There are a few movies with “errors” in them, both annoying and, at least to me, humorous/delightful.
The one I found very annoying?
In the 1995 sci-fi movie Twelve Monkeys, Bruce Willis plays a man who may be out of his mind…or possibly a time traveler sent from the future to save humanity from a devastating virus that is about to be released. In the course of the movie (no big spoiler here), Willis’ character is very disoriented and the people he meet, naturally, don’t quite believe him when he says he is a time traveler.
In one sequence in the film, he is suddenly thrust in the middle of a battle in the Civil War. He sustains a bullet wound to his leg before coming back to the movie’s “present”. In the present, the bullet is removed and its examination proves very important to the movie’s plot. For you see, when the bullet is examined, a character discovers it is “from the Civil War”. This, in turn, convinces another character that Mr. Willis isn’t crazy after all, that he is telling the truth about his time traveling.
HOWEVER, what bugged me was this: How did they know -and so quickly and convincingly- that the bullet was from the Civil War? The movie implies the people examining the bullet dated it by, perhaps, using some kind of carbon dating. But if you think about it, that makes no sense. Willis’ character traveled back to the Civil War era, sustained the wound, and was then almost immediately transported back to the present. The bullet within him, thus, might be an “older” model bullet, but it would be *brand new* to anyone examining it.
Now, this scene would have worked far more effectively if when the bullet was examined the examiner said: “Say, this model of bullet is of a type they used back in the Civil War!” However, that was not what was said or implied. It was clear that the examiner knew the bullet was from the Civil War.
I suppose its a small annoyance, but given the significance to the movie’s plot, that bit really bugged me.
Now, to the film with errors that, instead of bugging me, amused and delights me:
In the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever (Sean Connery’s last “official” outing as the super spy), one should watch very carefully some of the stunt work in and around Las Vegas. For example, when James Bond is driving around in the moon buggy, toward the end of the chase if you look carefully on the left side of the screen, you’ll see that one of the moon buggy’s wheels came off just outside camera range when the final pursing car does its flip (this happens at the 2:33 second mark of the clip below):
A second amusing screw up occurs just a little later and also involves stunt work. In this case, James Bond is being pursued by people while driving a screaming red Mustang. He goes into a too tight alley and has to drive the car on two wheels.
Only problem? He goes into the alley using the car’s right side wheels but comes out of the alley on the left side wheels! This occurs in the following clip at the 3:45 second mark.
They tried to fix the above glitch with a little moving camera work, implying that somehow in the alley the car switched sides, but clearly this was a goof!
Mind you, I still absolutely LOVEDiamonds Are Forever. I think these goof ups add to the movie’s charm and most certainly are not errors that “bug” me. There are those who hate the film, but I happen to think its a great action/comedy. Perhaps more of a comedy than the typical Sean Connery Bond films, but I love it nonetheless.
Firstly, there are a lot of films being released, many of which I may be interested in…and many I either don’t know enough about or don’t really care to see (nothing new here!).
There are five I’m borderline interested in (ie I will give them a look, but most likely when they’re eventually released to video): The Avengers, Dark Shadows, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (provided the film is a comedy…the trailer seemed a little too serious given the outrageous title/concept), The Bourne Legacy (a Bourne film without Matt Damon and with Jeremy Renner? Might it work?), Total Recall (despite all the booing and hissing from people who feel it sacrilege to remake director Paul Verhoeven’s original film, I thought that film was, at best, only OK, certainly not on the level of his much better Robocop. The trailer to the remake has me intrigued, though I’m not a huge fan of director Len Wiseman), and, finally, The Expendables 2.
There are only a couple of films, at least so far, I know I will make a great deal of effort to see when they are eventually released: Prometheus, far and away, has me the most intrigued, though I worry some of the movie’s trailers have given away a little too much plot. Regardless, like many others, I’m seriously interested in seeing director Ridley Scott’s return not only to science fiction, but also to the alien “universe”.
