Posts Tagged ‘Avatar’

  • 16 Dec

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    Mamo #284: Let’s Get Into It

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    The next generation of immersive cinema has arrived, and so has The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Was bundling them together a good idea? We talk High Frame Rate at 48 frames per second, our Hobbit reactions at 24 frames per second, and eat a great breakfast at regular speed. Plus: science! Join us and enjoy.

    Mamo #284: Let's Get Into It [ 54:18 | 0.01 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup

    To download this episode, use this URL: http://rowthree.com/audio/mamo/mamo284.mp3

  • 25 Aug

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    Something the World Definitely Needs: Avatar 1.5

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    The re-release of Avatar hits theaters this week. I think they’re calling it Avatar: Cash Grab or Special Edition or Deluxe Version or something like that. It’s gonna be like, totally worth it because there’s going to be an EXTRA NINE MINUTES of footage we didn’t see the first time around. But it gets better.

    Because this is the best movie ever made and it’s getting a special re-release with extra stuff for the awesome fans and the twelve people that missed it in theaters the first time around, Fox has announced they’re releasing the special edition DVD with that has… wait for it… SIXTEEN whole minutes of even more spectacular footage! Including shots of the Nav’i going to school, the death of one major Na’vi character and a hunt for one of Pandora’s creatures; ya know, stuff that will really enhance the depth of the story and flesh things out so much better with the characters. Not to mention we’ll all be able to own at least three different versions of the movie for our bookshelves!

    Let’s see, the film was released in theaters in December of 2009. The DVD/Blu-Ray was released in April of 2010. We’re getting the re-release in theaters this Friday and now a new special edition DVD/Blu-Ray this November. Don’t forget, sometime next year, we will finally see the 3D Blu-Ray release of the film, which I’m sure will have even more extra footage. Yeah, this is all set to happen within a year and half of the film’s initial theatrical release. – nerdbastards

    Condescension aside, I’m actually curious if anyone out there (that visits this site anyway) is planning on checking out the second coming of Chr… Avatar this weekend. As a side question, are you planning on picking up the Blu-ray/DVD? If so, which version(s)?

     

  • 12 Mar

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    Jim Cameron Makes No Sense… and is Kind of a Dingleberry

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    So the evidence that 3D pisses me off continues to mount (like I need more). Ironically it’s none other than 3D spokesman James Cameron who baffles me with some of his remarks as to the state of 3D, the future of 3D, the use of upconversion in current films (Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans) and how he’s going to sue the pants off of anyone and everyone who plans to make a 3D movie with his technology.

    The full article and interview with “USA Today” can be found HERE, but I pulled a few choice remarks out of the story to make my point. Oh and did I mention he plans to re-release Titanic in upconverted 3D (“spring of 2012″)? Gee, thanks James.

    “We now need the second wave [of 3D infrastructure]. We had more than enough for Avatar and more than enough for Alice In Wonderland. But now you’re going to have film coming upon film coming upon film. We’ve demonstrated that the 3D market is an extremely lucrative market and this is not a fad, this is not something that is going to go away.”

    First of all, you didn’t have enough for Alice and Avatar. Hence, Alice trounced your blue nymphs at the box office. Secondly, I really hope he’s wrong about 3D not being a fad. If theaters resist the knee jerk to expensively convert all of their screens, he may be. It’s sort of a Catch-22: theaters need to convert in order to screen all the movies coming in 3D, but enough 3D movies need to be made to make it worth it for the theaters.

    As of right now, theaters aren’t prepared for the onslaught of 3D movies that are supposedly on the way. So in the short term, if the theaters play the “wait and see” game, the film industry might begin to see losses on some of their big budget 3D films since not all of them can play at the same time in any given theater. A possible progression of events may (or may not) then happen: studios will scale back on the number of 3D movies produced (for cost effectiveness) while at the same time theaters realize that they’ve been missing out and need to start getting more screens ready for all of these 3D movies being released. So now you’ve got all of these theaters ready for 3D but no films coming out. And if the studios start producing more at that point, hopefully audiences will have grown weary of the mind numbing experience as a result of the combination of either the inferior quality products (since they don’t have access or the money to use Cameron’s technology – discussed below), the extravagant prices of wearing annoying glasses and/or just finally getting over the fad/novelty/distraction.

