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1-20 of 78 articles from 2009 « Prev | Next »
Julian Roman's Top 10 Films of 2009
3 hours ago
| MovieWeb
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A new decade begins on a high note as we look back at an exceptional year in film. 3D and the IMAX format have finally taken hold. What was once gimmickry and the sole realm of documentaries are now exciting cinematic experiences for audiences of all ages. Leading the charge was James Cameron's visionary Avatar. The long awaited science fiction epic surpassed considerable expectations with its breathtaking special effects and scope. But while the colossus reins supreme, smaller films like Lee Daniels Precious and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air resonated with their captivating performances. I am optimistic for 2010, but wonder where the hell are the flying cars and hover boards?Top Ten Films of 2009#1 Avatar There are not enough superlatives to describe this film. Writer/Director James Cameron has once again taken us to a new frontier. Jake Sully's (Sam Worthington) odyssey on Pandora is akin to Dances with Wolves in space.
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Utah man fired from job for calling ‘Avatar’ fan an “Avatard”
28 December 2009 9:44 AM, PST
| ReelLoop.com
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While director James Cameron’s latest big-budget film, Avatar, astonishes audiences with a torrid of stunning visual effects, the movie has also grown a surprisingly large and rabid fan-base. Just ask Anthony Hansen, a Salt Lake City-based customer service representative who works for Stencil Tech, or at least he used to until he was fired from the company for expressing his “anti-Avatar” views of the movie.
One of the most highly anticipated films of the second half of the decade, Avatar has been touted as the special effects event that would change cinema forever. The movie centers on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic Marine who takes a job on the alien world of Pandora in order to operate his dead brother’s avatar, a lab-grown “native” fused with his brother’s DNA to that of a Na’vi, the indigenous humanoid population on Pandora. Hired by a non-governmental mining operation on the planet,
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- Reel Loop Satire Squad
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Where should sci-fi boldly go in 2010?
24 December 2009 3:41 AM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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With the success of Star Trek, Avatar and District 9, It's been a high-profile year for science-fiction, but has the quality matched the publicity? What new paths might the genre explore in the next decade?
Earlier this year, sci-fi actioner Pandorum proved that you can concoct an entertaining - if rather artistically bankrupt - thriller in space by splicing together bits of other popular genre flicks: in this case, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien and Brit horror flick The Descent. Looking forward to next year's crop of sci fi movies, I wonder if Repo Men might follow a similar route.
The film is not, as its name suggests, a sequel to Alex Cox's wry 1984 punk cult classic, but rather an original piece based on the 2009 novel The Repossession Mambo, by Eric Garcia. I say original, for Repo Men seems to have grabbed elements of every sci fi flick from Gattaca to Minority Report,
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- Ben Child
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MTV Movies Blog Readers Respond To 'Avatar'
23 December 2009 1:00 PM, PST
| MTV Movies Blog
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For more on the political subtext at play in "Avatar," check out our interview with Stephen Lang/Col. Miles Quaritch.
"Avatar" has been out for most of a week now and the verdict is in: people like it. A lot. There are issues if you look for them, one-dimensional characters, goofy dialogue, subtext that isn't really "sub" at all... all of the usual complaints people level at a blockbuster event film. Ultimately, director James Cameron crafted an experience that's meant to give people a good time, and that's exactly what he accomplishes.
Of course, that's just my opinion. Throughout the past week, we've been soliciting opinions from you, the readers. And you've responded. There's a lot of praise after the jump. Some criticism, but it's mostly positive. There's even a compelling idea or two, some discussion-worthy content to leave you with food for thought. Thanks to all who contributed... we'd
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- Adam Rosenberg
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The Geek Beat: Bury My Heart On Pandora
22 December 2009 6:02 PM, PST
| Cinematical
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As you've seen and enjoyed, 2009 has been a great year for sci-fi. But as we come to the end of our mini-renaissance, and breathlessly wait to see where it will go, I can't help but see some very troubling themes within sci-fi fandom. For a genre that's all about being open minded and exploring the unknown, we're incredibly comfortable with it taking massive shortcuts right into the land of cultural and sexual stereotype.
