Avatar; Max's review

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

May contain spoilers!

In two words, the thing was darn good. Given that the original thought processes for the film first came about about 14 years ago it could hardly have been an epic flop. Being headed by James Cameron is always a plus, and the $310m budget probably helped it along too. I had the pleasure also of seeing it in 3d at the IMAX cinema (for the clarity of those not in the know, IMAX is a cinema with a screen the height of a 9-storey building; lots of people have just gazed at me blankly when I've mentioned it in the past). The combination of a world that stretches into your peripheral vision with lots of flying 3d things at 10 in the morning is possibly the worst hangover cure in existence. Its a credit to the film that I still enjoyed it so much.



The plot: The year is 2154 and humans are building a heavily armed mining colony on a planet called Pandora, presumably lightyears away. They face resistance from the humanoid natives, the Navi, who are the blue guys from the trailers and posters. The story follows Jake Sully, who's name for me is sadly still synonymous with the big blue guy from Monsters, Inc, which can be offputting at times. He's a paraplegic ex-marine who takes the place of his dead twin brother on the Avatar programme, which places a human mind into a Navi body, allowing them to make contact with the natives and try and win hearts and minds. Unfortunately for the humans, Sully goes rogue after being rescued by a native called Neytiri, and he goes under her wing to learn the ways of the natives, in kind of neo-Tarzan-and-Jane-esque sequences that were one of my only very minor criticisms. She is also weirdly attractive given that she's effectively a combination of Pocahontas and Jar Jar Binks.

On the left, for sexually ambiguous clarification

That's a pretty major point actually. Nothing in the trailers gave away the fact that the Navi are much, much bigger than the humans, yet again tall and ridiculously skinny to the point of appearing anorexic occasionally. Why are we still glorifying aliens who are tall and skinny; the plotline could have had a huge amount of comedy value added if they were a race of short, fat lumbering things. They'll probably make it onto the cover of Vanity Fair with their current appearance. So they're the good guys. The bad guys are first and foremost the humans; more specifically, the military, whose believeable portrayal ought to have a few resounding effects among military circles. The soldiers are led by the batshit crazy Colonel Quaritch, who looks and acts like a psychotic GI Joe doll, and the twattish bureaucratic corporation leader played brilliantly by Giovanni Ribisi, who was such a villainous bastard that you just want to slam his head into a desk over and over.

Gunships and floating mountains. Sweet.

The final third of the film is taken up pretty much entirely by a single action sequence, much like District 9, except with less fookin' prawns and more dragony creatures. The big mech suits are still there though. Ultimately, the whole thing is very effective; not only is it a great finishing sequence, but you don't find yourself wondering when the hell its going to end. Everything that appeared previously in the film - vehicles, plants, animals- all come out and display their wondrous capabilities. The latter 2 are cool because they seem carefully considered - nothing feels weird for weirds sake, like the Star Wars cantina. Being James Cameron, theres inevitably forbidden love, but not even that bothered me, because this time around its weird and beautiful - its not dictated by time difference like in Terminator, or by class like Titanic. Its inter-dimensional love and it makes you fuzzy inside.



Its well worth seeing. The posters may look like a live action Ferngully, but its actually very, very good. Get down to your nearest IMAX.

Recent Terrorism

Because you're mine,

I walk the Line ..

It struck me recently how international terrorism is going down the tubes since the 9/11, bar the London bombings. I say this in light of the failed bombing of the Amsterdam-Detroit flight on Christmas day, by some Nigerian bloke, who also happens to be the son of some major Nigerian banking figure; probably the one who keeps emailing me for my sort code and PIN number so my money can be more secure. This guy seems to be the latest of these Al-Qaeda wannabes - we started out with a bunch of hardline Islamists, preaching in the name of Allah, gradually descending into people seemingly just jumping on the 'blowing stuff the fuck up' bandwagon.

Yeah! Jihad and hijacking and .. stuff .. Allahu Akbar?

The difference is, the amateurs are shit. There were those 2 blokes with the jeep and the butane can and their miserable attempt to bomb Glasgow airport, ultimately ending up being beaten up by the Scots while on fire, followed by the story of the poor sod who walked into a coffee shop in England somewhere (was it Guildford? I forget), went into the toilet to prepare his nail bomb .. and then accidentally shredded his leg with it. Ha. And now there's this guy, explosives cunningly stitched into his underpants by someone from the Al-Qaeda tailoring department in Yemen, who was beaten down by passengers and crew, much like that guy with the shoe bomb a few years back. You've lost your touch boys. Let's keep it that way.

