Subatomic Brainfreeze

"CAUTION POINTS" for viewing Filmed Entertainment "AVATAR"

CAUTION POINT ALPHA: Do not watch this movie if you are not watching it in 3D.

I'm serious, don't even bother: go the right way or don't go at all. All this movie's impact is in the special effects, the 3D, and the action. If you're not wearing your 3D shades you've lost much of what's special about it. I actually flinched to dodge a tear gas grenade at one point. The 3D stuff isn't driven by shock "made you jump" stuff, though: the tricks are constantly being used to subtler effect. I will say, however, that this beats the hell out of your eyes. I had to take my glasses off from the strain at a couple different points during the overly long movie: it's like Virtual Boy overexposure, but with more colors.

I expected the CG people to be all the way in the Uncanny Valley, but unlike, say, the recent Christmas Carol remake, these CG people are actually convincing. Of course, the movie makes sure to almost never have live actors and CG ones in the same scene-- save a few shots towards the end-- but the CG, standing on its own, is now strong enough that these sections come off exactly as "real" as the scenes with live actors do. You have to hand it to Cameron: the bar is officially raised.

CAUTION POINT BETA: You have seen this entire movie before.

The whole thing, beginning to end. Man from dominant civilization infiltrates the Other, learns their ways, becomes accepted, sleeps with a girl, changes sides on the spot. It's done well enough, but like everybody has been saying, you're in this for the visuals. You will be stunned by an unparalleled visual assault, but not surprised and certainly not moved.

CAUTION POINT GAMMA: A number of the plot points of this movie are stupid.

A couple of friends said "sure, go ahead, spoil us" over dinner at Go Go Curry, and by the end of it they were laughing their asses off. There are a number of seriously groan-worthy "I can't believe you expect me to go with this" moments in this movie, most of which are packed together at the end.

Characters aren't much better: there's the noble, peace-loving, nature-respecting and utterly perfect natives (the Na'vi), the puppy-stabbingly evil humans (all but the hero and his friends, the nerds in a world of uniformly evil marine jocks), and they're all completely hollow. It's hard to sympathize with such caricatures.

The final scene also ensures that this will become the official furry recruitment film for the next fifteen years.

Good news, everybody: HOUSE IS ON TOUR

This is just a quick heads-up, but it's way too good to keep to the Twitter.

A couple months back, I watched and loved Nobuhiko Obayashi's surreal 1977 horror movie House. I loved it so much, in fact, that I urged you readers to see it any way you could. As such, I'm pleased to report that starting next week, House will actually be running in a few cities! This is especially nice for me, as there's a showing Halloween night, and Halloween is my birthday. This cosmic gift pleases me. If you can make it to any of these shows, do so: you won't be disappointed.

New York Asian Film Festival '08: RYU GA GOTOKU: BEST VIDEOGAME MOVIE EVER

I know it's a small field and a low bar, but that doesn't mean Takashi Miike doesn't deserve some kind of fancy prize shaped like Sonic the Hedgehog for this movie. Miike was the best possible call to direct an adaptation of Sega's gangster game Ryu ga Gotoku (here released as Yakuza), as there's nothing the man-- perhaps best known here for his adaptation of the ultraultraviolent manga Ichi the Killer-- does better than yakuza and cartoonish excess.

Our hero is standard badass Kazuma Kiryu: as the player character of a videogame, he is an unstoppable ass-kicking monster who we first see casually beating the shit out of a small army of rival gangsters in a supermarket. Supermarkets! They're great places to get in a fight! He's trying to find a little girl's mom, who is apparently tangled up in some crazy missing-money business. Meanwhile, a rival gangster who struts around town posing and clubbing everything in front of him with a baseball bat is hunting down his old friend Kiryu-chan, who he heard just got out of the joint and who he really, really wants to have an awesome fight to the death with. These people-- and the police, government agents, and a whole town of other assorted crazies-- eventually all collide in a big mess of gunpowder and blood and gut punches and baseballs and broken bones. Who wins? The viewer!

Steve told me it's crazy faithful to the game, down to the locations and the moves in the fight scenes. He also pointed out the cameo by Sega designer Toshihiro Nagoshi. I'm a bad Sega fan because I still haven't played this game yet. Shame on me. I'll tell you this, though: the film has an amazing "videogame moment" that's too good to spoil. Plus sweet yakuza music. I'd really love the soundtrack to this movie: I would walk really slowly down the street with it playing. I would lean back and cock my head sideways and swagger.

In summary, you cannot afford to miss a movie with a shotgun Mexican standoff.