If you've seen even a trailer for Avatar, you can't help but notice the obvious similarities between the Na'vi and Native Americans. There wouldn't have been a million Dances with Wolves jokes if it was subtle. It's no surprise that the movie paints them with an even broader tribal brush, though to be fair, it throws in some African and Aboriginal Australian anthropology so as to seem a little less obvious. But when you've cast the great
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- Elisabeth Rappe
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Avatar Movie Review
21 December 2009 8:00 PM, PST
| MoviesOnline.ca
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Sigourney Weaver said in an interview that James Cameron created Avatar to be the ultimate movie he would have wanted to see as a 14 year old kid, and in that respect he has absolutely succeeded. Cameron has created a sweeping epic that is beautiful, heartfelt, and exciting. And come on, what 14 year old kid wouldn’t want to watch dragons fighting helicopters?
Avatar takes place on a distant planet called Pandora where humans have discovered a valuable new mineral. This mineral is so valuable that the company and their hired guns are willing to drive out the natives, the Na’vi, to get at it. Our main character is Jake Sulley, a paraplegic ex-marine who travels to Pandora to pick up where his identical twin brother left off. Jake’s brother was a scientist who had signed up for the Avatar program in which a human’s consciousness could be
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Avatar Movie Review
21 December 2009 3:24 PM, PST
| AreYouScreening.com
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There's something to the responses you're going to hear that rather negatively call out Avatar as having the same story as Dances with Wolves and any number of "going native" films, though it should be remembered that none of them are particularly original stories themselves. Apart from going to an alien world to meet your natives, and becoming one of them by transferring your mind into a created body, there isn't that much that separates Avatar from any number of films, and that's something you have to look at more openly than some may care to.
After all, people have liked those other films that will be mentioned, and at best they are equally similar to each other.
What I suspect will come flooding forward among what negative reviews Avatar receives is a kind of misplaced response, but one that is understandable. The truth is, the problem is not that
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- Marc Eastman
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'Avatar': Does its so-so story matter? It depends on your definition of matter
21 December 2009 11:17 AM, PST
| EW.com - The Movie Critics
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I'll leave it to the box-office gods to decide if the slightly soft opening of James Cameron's Avatar this past weekend was actually the result of a Northeast snowstorm, whether that was just studio spin, or if it's some combination of the two. (I vote for the latter.) What I will say is that the visually shimmery, feast-for-the-eyes 3-D psychedelic action spectacular that I saw a week and a half ago was hampered -- rather obviously, to me -- by a so-so, functional-but-never-more-than-functional storyline, that it still has a so-so storyline, and that it always will have a so-so storyline.
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- Owen Gleiberman
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Weekend Report: 'Avatar' Soars in Debut
20 December 2009 6:07 PM, PST
| Box Office Mojo
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The advent of Avatar obtained an estimated $73 million on approximately 7,000 screens at 3,452 sites over the weekend, claiming the highest-grossing opening ever for a movie that's neither a sequel, a remake nor a direct adaptation (though others had greater attendance). It was also the second highest-grossing December opening weekend after I Am Legend ($77.2 million). Overall weekend business surged 50 percent over the same weekend last year, but was down considerably from the comparable period in 2007, when I Am Legend and Alvin and the Chipmunks debuted.
With its advanced 3D presentation as a key selling point, Avatar handily set a new 3D opening weekend benchmark. Showing on 3,129 3D screens at 2,038 sites, the format accounted for an estimated $52 million of the gross. The previous highs were Up's $35.4 million and Monsters Vs. Aliens' $32.6 million. Included in the 3D total, were 179 IMAX runs, and, while IMAX won't report its cut until Monday, the company did
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- Brandon Gray
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Avatar Review
20 December 2009 10:45 AM, PST
| Filmofilia
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Avatar is a fantasy/sci-fi epic that takes place on Pandora, a lush, green planet where an humanoid alien race known as the Na’vi live in total harmony with nature. Humans want to get their hands on some of the valuable minerals contained beneath the planet’s surface, but in order to do that, they need to relocate the natives. To gather intelligence and learn more about their culture, the U.S. military creates genetic Na’vi clones that can be controlled remotely by human soldiers using a neural link. When Jake Sully, a wheelchair-bound Marine, infiltrates the Na’vi clan, he soon finds himself torn between two bodies and two opposing ways of life…read more [FilmJunk]
I just got back home from the world premiere of Avatar here in London. It’s safe to keep reading. You are entering a spoiler-free zone.
