Major movie critics were allowed to see James Cameron’s Avatar in England yesterday with orders not to publish their reviews until next Monday. Funny thing about embargoes: once one site breaks it, the rest fall in line, and we can thank the Hollywood Reporter for jumping the gun and opening the floodgates.
So what’s the word? Is Avatar a $400-million piece of crap? The second coming of cinema?
The King of the World sets his sights on creating another world entirely in “Avatar,” and it’s very much a place worth visiting. Cameron delivers again with a film of universal appeal that just about everyone who ever goes to the movies will need to see.
A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world. … he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is “Avatar.” … The movie is 161 minutes and flies by in a rush. Repeat business? You bet.
Avatar is an overwhelming, immersive spectacle. The state-of-the-art 3D technology draws us in, but it is the vivid weirdness of Cameron’s luridly imagined tropical otherworld that keeps us fascinated.
An epic film born entirely of Cameron’s imagination, Avatar uses tailor-made technology to create the most astonishing visual effects yet seen on screen and blends them seamlessly into a mythical sci-fi story.
Game-changing – yes. Spectacular – absolutely. Occasional dodgy dialogue and dramatic imperfections – of course. But still – wait for it – a titanic achievement.
Zombies are everywhere, enjoying a resurgence in popularity that ultimately spells an imminent collapse, the Zombie Bubble, if you will. Can’t happen a moment too soon. Between endless videogames and movies, I think the zombie concept has run its course. But what is this? Yet one more attempt to include zombies in pop culture? Indeed. Zombies meet Star Wars posters…
VLC, or VideoLan as some may know it, has been a popular open-source video player for the PC for several years now. It is known for many things, not the least of which is its ability to play just about any file type. VLC has been an important part of every videophile’s library so news of an update is bound to get people excited.
VLC has finally hit version 1.0, bringing with it the following changes and additions:
Free, Open Source and cross-platform
Independant of systems codecs to support most video types
Live recording
Instant pausing and Frame-by-Frame support
Finer speed controls
New HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-Ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, …)
New formats (Raw Dirac, M2TS, …) and major improvements in many formats…
Greg Hatcher has posted an excellent article that delves into the concept of franchise rebooting, wherein a movie studio attempts to revive a once-popular series into something that regains its former glory but blazes new territory. While the article focuses on the latest Star Trek movie, Mr. Hatcher goes on to offer a few nuggets of wisdom for all future reboots.
Nod to fans if you want — but you write it for everyone. Hey, fans will always show up. Many will show up even if they claim to hate what you’re doing. (Embarrassing personal example — I bought the first two issues of All-Star Batman and Robin, even though I loathe Jim Lee’s art and I was ambivalent about Frank Miller’s take on the character, because I’m a Batman guy and I had to make sure I wasn’t missing out. That’s a case of fannish reflexes overriding my brain, because I knew better. Hey, I’ll own it.) You already have the fans, no matter what, for at least your first issue or your opening night. You need to get everybody ELSE. Write it for them.
Rumors are flying fast and furious about a possible remake of Ridley Scott’s classic Alien. Bloody Digusting broke the rumor by claiming an Alien remake was in the initial planning at 20th Century Fox, and now further word comes that it may be an origins story and not a full-blown remake.
A remake is a horrible idea. Alien stands the test of time quite well. Everything about the movie holds up, despite the fact that is is 30years old now(!)
Perhaps worst of all is that a newbie director is attached, one Mr. Carl Rinsch, whose claim to fame is television commercials, a fact that never inspires confidence. On the bright side, Ridley Scott is supposedly on-board as a producer, as is his brother, Tony Scott.
Please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t let this be a remake.
Meanwhile, here is an example of Carl Rinsch’s commercial work:
We are using high performance computational techniques and multi-layer, large scale computer simulations to project the time course of the swine flu epidemic in the United States. Our simulations yield projections and risk assessments of the epidemic outbreak in a worst case scenario, in which no containment measures are taken to mitigate the spread. Therefore, the actual case numbers are expected to be smaller as mitigation strategies and containment efforts become effective. We are constantly updating our forecast, taking into account new information on confirmed cases and more precise information on the transmissibilty and disease-specific parameters.
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