The other film I will try hard to see is The Dark Knight Rises, the concluding film in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. While Mr. Nolan’s works may not always completely knock me out, he’s clearly a man who puts a great deal of effort into each of his works and it shows. I hope this one is on the level of the others.
Finally, the movie I’m finding it most difficult to build any big excitement about: The Amazing Spider-Man. A reboot of the Spider-Man franchise? The last film in the previous Spider-Man franchise, Spider-Man 3, was released in 2007. A mere five years ago. Do we really need another re-boot? Based on the trailers released so far, I’m not very impressed by what I’ve seen. It looks a lot like the previous Spider-Man films, only with younger actors.
This article, concerning the way physicist Dmitri Krioukov managed to convince a judge -via mathematics!- that his ticket for failure to come to a complete stop at a stop sign was incorrect, has to be one of the more interesting ways to get out of a ticket.
It does bring up an interesting point: I recall going to traffic school many years ago (I was cited for speeding…I was going five miles over the speed limit in a 30 mile per hour speed zone) and the police officer giving us the lecture asked something to the effect of: “How many of you have received your first traffic ticket?”
Along with my hand rising were several others. One middle aged/elderly woman (she may have been in her late 50’s or early 60’s) not only raised her hand but noted with great indignity that in all her years of driving this was her first ticket.
“Why did you get the ticket?” the officer asked.
“They said I didn’t come to a full stop at a stop sign.”
The police officer shook his head and said the following: “I don’t feel any sympathy for you. Every day every driver on every street commits on average at least five traffic offenses. You’ve been lucky that in all these years, this is the first time an officer caught you doing something illegal on the road.”
The statement, frankly, made my head spin. Now, I can’t speak to the veracity (or lack there of) of the police officer’s statistics. For all I know, he may well have made them up for effect or heard someone else say them and believed them to be true. The opposite, of course, might be true as well: Maybe we do break the traffic laws many times each day, maybe even more than five times.
Also, and to be fair to the officer, the quote presented above isn’t absolute verbatum. Its been many years since I received that ticket and participated in the class and I don’t pretend to recall every single word the officer uttered. Well, with the exception of that first line. Yes, the man did say he felt no sympathy for the woman and her ticket. And yes, he went on to quote that five time a day lawbreaking statistic and did pronounced her lucky for having only received one ticket in all these years.
But to my mind, the most important thing I came away with regarding his statement was questioning traffic laws in general. If we are to assume those statistics cited by the officer were accurate and if the traffic laws are such that on average a driver breaks at least five rules each day, then the laws, I think it could be argued, are way, waaaay too tough and/or arbitrary.
I suppose that traffic laws, in the end, simply fall into much broader gray areas than other laws. After all, in the eyes of the law if it is proven you steal, you’re a thief. If it is proven you killed someone in cold blood, you’re a murderer.
If you’re traveling at 100 miles per hour in 30 mile per hour speed zone, you’re clearly a menace. However, if you’re going 35 miles per hour in that same 30 mile per hour speed zone, you’re just as guilty of breaking the law. While you may not be a “menace” to others and the nature of your “crime” isn’t quite as serious, you’re still breaking the law.
It’s an imperfect system but it is tough to think of good alternatives to it. Though the police officer’s remarks to the woman might have been brusque, he may well have been right. And yes, while traffic laws may be impossible to follow 100% of the time each and every day, should we get rid of them because of this? And if we do, then what?
In the end, I guess we can swallow our collective pride and pay the fee for getting “silly” traffic tickets now and again, provided when we do drive we know that others on the road recognize there are laws on how we should follow, and those laws not only protect ourselves, they protect others on the road.
At least that way we don’t feel like anything goes.
Interesting article on CNN.com by Gene Seymour concerning the last flight, as it were, of the Space Shuttle Discovery on the back of a NASA jetliner as it makes its way to The National Air and Space Museum. But the article, of course, isn’t just about the end of the Space Shuttle era. It is a look back at the times that spawned the space race and the ideals of America.