I wasn’t expecting much. I
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- Allan Ford
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Views: Avatar opens up a whole new world
20 December 2009 9:04 AM, PST
| doorQ.com
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Avatar is an incredibly impressive film.
Watching it, in those moments that I stepped out from the lush, alien environment and back into the theater where I was watching that lush, alien environment, I realized that 3D movies are more than just Hype. Cameron has actually been able to create a real movie that uses the technology to tell an engaging story, fun, fast and interesting, in a way that is both wholly old-school and impressively new school at the exact same time.
Yes, it's also James Cameron, with the all the conflicts and ironies there-in. He's effectively writing an anti-war / anti-imperialsim movie while glorying in the tech that blows shit up bloodily well. He's telling an Eco fundamentalist movie with tools made possible by the Industrial and Information Revolutions. He's celebrating California New Age Spiritualism -- the same stuff that Ron Moore inserted so disastrously into the last half-hour
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Avatar | Film review
19 December 2009 4:07 PM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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At $500m, James Cameron's Avatar is the most expensive movie ever. Yet for all its brilliant imagery, is it any more than a smug sermon?
Before I read that James Cameron was born 55 years ago in Kapuskasing, Ontario, the only thing I knew about the town was that when, during their 1951 tour of Canada, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip stopped there for an hour, they were greeted by a banner headline in the local paper reading "Kapuskasing by no mere fluke, welcomes the Princess and the Duke".
He got his first film job in 1980 as art director on Roger Corman's low-budget Sf film Battle Beyond the Stars, a transposition to outer space of The Magnificent Seven. It was scripted by John Sayles, who was to remain an independent film-maker of personal, modestly financed movies, while Cameron was soon to make exponentially expensive blockbusters.
His seventh feature, Titanic, is
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- Philip French
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Review: 'Avatar': The rumors are true, this movie is visually stunning
18 December 2009 3:29 PM, PST
| Denver Movies Examiner
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Easily one of the most hyped movies of the decade, James Cameron's Avatar is supposed to be a benchmark of innovation and special effects. It's supposed to be the movie that changes film forever, so the big question on everyone's mind is, is Avatar the heralded "game changer" that will set the bar for future effects-driven fare? Does it meet all those lofty expectations? Yes...to a point. Avatar is visually the most stunning film seen for quite some time and possibly ever. Thinking back to past films with groundbreaking effects, I find a fistful of James Cameron films like The Terminator, The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, along with sporadic George Lucas features, which were all equally filmed in Real 3D (the cameras used on this production were specially designed). Cameron's Avatar mostly avoids 3D tricks like rolling logs towards audiences, spears thrown at you and lots
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December 18: DVD alternatives to this weekend’s multiplex offerings
18 December 2009 9:02 AM, PST
| www.flickfilosopher.com
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We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, but you really hate those 3D glasses-- oh, who are we kidding: you’re gonna see Avatar this weekend if you have to knock over someone’s granny for a ticket. But just in case you’re feeling the slightest bit guilty about having to mug an old lady, and you think you might want to try to replicate that immersive IMAX experience with your puny TV and 2D DVD player... well, forget it. It’s impossible. But here’s how you can come as close as possible.
Instead Of: Avatar, the gorgeously enrapturing journey to an alien planet James Cameron leads us on...
Watch: Seriously, there is no home-theater experience in 2009 that can replicate the sense that you’ve actually been to another planet that Avatar offers. But the story that goes with those visuals is another thing entirely.
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- MaryAnn Johanson
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Avatar Review — John’s Take
18 December 2009 6:41 AM, PST
| ReelLoop.com
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James Cameron’s Avatar had a lot of work to do if it wanted to win me over. I was a skeptic from the first images and trailer. I hated the look of the Na’vi, I didn’t believe in the hype about photorealistic CGI, and I certainly didn’t believe Cameron had a game changing film on his hands. I judged a book by its cover, and did so with a vengeance, even when created by the director who gave me some of my favorite films of all time.
I was wrong. In so many words, I was dead wrong: I greatly enjoyed Avatar, to the extent that I might just love it.