    “[Industry people] think, ‘what was[sic] the takeaway lessons from Avatar? Oh you should make more money with 3D’ … they ignore the fact that we natively authored the film in 3D, and decide that what we accomplished in several years of production could be done in an eight week (post-production 3D) conversion with Clash of the Titans. If people put bad 3D in the marketplace they’re going to hold back or even threaten the emerging of 3D. People will be confused by differences in quality… They’re converting Clash of the Titans in eight weeks. But I’m guessing six months to a year to do it right. We’re targeting spring of 2012 for the release (of a 3D version of Titanic)…”

    So no jabs at Alice (which finally stomped you out of the multi-plexes), but rip apart Clash of the Titans why don’t you? Then drop that you’re going to re-release Titanic in 3D and then say the following!?:

    Q: Should the existing film catalog be converted to 3D?
    A: If it’s done well. I think it should be driven by the artist. If Star Wars gets converted into 3D I think George (Lucas) should do it. If Terminator gets converted into 3D, I should do it.

    Q: How do the converted films look?
    A: It’s never going to be as good as if you shot it in 3D, but think of it as sort of 2.8D.

    So you’re trying to revolutionize the film going experience and the digital marketplace with 3D television and high end technological feats, but deliberately release a film which you just admitted in your previous statement will be of inferior quality? wft?

    Nevertheless, if we’re going to force theaters into upgrading all of their equipment so it’s capable of screening 3D films properly, we’re going to want the end product to at least look like quality craftsmanship. How would you go about ensuring that all 3D films from now on are as high quality (subjectively speaking) as Avatar was?

    “Depending on who our strategic alliances are with, we’ll either put out our (intellectual property) and make it available for licensing or put it into a pool or whatever it is, or we’ll be in the suing people business for a long time. We figured this stuff out empirically six or seven years ago and we patented it. If people try to do it the way we’ve done it on Avatar they’ll get a phone call.”

    Douche.

  • 01 Mar

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    Cameron’s Leaked Oscar Acceptance Speech

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    An eternity ago when Cameron won the best picture/director Oscar for his titanic Titanic, we proclaimed he was the king of the world. Going down in Oscar history as quite the prolific and some might argue, pompous, acceptance speeches of all time, Cameron has sat down and prepped out what he’s going to say on the big stage “when” he wins again this year for the even more titanic, Avatar. Luckily, Vanity Fair stole a copy of Cameron’s notes for that upcoming speech and has shared it with the world…

    read the final 3 (yes, 3) pages that I’ve tacked up under the seats:
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 17 Feb

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    Bookmarks for Feb. 14-17

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    • Some Came Running: “Shutter Island”
      Glenn Kenny positively reviews the Scorsese’s newest opus: “So all things being equal, even the most devoted of Scorsese fans couldn’t necessarily be blamed for expecting little beyond a very very grand piece of Guignol, with inimitable style and panache but maybe not so much resonance. So I am thoroughly happy to report that, to my eyes and ears at least, Shutter Island is, in the Godardian formulation, a vrai Scorsese film, in its way the most fully realized personal work of the Scorsese-DiCaprio collabs, a puzzle picture that, as it puts its plot pieces together, climbs to a crescendo that aims to reach that perfect note of empathetic despair we haven’t seen/heard in a Hollywood picture since Vertigo. I think it very nearly gets there.”
    • Top 10 Stills of 2009
      Part one of two in which InContention looks at compelling stills from 2009 films.
    • Best and Worst worst date movies
      “One Slate writer brought a prospective beau to see the morbidly erotic In the Realm of the Senses, which also involves genital mutilation and which happens to be one of her favorite movies. She never heard from him again. “Just as well, since anyone who can’t roll with Realm O’ isn’t my type anyway,”"
    • Robert Smith – “Very Good Advice”
      Robert Smith has turned his attention to Almost Alice, a collection of songs inspired by Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland. He’s joined by the likes of Owl City, Avril Lavigne, the All-American Rejects, and many other of your favorite artists. (The movie’s actual score was done by Danny Elfman, though Avril’s track will show up during the credits.) Take a listen to Smith’s “Very Good Advice” streaming here. It includes less tears than the original.
    • When talking about your influences works against you.
      It’s fair. If you’re going to attack Tarantino, the first thing you typically do is cite him for plagiarism, which for me is missing the point — the locations and sequences he films are always slowed down to his distinctive pace. So why is Martin Scorsese celebrated for his cinephilia while Tarantino’s is held in evidence against him?.
    • Avatar, the French New Wave and the morality of deep-focus (in 3-D)
      Jim Emerson wonders why James Cameron would use a shallow depth of field in Avatar, a technique that often uses blur to signal depth, in a film that already has depth through its use of 3D. He bolsters his position through references to Cahier critics’ defense of the freedom deep focus allows viewers, arguing that with so much to look at in Avatar, Cameron’s dictatorial shallow focus is inexcusable.
    • Hollywood sign coverup part of campaign to purchase Cahuenga Peak
      A nonprofit group plans to cover the Hollywood sign with a banner urging “Save the Peak” this week, announcing its effort to purchase nearby Cahuenga Peak from private developers for $11.7 million.