The author wonders if America has, with the exit of the Space Shuttle and no apparent replacement in the wings, has to some extent lost its capacity to dream big, both in terms of space exploration and, possibly, the capacity to move forward in other ways as well:
The article, to some degree, reminds me of the famous concept of the pendulum effect. There appear to be times in history when we go in one direction, only to retreat and move in another direction a few years later. In politics, this could be moving from liberal agendas to conservative ones. In terms of scientific discovery, we may have moved from a period of exciting discovery to -maybe- a period of introspection. It can be argued that following the Civil War (and perhaps even during the Civil War) exciting advances in science were initiated. The Industrial Era also created a new and exciting move forward. By the early part of the 20th Century we were on the cusp of having electricity in all households, which meant we were moving towards having television, refrigeration, air conditioning, and, yes, eventually computers.
Air travel was in its infancy, but it would blossom quickly in the 20th Century, the technology becoming rapidly refined in part due to two World Wars and in part due to our desire to move both people and merchandise more and more quickly.
The space race was just that at the beginning. We had a common foe in the dastardly communists, and a fear that they would beat us in a technological war. Thanks to that impulse, we made it to the Moon.
And then we appeared to stop.
I suppose partly the fault lay in President Nixon, hardly one of John F. Kennedy’s biggest admirers. One of President Kennedy’s most recognized speeches involved our objective of reaching the Moon. Nixon, who had lost a very close race to Kennedy, slashed the budget of NASA following becoming President. But to blame him for NASA’s woes isn’t entirely fair. The fact is that President Kennedy set a goal and, once it was reached, the American public seemed to lose interest in the whole space exploration thing. Sure, the Shuttle got us excited for a while, but the Shuttle was never meant to go all that far out into space.
So what to do?
Going beyond the Moon was -and remains!- a daunting challenger. The rest of our Solar System if filled with hostile planets, and taking a manned mission beyond the Solar system is, at this point, simply impossible. Reaching Mars alone, in theory, would require “six months there, six months back (read more about that here). That’s a very, very long time to be outside the confines of planet Earth. And what exactly would be accomplished? We have robot probes looking at Mars and, frankly, they can do the exploration we need -at least at this point- without the risk of lost lives.
Sure, robot probes aren’t anywhere near as sexy as manned flights, but it appears to me that until we get better technology (ie, rockets that allow for much quicker travel) NASA may have to settle on the far safer use of these robot missions to explore our little corner of space.
Perhaps with overpopulation and dwindling resources on Earth, space exploration may experience a rebirth. It was born, after all, in the harsh shadow of the Cold War and reached its greatest success due to that very real impulse. Perhaps we need another spark to get things going once again.
By now, the news of singer Madonna’s latest album, MDNA, is known to those who follow album sales. Briefly, the album debuted on Billboard at #1, suggesting she was still a force in the music business.
Then came week 2 of the sales, and a drop in sales so precipitous it was record-breaking…in a very dubious way:
Truth is, I feel for many “older” musical artists. They are caught in a vicious cycle alluded to in the article: Older fans of the artist(s) tend to want to hear their “best” or “classic” material and usually have little interest in the artist(s) “new” works. On the other hand, young music followers may not really care about the older artist(s) and their works, new or “classic”. If there’s one thing I’ve realized over time is that each subsequent generation embraces “their” music. To many of them (though certainly not all), what came before is usually not as interesting as whatever “new” music is currently in fashion. Thus, any “new” music from older artists may wind up being doubly unappealing.
I’ve noted, perhaps too often, my fondness for the music of David Bowie. Yet I suspect, sadly, that as well known as he may be, I’m one of the few David Bowie fans that have followed -and greatly enjoyed- many of his post-Let’s Dance releases. That album, which was released a lifetime ago in 1983, was a HUGE success. In fact, and if memory serves, that album and Michael Jackson’s mega-hit Thriller were 1-2 on Billboard for weeks, with Mr. Bowie’s album at one point supplanting it for the top stop for a week or two.