Exactly why I love the film might come as a surprise to you: Cameron spent millions upon millions of dollars to create a lavishly executed film that spins on the axis of a story so
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- John Cooper
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Review: ‘Avatar’ is amazing, even with a mediocre story
18 December 2009 6:35 AM, PST
| ReelLoop.com
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Easily one of the most hyped movies of the decade, James Cameron’s Avatar is supposed to be a benchmark of innovation and special effects. It’s supposed to be the movie that changes film forever, so the big question on everyone’s mind is, is Avatar the heralded “game changer” that will set the bar for future effects-driven fare? Does it meet all those lofty expectations? Yes…to a point. Avatar is visually the most stunning film seen for quite some time and possibly ever. Thinking back to past films with groundbreaking effects, I find a fistful of James Cameron films like The Terminator, The Abyss and Terminator II: Judgment Day, along with sporadic George Lucas features, which were all equally filmed in Real 3D (the cameras used on this production were specially designed). Cameron’s Avatar mostly avoids 3D tricks like rolling logs towards audiences, spears thrown at
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- Erik Buckman
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You review: Avatar
18 December 2009 3:48 AM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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James Cameron's 3D megalith opened around the world yesterday, to qualified whoops and just the odd titter. Did you catch it? Was it out of this world, or all too earthly?
Hollywood can relax. Avatar, James Cameron's sprawling science-fiction adventure in spectacular 3D that has been touted as the future of blockbuster film-making, is no dud. It may have cost upwards of $300m, but the critics - with a few notable exceptions - have responded positively to the film's hugely impressive technical achievements and Cameron's continuing ability to tell a great story.
Yet there are issues: Avatar is a pretty weird concoction, what with all those giant blue aliens, its hippy-dippy new-agey feel, the greenie vibes and anti-cash attitudes. And it really is a tale, despite the otherworldy setting and bizarre central premise (humans "piloting" giant extra terrestrials remotely), which we have seen on the screen thousands of time before.
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- Ben Child
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Review: Groundbreaking ‘Avatar’ Almost Hits the Mark
17 December 2009 9:23 PM, PST
| doorQ.com
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James Cameron's long-awaited 'Avatar' finally hit the screen. If hype is how you judge, you’ll be disappointed. It’s Dances with Wolves in space. But I liked it, and its groundbreaking technology will certainly change the way movies are made.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), crippled in body and spirit, considers the mission before him — inhabiting an alien body on a lush and dangerous world in James Cameron's much-hyped Avatar.
Minneapolis — It's 4:15 am, and I just got home from the midnight viewing of the much-hyped, long-awaited Avatar, directed by the often-maligned James Cameron. I'm about to collapse from exhaustion but here's how I summed it up in my 6,600th tweet:
Saw Avatar. If hype is how you judge, you'll be disappointed. It's Dances w/Wolves in space. But I liked it & the tech will change movies.
There's nothing ground-breaking about the story. You've seen it before: Cynical,
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Avatar Review
17 December 2009 6:35 PM, PST
| Collider.com
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Leave behind the hype about “revolutionizing cinema”. Ignore the half-billion dollar price tag. Forget the numerous years James Cameron waited to make sure technology could match his imagination. To include these external factors in an evaluation of Avatar would make the film a colossal disappointment. However, judged solely on its own merits, Avatar is a fine film but one that can feel limited at times. Hampered by the disregard for advancements in computer animation, a lack of understanding the freedom digital 3D filmmaking provides, and a story both outdated and demeaning, Avatar still manages to come out ahead with strong performances (especially from Stephen Lang), excellent pacing, and Cameron’s unrivaled ability to capture action on a grand scale.
In the year 2154, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a marine paralyzed from the waist down, awakens from cryo-sleep to learn that his science-genius twin brother is dead and that Rda, the company he worked for,
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- Matt Goldberg
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The 5 Most Ridiculous Golden Globe Best Picture Winners. Ever.
17 December 2009 3:20 PM, PST
| Movieline
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The Golden Globes honor film comedies and dramas, and sometimes that's unfortunate. Brilliant comedies don't necessary come out every year, and every so often the dramas lag too. 1977 was very comedy/musical-heavy (Annie Hall, The Goodbye Girl, Saturday Night Fever) and 1990 was drama-heavy (Dances With Wolves, Goodfellas), and for that reason we'll give the Hollywood Foreign Press some credit for picking these five weird winners. But not too much -- the #1 entry on our list is laughably unforgivable.
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