     
     

    You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button in the upper right of the page. It looks remarkably similar to this:

  • 09 Feb

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    Bookmarks for Feb. 4-9

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    • Bruce McDonald talks about Trigger, This Movie Is Broken and a Hard Core Logo Sequel
      “For many years we’ve been talking about doing a follow-up [to Hard Core Logo]. Hugh and Callum have both been super busy so we thought that while we were waiting — and waiting to see if Joe Dick comes back from the dead — we could take some of the minor characters from the first movie and put them in the foreground. So Bucky Haight, who is their mentor in the original, becomes one of the major characters. I become a major character, too — I play the filmmaker who filmed the onscreen suicide of the unfortunate Joe Dick and who’s wracked with guilt. Care Failure and her band Die Mannequin play themselves — they’re recording an album with Bucky and I’m documenting it. She’s been channeling the spirit of Joe Dick — he’s writing songs through her. It’s crazy but it’s essentially the story of them making a record in this old dancehall in northern Saskatchewan.”
    • Do Movies Matter Anymore? Steven Soderbergh Doesn’t See Any Evidence They Do
      “It was odd to see people who allegedly are pro-cinema, kind of rooting against Che conceptually. Taking the position of why would somebody make a movie of this length and try and release it this way? My attitude is, well, why wouldn’t you encourage somebody to do something that’s out of the box? Whether you like the movie or not — you can not like the movie — but it was odd to see people slamming the idea of making it.”
    • The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights [review]
      It’s been a while (about 6 months actually), but Andrew finally got around to writing up a review for the rock doc showcasing The White Stripes tour about Canada. It’s over at the MorePop page
    • The Decade’s 30 Best Long Tail Films
      Pretty much every movie related website on the Internet has come up with some sort of Best of the Decade list over the past month. But while the majority of them focused on straight up “Best of” lists, in the spirit of [Where The Long Tail Ends] that I would instead focus on the lesser known films that have been made over the past ten years.”
    • Is Avatar the Oscar Villain?
      “Almost any good story has to have a great villain in order for it to work. And the best thing about the Oscars — because they’re so darn predictable these days — is the narrative. But we still need a villain, don’t we? For some people, Avatar is that villain. Right now the Oscar race is shaping up to be the two-billion-dollar-movie versus The Hurt Locker, a film that managed only $16 million … worldwide. The problem is this: Avatar is not the general audience’s villain and those are the people the Oscar telecast is hoping to pull in. On a superficial level, though, Avatar is a marvelous stand-in for Darth Vader. In a way, it reminds me of another imperial franchise, the New York Yankees.”

     
     

    You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button in the upper right of the page. It looks remarkably similar to this:

  • 27 Jan

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    Look at All That Cheddar

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    We do not really bother with box office around these parts (except of course the insightful analysis within the Mamo! podcast) but “Most Money Ever Made Worldwide” does not happen very often. The Jim Cameron ego just earned more bragging rights having the two biggest dollar films in the history of filmgoing. He does not make cheap movies, but he does prove the maxim (at least in so far as his own films go), “If you spend it, they will come.”

    Minutae at Box-Office Mojo.