However, following that album’s release, Mr. Bowie entered a, let’s be honest here, rough patch. His following two albums, Tonight and especially Never Let Me Down, didn’t feel like grade A efforts on Mr. Bowie’s part, despite some good songs to be found in each album. He would recover, in my mind, and subsequently release many great works, but I suspect he fell into the same problem that other older artists fell into and his age started to work against him. Many of his fans, some even quite famous, openly opined that his best works were those that preceded Let’s Dance. While I found several of his post-1983 albums pretty damn great (particularly his 1995 album 1. Outside), Mr. Bowie has not, to date, come close to replicating the success he had in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.
Similarly, I was pleasantly surprised by the last years release of Panic of Girls, the latest Blondie album. I felt the album was on par with some of Blondie’s best works and have little doubt that if it had been released during the band’s “classic” years, it might have gone one to be considered a truly great work. As it is, the album seems to have slipped away.
And thus we return to the plight of Madonna’s MDNA, an album that “sold” quite well during its first week , though given the second week sales figures and the gimmicky nature those first week sales were made this success appears to be more mirage than reality. I was never a huge fan of Madonna, even during her golden years, but the story behind Madonna, and all “older” musicians, is an intriguing one.
Count me among the many who is fascinated with crime in the city of Angels, circa 1920-60. Why that particular time frame? I suppose much of the interest arises from the works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Then there’s the wonderful era of the film noir crime movies, many of which were set in the Hollywood area.
But in terms of “real life” crime drama, none are as paradoxically repellent and fascinating as the case of Elizabeth Short, a 23 year old woman whose mutilated body was found in a park back in 1947. The case, whom the papers dubbed “The Black Dahlia” murder, was never solved.
The article linked to below is from Salon.com and focuses on Joan Renner. She has an exhibit featuring historic crime in the L.A. area, including, of course, the notorious Black Dahlia case. For those interested, its a good read:
So I had a few minutes to spare and looked around some of the DVR recordings I made over the last month or two and found, among them, a recording of the 2011 film Priest.
Why was it there? I admit, I was mildly curious about the film and was vaguely aware that it was based on a Korean Manga of some note. Was also aware the film came and went pretty abruptly from theaters.
Wasn’t aware that the film featured Karl Urban in the bad guy role and (really surprising) veteran actor Christopher Plummer in a smaller role as a head priest.
The plot? Post apocalyptic sideways world where vampire creatures and humans have battled for years. The Priests are essentially the Church’s badasses, devout vampire killers who, as the story begins, are considered past their prime. It is believed the vampire menace is over.
It isn’t.
For the first hour or so of the film, I enjoyed the film quite a bit. The visuals were outstanding and the story presented was a decent “B” movie adventure. After that first hour, I began wondering why this film was ranked so low on Rottentomatoes.com, where it earned an extremely low 17% approval from critics and an equally poor 36% from audiences (you can read the rankings here). Could the critics and audiences have been wrong? Was my taste in movies taking a serious nosedive?
Then came the movie’s second half and those poor ratings were explained away rather well.
For you see, if Priest were a novel, everything presented within the movie would have been a prologue to a (potentially) far more interesting story. What story we have is, in the end, woefully undernourished, a tale of a one-time Priest turned vampire attempting to assault the “big city”. His plan is to steal our protagonist’s daughter and force him to chase after him for no real reason at all. Revenge I suppose, but really…
It all makes little sense in the end. Karl Urban is wasted as the villain. He’s by far the most interesting character in the film but when all is said and done is given so little time to do his villain thing that you wonder why they bothered. Worst example of this? The bad guy’s face off against three Priests, a sequence that should have been shown in its full glory (Priest is an action film, right?!) and is instead absurdly abbreviated. I’m not exaggerating when I say this potentially explosive “action sequence” goes like this: The three Priests meet up with Karl Urban’s bad guy. One of them runs at him and is killed by bad guy in literally one second. We cut away from the fight and, a few minutes later, our protagonist arrives in the town where this fight occurred and sees the fight’s aftermath and the three dead Priests. What happened to the other two Priests we have to fill in the blanks with our imagination.
