Archive for the ‘James Cameron’ Category

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Giovanni Ribisi, David Thewlis, Jack Champion, Laz Alonso, Kevin Dorman

Running Time: 3 hours and 17 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Titanic director James Cameron has proved his worth as a cinematic world builder.

In the third instalment of the Avatar franchise, the new film entitled Avatar: Fire and Ash, Cameron reassembles his old cast in a multi-themed narrative about the air breathers or Sky People fighting the Na’vi which culminates in a lavish adventure while constantly being threatened by an evil fire tribe headed by the fiery Varang voiced by Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter Oona Chaplin (Quantum of Solace, The Devil’s Double).

Varang heads up the fire wielding Ash creatures who makes a deal with Miles Quatrich played by Stephen Lang in exchange for much coveted arms. In this extraordinary narrative, Sully played again by Sam Worthington along with his family are out to protect Spider played by Jack Champion who has inadvertently found the ability to survive on Pandora without needing an oxygen mask.

Avatar: Fire and Ash has stunning production design by Dylan Cole and Ben Procter coupled with shimmering cinematography by Russell Carpenter. The film itself is a sight to behold, lavish, beautiful and entertaining.

As Sully and Spider avoid capture by Varang, they fall into the hands of the technologically advanced humans on Pandora particularly General Ardmore played by Edie Falco and Selfridge played by Giovanni Ribisi (Selma, Contraband, The Rum Diary) who are desperate to experiment on Spider after he is infused with a strange substance that allows him to breath on Pandora, a substance which if harnessed properly could allow the humans to colonize and exist on Pandora and eternally threaten the Na’vi. General Ardmore views the Na vi as hostiles on the perimeter of their industrial military complex.  

As the final battle looms between the humans and the Na’vi creatures, strange alliances are forged to help protect Pandora’s ecosystem and the existence of the indigenous oceanic tribes, an allegorical nod to climate change and the horrors of ruthless colonialism.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is much better than one expects although the film is extremely long but considering how packed the cinema was when I watched it, it’s definitely a film that is attracting crowds back to the movie theatres.

Something that Hollywood needs at this critical time in which streaming services are blatantly threatening the survival of the collective cinema experience.

Congratulations to James Cameron who delivers another visually resplendent epic film yet again with Avatar: Fire and Ash which should get recognized at the 2026 Oscars for nominations for Best Picture and Visual Effects. If Titanic was the film that made James Cameron famous, Avatar will be his legacy.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is entertaining and visually beautiful with amazing special effects. This epic gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is highly recommended for fans of the first two films. Worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.

Avatar: The Way of Water

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, Stephen Lang, Jack Champion, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, CCH Pounder

Running Time: 3 hours and 12 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

This film is only available in cinemas – please support cinemas

After a 13 year absence, director James Cameron returns with the highly anticipated sequel to the 2009 smash hit Avatar which is a mix up of the first film, with directorial flourishes from his earlier films including the Oscar winning Titanic and 1989’s The Abyss. Avatar: The Way of Water follows the Na’vi race to protect Pandora from the Sky People commonly known as humanity who have come to colonize Pandora as earth is becoming increasingly uninhabitable.

This epic fantasy adventure is over 3 hours long and can be viewed as a family orientated cinematic opera with a clear 3 act partition. The narrative focuses on Jake Sully and his family as they leave the rainforests and escape to the water people, Metkayina reef people headed up by TonoWari played by New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis (Once Were Warriors) and his wife Ronal played by Oscar winner Kate Winslet (The Reader) who reteams with James Cameron after the critical success of Titanic.

Act 1 of Avatar: The Way of the Water is establishing the family dynamics of Jake Sully and his wife Neytiri played by Zoe Saldana and their four children: two boys and two girls as they live blissfully in the lush rain forests of Pandora. Act 2 follows the family’s departure to the water people following an imminent threat by Quaritch played by Stephen Lang, a human space commando that has become an Avatar to track down Jake Sully and then Act 3 is the most spectacular as there are the Aqua Wars.

It is really in the critical scenes of Act 3 that director James Cameron excels as the gorgeous water scenes are extraordinary. However soon the water people and the ocean species are threatened by the arrival of Quaritch with humans, ammunition and extremely advanced technology which destabilizes the delicate balance of life that the Water people, wisely governed by TonoWari has fought so hard to maintain. The water sequences in Act 2 and 3 are truly phenomenal: dazzling and visually beautiful. For that reason alone it is worth seeing Avatar: The Way of Water. The second reason, besides the cutting edge visual effects, is the extraordinary production design, not only in scale but in imagination and interpretation.

The story of Avatar: The Way of Water could be an allegory for conservation, the climate crisis and rapid urbanisation. It could also be an allegorical tale about the colonizer trying to conquer the colonised to the point of extinction. Both allegorical reference points remain relevant and contemporary.

Visually lavish, Avatar: The Way of Water is truly amazing to behold, a vast and glimmering spectacle of oceanic wars, threatened species and unbelievable technology.

Avatar: The Way of Water gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and should win an Oscar for Best Visual effects. It is a very long film, but highly recommended viewing, not so much for the storyline but for the cinematic spectacle.

67th Golden Globe Awards

Took place on Sunday 17th January 2010 hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Golden Globe Winners in The Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: Avatar

Best Director: James Cameron – Avatar

Best Film Musical or Comedy: The Hangover

Best Actor Drama: Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart

Best Actress Drama: Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side

Best Actor Musical or Comedy: Robert Downey Jr. – Sherlock Holmes

Best Actress Musical or Comedy: Meryl Streep – Julie and Julia

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress: Monique – Precious

Best Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon (Germany)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67th_Golden_Globe_Awards

Avatar

James Cameron much anticipated Avatar is a simulacrum of CGI images which will dazzle the viewers but leave any intelligent probing of colonialism in a virtual capacity as a hollow fantasy without any true substance, leaving the human characters to languish in a wilderness of special effects without a thread of credibility…. there again – it is billed as a fantasy epic – a strange mixture of Ferngully on Acid mixed with GI Joe Transformers – where are those corporates digging for precious metals?

Too little of such great talents as Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi are used purposefully onscreen while Sam Worthington’s avatar is as solid as it is imaginary, as two dimensional as the proverbial battle between the indigenous popultion, the Na’vi and the humans which seek to destroy and colonize Pandora

First half is stunning but once Pandora ‘s delights are discovered, it all goes South from there and the machines bring destruction and a new dawn…

Irony of the film is that the earth-loving Pandoreans would never have been created ten years ago without the 21st Century digital technology….

Blade Runner, Babylon AD and Chronicles of Riddick do far better in the originality arena… held up by the bastions of Science Fiction Star Wars and the recent brilliant Star Trek.