  • 03 Jan

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    Bookmarks for January 3rd

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    You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button to your left. It looks remarkably similar to this:

    • Analyzing 2009
      What story can be told of the film industry in 2009? The story, as I see it, is Hollywood’s realization that it must do a better job of protecting the financial viability of franchise films from being undermined by an increasingly voracious and savvy viewing public that is constantly searching for a greater degree of access to and control over the film properties to which they have become attached.
    • Movie Posters of the Decade
      Trawling through databases of all the movie posters released in the past ten years and trying to remember my ten favorites, two things stand out: that only a very small percentage qualify as great pieces of design in their own right and that my favorite posters have little bearing on my favorite films.
    • Dissertations on His Dudeness
      Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1998 movie, “The Big Lebowski,” which stars Jeff Bridges as a beatific, pot-smoking, bowling-obsessed slacker known as the Dude, snuck up on the English-speaking world during the ’00s: it became, stealthily, the decade’s most venerated cult film. It’s got that elusive and addictive quality that a great midnight movie has to have: it blissfully widens and expands in your mind upon repeat viewings.
    • Criticwatch 2009: The Whores of the Year
      “The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response. Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good, why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering and death. Its harmonies require violence. Its “circle of life” is really a cycle of mortality. And the human societies that hew closest to the natural order aren’t the shining Edens of James Cameron’s fond imaginings. They’re places where existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.”
    • God, Gaia, and Avatar
      Another year, another accoutrement of whores to accompany those who put some actual thought into film. The death of the film critic has been greatly exaggerated, but as always the rise of the quote whores and anonymous fanboy bloggers has gone ruefully under-reported.
    • Unwatchable Avatar: Hollywood Greed Could Kill 3D
      Like millions of others, I saw Avatar last weekend. I loved it—despite the 3D, not because of it. Admittedly, my seat was shitty and I wear eyeglasses, but if the experience isn’t guaranteed, 3D will fail.
    • The man who is scaling Mt. Criterion film by film
      The Criterion Collection is the standard bearer among high-quality DVDs, but he wasn’t associated with them, except in an indirect way: He has set himself the goal of seeing and writing about every single film in the Collection!
    • Too Big to Fail: The 34th Toronto International Film Festival
      Firmly established as the pre-eminent film event in North America, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) seems less compromised than comfortable. Rumours of a few years ago that TIFF was cutting back on adventurous programming may or may not have been accurate, but quite a few strange little items are still finding their way into the festival.
    • Current Decade Rates as Worst in 50 Years
      Not really movie related (not directly anyway), but we wanted to share. As the current decade draws to a close, relatively few Americans have positive things to say about it. By roughly two-to-one, more say they have a generally negative (50%) rather than a generally positive (27%) impression of the past 10 years.
    • Larry Gross’s Four Most Underreported / Misreported Movie Stories Of 2009
      The Hangover, The Road, Zoe Kazan, Funny People. Have at it; Larry is not shy with his opinion.
    • 40 Brilliant Robot Artworks
      Robots have been a driving force in technological innovations and in multimedia roles. From movies such as Star Wars, i,Robot, Wall-E, and Terminator, to videogames, and even real life with the Mars Rover, robots have advanced significantly over the past years in both design and functionality. As with any expanding field, artists often create conceptual works to help direct and illustrate.
    • Going Na’vi: Why Avatar’s politics are more revolutionary than its images
      Cameron is blunt when it comes to Avatar’s political overtones. But rather than a clunky work of agitprop the movie can—and, I think, ought to—be seen as a polemic, which makes criticism of its obviousness beside the point. Having Lang’s colonel refer to his plan to bomb the Na’vi into submission with the words “shock and awe” is not subtle, but it’s not meant to be. Cameron means to be confrontational, and to be sure, audiences looking for a diverting night out are not allowed to overlook the parallels.
  • 22 Dec

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    Bookmarks for December 22