Again, this is an action film, right?
Watching Priest, I had the feeling the director felt uncomfortable with showing too much action.
Anyway, by film’s end we are informed that there is some vampire queen out there and that the battle has “just begun”, ie, the real story is coming in the movie’s sequel.
Given the movie’s performance at the box office, you’ll forgive me if I don’t hold my breath waiting for that sequel to materialize.
I’ve been a big fan of comic book artist/writer Mike Mignola for a very, very long time now. I first became aware of his work in various Marvel books. At that point, he didn’t quite have his distinctive style. It was 1988’s Cosmic Odyssey, illustrated by Mr. Mignola and scripted by comic book veteran Jim Starlin, that first featured a heavy dose of Mr. Mignola’s great artwork and made me a huge fan. Apparently, I was far from the only one.
Mr. Mignola parlayed his success by eventually devoting his full energies to Hellboy, a character he created. While Hellboy shared elements present in the other works, most notably those of Jack Kirby (Hellboy might well be a close cousin of Kirby’s Demon and the various monster books Mr. Kirby did for Marvel), the series had its own unique -and delightful- storytelling universe.
I absolutely loved it.
The first full Hellboy serial, The Seed of Destruction, was released in 1994. It was conceived and illustrated by Mr. Mignola and featured a script by another comic book veteran, John Byrne. From there, Mr. Mignola would produce many more Hellboy serials, this time taking on the full writing and illustration chores. The character proved a big success, and in time there were animated films, feature films, and comic book off-shoots (many written by Mr. Mignola but illustrated by others) that followed.
I picked them up almost religiously and pretty much loved everything to do with the character. However, as his success increased and more and more material was released, Mr. Mignola moved from being the writer/illustrator of many of the works to being simply the writer. Sadly, at that point my interest in the various books declined. The fact is I was just as big a fan of Mr. Mignola’s artwork as his writing, and while many (if not most!) of the artists who he hired to draw his stories were damn good, they simply weren’t Mr. Mignola.
Thus, it totally escaped my attention when Hellboy: The Storm and the Fury was released between 2010 and 2011. When I learned this storyline was Intended to be a “finale” to the Hellboy saga, I had to have it. When I looked the book up on Amazon.com I was surprised to find the reviews for the book were, for the most part, negative (You can read those comments here).
Nonetheless, I ordered the book and, yesterday, it finally arrived. Eagerly, I read it.
To begin, the story is written by Mr. Mignola and features artwork by Duncan Fegredo. Let me state right off the bat that Mr. Fegredo is a damn good artist and one I was familiar with from previous Hellboy books. His artwork style produces decidedly mixed feelings in me. While other artists who were hired by Mr. Mignola to do Hellboy books had their own style, Mr. Fegredo’s style is obviously attempting to emulate Mr. Mignola’s. And while he is indeed damn good at it, seeing someone “doing” Mike Mignola-like artwork makes me yearn to see “genuine” Mike Mignola artwork.
However, given Mr. Fegredo’s talents, the success or failure of this particular book ultimately fell to the story being told.
And in that case, sadly, I have to side with those who offered negative comments on Amazon. The Storm and the Fury is, unfortunately, a pretty average Hellboy story.
BEWARE:
SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!
Yes, the story presented in The Storm and the Fury is a very average Hellboy story with one major difference: By story’s end, Hellboy is (BIG TIME SPOILER!!!!) dead.
Really dead.