Post-christmas euphoria

Hast du Etwas Zeit fur mich?
Dann singe ich ein Lied fur dich
Von 99 Luftballons,
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizant ..

It's been a while since I updated this, and have recently been facing criticism on many fronts concerning my poor punctuality. Thus, this entry will try and encapsulate the major things that are/have been going on that you've had the misfortune of missing. This blog also has PICTURES. That's one for you, Daniel; I shan't be outdone on the internet.

As you can see the mood is appropriately German after my short break in Berlin, a trip that can only have affected my liver, kidneys and cholesterol levels over my language skills. The thing to say first and foremost is that it was FUCKING AWESOME. The whole mini-holiday can only have been heightened by the distinct lack of being searched at every public building, airport, and train station that we went into; vast improvements from Russia 2008. Apparently I no longer have that "Chechen Rebel" look that I was described as having a year ago. So - heres a mini breakdown of 4 days with the Germans.

It should be noted at this point that it was ruddy freezing the whole week, though inevitably the snow only really kicked in once it was too late to really appreciate. Some of us still enjoyed it when it first started though. Well done, Kellie. Well done indeed.


Its also worth me passing on an important piece of advice that I failed to heed this time round - no matter how many pairs of socks you're wearing, do not wear converse in the snow. Jazz, I'm sorry mate. You even texted me to tell me that. I'm sorry I didn't listen.

It seems the Germans have come across ingenious ways of doing food, ones that seem to take conventional European light snacks and say "fuck that, lets try it this way". Ladies and gents, I give you the coveted Bratwurst. Like a hotdog, but epic and half a foot long. Damn I miss those things. The other culinary wonder was deep fried potato, in a pancake shape .. with sugar? It sounds weird, but they were oh so tasty. I forget what the Germans call them.

One of the more general things that struck me was the similarity between Berlin and St. Petersburg and Moscow. Us being in East Berlin, crappy former communist haven of the Gods, a lot of the architecture was very similar. The main difference was that it had the vibrancy of a city like London, which makes for a strange combination, a very subtle contrast of European dynamism in depressing Commie surroundings. Having said that, some places we went look like the shit bits of Huddersfield or Wakefield except with more tram lines.

See, its a very very nice place.

The photos show a gradual change from 'British students on cultural journey around Berlin' to 'generic group of British tourists'.

Us storming the Bahnhof at Alexanderplatz. Note Dora (right) failing at the "East side" hand gesture and looking more like a mong than anything else.

Undoubtedly one of the coolest parts was the East side gallery; a preserved part of the Berlin wall where all the old artwork has been repainted. Its a fantastic thing to see.

The wall stretches away on the left hand side.

One of the crapper aspects of the trip was the journey back. It took the Germans 2 hours to realise that lots of snow makes a plane all icy and unflyable and shit. So we waited another half an hour to taxi about and be de-iced, and played 20 questions with a south african bloke, which was nice. The flight was spent mainly avoiding Pippa and Dora flailing, before we got woken up by earache coming to land at Stansted. Stansted reminded us of the reasons that Ryanair is cheap; it seems you don't get one of those fancy extending tunnels going from the door of the plane into the terminal. No, you taxi to about 100 metres from the terminal entrance, so we had to run through the sideways flying snow, past those diddy little trucks that carry all your luggage into passport control, flanked as ever by a pair of psychotic bastards with the rifles. There would be another picture, but experience has taught me that men with guns don't like this.

The return from Berlin heralded the return to long hours at work, where the hours are long and the tips can be shit. Christmas Eve was one of the most balls nights of the year. We worked flat to the boards, the place absolutely rammed for 6 hours and we had £3.50 in tips to show for it at the end. Having said that, most pints are in excess of £3 themselves, so a tip on top of a round of drinks at the Woodman Inn would probably put you out of pocket for the next 6 months. The monetary problems will no doubt be rectified with hours of Modern Warfare 2 or Nazi Zombies, geek that I can be, as they are the most frustrating and fun filled hours outside being back in Leeds without uni. Speaking of which, I have impending exams which I really ought to be working towards.