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    • God, Gaia, and Avatar
      “The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response. Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good, why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering and death. Its harmonies require violence. Its “circle of life” is really a cycle of mortality. And the human societies that hew closest to the natural order aren’t the shining Edens of James Cameron’s fond imaginings. They’re places where existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.”
    • Movie Posters of the Decade: A Follow-up
      “Last week [The Auteur's Notebook] posted my selection of the decade’s best movie posters: a post which attracted a remarkable amount of attention, not least from the estimable Roger Ebert, who posted his rival choices on his blog. The Auteurs contributor Andrew Grant, a.k.a. Filmbrain, was also inspired to post his own favorites, many of which are absolute knockouts. We also received a phenomenal and rather humbling response on our forum, enough to convince me that I need to do a follow-up post.”
    • Larry Gross’s Four Most Underreported / Misreported Movie Stories Of 2009
      The Hangover, The Road, Zoe Kazan, Funny People. Have at it; Larry is not shy with his opinion.
    • On Brittany Murphy…
      “One of the first things Brittany Murphy did when she showed up on the Oregon set of her indie thriller “Something Wicked” last June was acknowledge — and apologize for — her weight.”
    • When Critics Fight Critics
      IFC goes over many of the tiffs and tats between critics over the banner-year-of-change in the industry, 2009.
  • 22 Dec

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    Cinecast Episode 148 – Top 10 Actresses of 2009; Avatar

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    Episode 148:

    SPOILERS ALERT!
    Anticipated for many months now, James Cameron’s Avatar is finally upon us and all we can muster up is a lot of bitching. Maybe not fair to a guy we have grown up with and loved over the years or to a movie that is not based on a video game, remake or previous existing property, perhaps. The criticism is as valid as the heap of praise for the last monster-sized blockbuster of 2009. We switch gears from negative to positive rather abruptly with our top ten picks of best female performances in 2009 and even reminisce on some Mike Judge and other DVD releases this week. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section below and by all means post your own top ten. We’d love to see it.
    Thanks for listening!

    Click the Audio Icon below to listen in:

    Cinecast Episode 148 [ 2:42:51 | 93.19 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup

    To download the show directly, paste the following URL into your favorite downloader:
    http://www.rowthree.com/audio/cinecast_09/episode_148.mp3

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 15 Dec

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    67th Annual Golden Globe Nominations

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    I know that the thumbs snubbed at the Golden Globes each year is just something I have to deal with, but honestly, there are things to really like about this award ceremony. One, it splits up the acting awards into two groups: drama and musical or comedy. The ceremony itself is rather short and to the point which I rather like and maybe most importantly to us bloggers/readers, it’s the award show that most clearly gives us an indication of what to expect from The Academy.

    So with all that in mind and still expecting the vitriol in the comments below, here are the nominees for the 2009 Golden Globe Awards. Not too surprisingly, Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air takes the cake with 6 nominations and NINE comes to the table with 5 nods.

    Who do you think got snubbed and who shouldbn’t be here? I might make the case that the great Meryl Streep competing against herself is at least discussion worthy, if not kind of cheap. Presentation of the awards will be telecast live on NBC at 8pm EST on Sunday, January 17th.

    MOVIES

    BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA
    Avatar
    The Hurt Locker
    Inglourious Basterds
    Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
    Up in the Air

    BEST MOTION PICTURE, MUSICAL OR COMEDY
    (500) Days of Summer
    The Hangover
    It’s Complicated
    Julie and Julia
    Nine

    BEST DIRECTOR
    Katherine Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
    James Cameron, Avatar
    Clint Eastwood, Invictus
    Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
    Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

    BEST DRAMATIC ACTOR
    Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
    George Clooney, Up in the Air
    Colin Firth, A Single Man
    Morgan Freeman, Invictus
    Tobey Maguire, Brothers

    BEST DRAMATIC ACTRESS
    Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria
    Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
    Helen Mirren, The Last Station
    Carey Mulligan, An Education
    Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 10 Dec

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    The Floodgates of Gush Open for Avatar

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    Avatar_RundontWalk

    And so it begins. As blogs and papers break the so-called embargoes around the globe, high praise for James Cameron’s 3D game-changer (and subject of much anticipation, ire, speculation and geek-rage) is probably making many of the nay-sayers come (at the very least) close to reconsidering. Good news for whomever floated that $300+ million dollar price tag.

    Here are a few reactions: Variety, Twitch, Hollywood Reporter, The Guardian, The Sun UK

    Talk amoungst yourselves. Again.

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