Considering this is meant to be the finale to the Hellboy saga, at least on Earth (more on that later), its surprising how ordinary the whole thing felt. Mr. Mignola had hinted from the very beginning that Hellboy’s end would be something equivalent to Ragnarok, with Hellboy in the role of Odin/Thor. This element does indeed appear within the story, and various plot threads that were presented earlier on in other books do find their way here…
…but, again, the story itself is simply not anywhere near as “big” an event as one would have thought it should be. Yes, Hellboy fights against monsters, but he’s always fought against monsters. Again, the only big difference is that this time he dies. However, the single most bewildering element of the book is the fact that the great cast Mr. Mignola created around Hellboy (a couple of whom appeared in the movies) don’t show up in this story except for a single “flashback” or “memory” panel. That’s right, I said panel. There is no tearful goodbye between Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. characters. There is no emotional reunion before the end.
Bewildering, to say the least.
I could go on and on, but I think I’ve made my point. The Storm and the Fury feels like the work of a writer who was running out of gas and wanted the whole thing over and done with, rather than creating the grand finale many fans were expecting.
Perhaps Mr. Mignola was eager to move on to Hellboy’s next adventure. Yes, that’s right: Next adventure.
It turns out The Storm and the Fury is not really Hellboy’s grand last adventure. It’s merely his last Earthly adventure. If you read some of the bonus material after the main story, you discover that Mr. Mignola is writing and illustrating the next Hellboy story, wherein our hero goes to Hell. So while his “Earthly” adventures are over with this volume, it appears Hellboy’s next stories will take place in the afterlife.
I hope those adventures prove better than the anti-climactic The Storm and the Fury.
I posted an article a few days back concerning the Ryou-Un Maru, a Japanese “ghost ship” that traveled the Pacific since becoming dislodged by the tsunami that hit Japan a little over a year ago and was now approaching the Canadian shoreline. (You can read that original article here)
The ship got close enough for the U.S. Coast Guard to sink it:
The full CNN article regarding the sinking of the Ryou-Un Maru can be found here:
Apart from being incredibly successful, for years I’ve been intrigued with Mr. Cameron and his movies, even as I find myself less and less interested watching his most current works.
I was first exposed to Mr. Cameron, but not aware of his hand in, such films as Android (where is credited as doing work in the Art Department), Galaxy of Terror (Second Unit Director), Battle Beyond the Stars (Special Effects and Art Director), Escape From New York (Special Visual Effects and Matte Artist), and, finally, his first “full” directorial credit in Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (if memory serves, there is considerable irony in this credit as Mr. Cameron was fired from the director’s job before fully completing it).
So there he was, in front of me in these various films I saw as a youth. I didn’t really like most of them all that much (the big exception being Escape From New York), but they were part of my early days and I nonetheless had nice memories of watching the films, either in theaters or on the then brand new cable channel HBO.
Fast forward to 1984, and my sister telling me that I just had to go see this film currently playing in theaters. I heard about it, but for whatever reason hadn’t thought much of it. Nonetheless, I followed her advice and, with little knowledge of what exactly I was in for, bought a ticket, found a seat somewhere in the middle of the theater, and sat down to watch The Terminator.
I was blow away.
The film wasn’t perfect, mind you. I thought there were one too many “endings” at the film’s conclusion. But, for crying out loud, this was one hell of an action film. It was brutal at times, humorous at others (the film’s most humorous line was uttered by last person you’d expect to utter anything funny!), and so damn entertaining.
I had to know who was behind this incredible work of action/adventure/sci-fi. The name was unfamiliar to me in those pre-internet days. James Cameron. I didn’t know who he was, but I resolved to keep an eye out for whatever works he does.
Two years later, most likely while reading through movie magazines, I found out what his next film would be: Aliens. To say the least, I was ecstatic. I loved the original Alien film and the thought that Mr. Cameron, who did such a fantastic job with The Terminator would follow up that film with a sequel to one of my favorite sci-fi horror hybrids was more than I could bear.
On opening day, I was right there.
I wasn’t disappointed.
