke, Josh Peck Gary Oldman (as Harry S. Truman), Alex Wolff, Tony Goldwyn and Casey Affleck.
Posted 2 and 1/2 years ago, way back in July 2020....time flies when you're absolutely loving your life. Back then there were assholes commenters (like the late "Seasonal Affleck Disorder") who kept writing "what will it take to get Jeff to stop posting about this crap...everything's fine...just write about loving movies!"
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