movie reviews
I saw a couple movies recently. Here are my thoughts. There may, indeed, be spoilers, so whatever.
First, let's get this out of the way: It's Dances With Wolves meets Ferngully. It's a weird remake of Aliens maybe (Sigourney Weaver, power armor, aliens, distant planet...). It's a case of, "What these people need is a honky!" to borrow a phrase a friend of mine used.
It's all of these, and I don't care, because when I watched the movie, I wasn't paying attention to the fact that it was a white male that saved the day. I wasn't really concerned that the indigenous people were having their home blown up so that the invaders could mine "unobtanium" from under their tree using the cutting-edge method of strip-mining. I was too busy watching the character development.
The main character (perhaps regretfully cast as a Caucasian, since that seems to be such a hot topic) spends the entire film growing as a person. He immerses himself into a life that is (pardon the pun) alien from his own so completely that he is, to quote a character from the move, "like a baby." He grows from being a baby and an outsider to embracing the ways and culture of the Na'vi, even to the point of passing their ritual of adulthood and becoming one of them. He turns his back on the culture that raised him to embrace a culture that he came to feel was more appropriate for him.
I didn't watch this movie and see corporations versus nature or white man saves the day. I saw a story of how the culture you are born to is not necessarily the culture in which you belong. That's the movie I saw, and that's the movie I really, really enjoyed.
Oh yeah. It also had breathtaking special 3D effects.
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum... er... while talking about this movie with a friend tonight. I started out saying, "This isn't like the books. If you want a Sherlock Holmes novel story, you're going to be disappointed." Then I mentioned that a lot of people thought that the Holmes in the movie was too physically violent compared to the books.
Ok, sure. The books don't have him prizefighting in a ring. ... Or do they? In fact, there's a like in the Holmes novel The Sign of the Four in which Holmes, talking to another character, describes himself as, "The amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of your benefit four years back." So there you have it. He's a prizefighter by his own admission.
Ok, so he was a prize fighter. He certainly wasn't so good at fighting as to be a martial artist like in the previews. Well, actually yes. He was. In "The Adventure of the Empty House" Holmes says, "I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me." Baritsu is assumed to be a misspelling of Bartitsu, a fighting and self defense art started around 1898 by Edward William Barton-Wright which combined judo, jujitsu and boxing and incorporated the use of a (walking) stick.
But Holmes isn't a layabout as he's depicted in the movie. In "A Study in Scarlet" Watson says about Holmes, "Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night." This is pretty much exactly as he is depicted in the film.
On the whole, I was left with the feeling that Guy Ritchie's portrayal of Holmes is probably more realistic that that of Doyle's. That sounds funny, since Doyle created Holmes, but I stand by my comment. I think that Ritchie showed us the actual Holmes instead of the cleaned up, more socially acceptable to the late 19th century Holmes. Ritchie seems, to me, to have taken the small descriptions left here and there throughout the body of Holmes' adventures and made them significantly more visible.
I like this movie. I would see it again, readily.
First, let's get this out of the way: It's Dances With Wolves meets Ferngully. It's a weird remake of Aliens maybe (Sigourney Weaver, power armor, aliens, distant planet...). It's a case of, "What these people need is a honky!" to borrow a phrase a friend of mine used.
It's all of these, and I don't care, because when I watched the movie, I wasn't paying attention to the fact that it was a white male that saved the day. I wasn't really concerned that the indigenous people were having their home blown up so that the invaders could mine "unobtanium" from under their tree using the cutting-edge method of strip-mining. I was too busy watching the character development.
The main character (perhaps regretfully cast as a Caucasian, since that seems to be such a hot topic) spends the entire film growing as a person. He immerses himself into a life that is (pardon the pun) alien from his own so completely that he is, to quote a character from the move, "like a baby." He grows from being a baby and an outsider to embracing the ways and culture of the Na'vi, even to the point of passing their ritual of adulthood and becoming one of them. He turns his back on the culture that raised him to embrace a culture that he came to feel was more appropriate for him.
I didn't watch this movie and see corporations versus nature or white man saves the day. I saw a story of how the culture you are born to is not necessarily the culture in which you belong. That's the movie I saw, and that's the movie I really, really enjoyed.
Oh yeah. It also had breathtaking special 3D effects.
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum... er... while talking about this movie with a friend tonight. I started out saying, "This isn't like the books. If you want a Sherlock Holmes novel story, you're going to be disappointed." Then I mentioned that a lot of people thought that the Holmes in the movie was too physically violent compared to the books.
Ok, sure. The books don't have him prizefighting in a ring. ... Or do they? In fact, there's a like in the Holmes novel The Sign of the Four in which Holmes, talking to another character, describes himself as, "The amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of your benefit four years back." So there you have it. He's a prizefighter by his own admission.
Ok, so he was a prize fighter. He certainly wasn't so good at fighting as to be a martial artist like in the previews. Well, actually yes. He was. In "The Adventure of the Empty House" Holmes says, "I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me." Baritsu is assumed to be a misspelling of Bartitsu, a fighting and self defense art started around 1898 by Edward William Barton-Wright which combined judo, jujitsu and boxing and incorporated the use of a (walking) stick.
But Holmes isn't a layabout as he's depicted in the movie. In "A Study in Scarlet" Watson says about Holmes, "Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night." This is pretty much exactly as he is depicted in the film.
On the whole, I was left with the feeling that Guy Ritchie's portrayal of Holmes is probably more realistic that that of Doyle's. That sounds funny, since Doyle created Holmes, but I stand by my comment. I think that Ritchie showed us the actual Holmes instead of the cleaned up, more socially acceptable to the late 19th century Holmes. Ritchie seems, to me, to have taken the small descriptions left here and there throughout the body of Holmes' adventures and made them significantly more visible.
I like this movie. I would see it again, readily.