The Terminator and Aliens were a potent one-two punch. Both were action/adventure sci-fi and horror hybrids. Both were the incredibly great. With his success, the world at large got to know more about Mr. Cameron. I realized for the first time around that point his work in the films I mentioned above, including the pretty terrible Piranha sequel. What was next for him?
Why, another sci-fi film, this one set under the ocean. !989’s The Abyss. Like Aliens, I was there opening day, eager to see what wonders Mr. Cameron had in store for us.
I was disappointed.
The film wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t bad. It was actually pretty good…at least for the first couple of acts. But somewhere along the way, especially towards the end, the film simply fell apart, and it dawned on me the film really had no ending. As one movie critic put it brilliantly, watching The Abyss was like seeing a marathon runner have the race of his/her life, but tripping and falling on their face just feet away from the finish line.
Later, when the “special edition” of the film was released to video/laserdisc (eventually DVD), we were presented with a much longer ending to the film. Some really liked this version and felt this was the way the film should have always been. To me, it didn’t matter. Even with the longer, more effects filled ending, the film still felt as if it wasn’t fully developed. I had the suspicion Mr. Cameron had an idea -a very good idea- for a story but never really figured out where it was going and how it should end.
Despite this, I was still very interested in seeing what Mr. Cameron was up to. His follow up to The Abyss sounded really exciting: A sequel to The Terminator. In 1991, Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released. Again, I was there opening day, eager to see Mr. Cameron return to the property that effectively “made” him.
Again, I was disappointed. Mind you, I was in a minority. Most theater goers really, really liked the film. I, however, found it a decent movie with some pretty eye-popping (for the time) effects…but the story simply wasn’t as breathtaking or action filled as the original. As with The Abyss, it wasn’t a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, but it just didn’t connect with me as well.
His next film, 1994’s True Lies, had me excited again. Early word was that the film, which featured Arnold Schwarzenegger, was Mr. Cameron’s take on the whole James Bond/super-spy genre, with Mr. Schwarzenegger in the spy role. Somehow I snagged tickets to an early showing of the film and headed to see it. The theater was very crowded, the film began…
…and I was disappointed once again.
In fact, more so than with either The Abyss or Terminator 2. True Lies, to me, was a herky-jerky film that would wow you with a great scene and follow it up with a terrible one. The film tried to straddle comedy and action but in the end short changed on both. There were moments I greatly enjoyed, but there were other moments I was cringing.
I came to the bitter realization, after the release of those three films, that I may never see the James Cameron that thrilled me with The Terminator and Aliens again.
In 1997, Mr. Cameron’s latest film, Titanic, was in the works. The early word was quite bad. Incredible cost overruns. Too long run-time. Unproven stars. When the film neared release, there were those who predicted this was the end of Mr. Cameron’s career.
They were wrong.
Titanic, of course, was a not just a success, it was a HUGE success.
But I found myself uninterested in seeing it. Not that I expected it to be bad, its just that the whole Titanic thing (with or without the romance) never did much for me. For the first time since Mr. Cameron rose to prominence, I didn’t bother seeing one of his films. To this day, I haven’t seen Titanic. I may be one of only a handful of people who hasn’t
Years later, in 2009, word came that Mr. Cameron was at work on another film, this one a sci-fi action/adventure. My interest perked. However, the more I heard about the film and the story it was presenting, the less interested I was in seeing it. It all boiled down to the story being told, which I found way too overly familiar: “Noble savages” being exterminated so that “civilized” folk can take their land. That type of story has been used over and over again, most often in westerns such as Dances With Wolves.
Avatar arrived in theaters that year and, like Titanic before it, was a HUGE success.
And like Titanic before it, I didn’t bother going to see it. To this day, I may be one of only a handful of people who haven’t seen either of those two mega-hits.
So we reach the present. Mr. Cameron is arguably one of the biggest, most well known directors in the entire world. He has scores of fans eager to see what he’s up to next. I may not be one of them, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.
After all, he wowed me before. And while it’s been many years since then, who’s to say he can’t do it again?
