Avatar

Spanks - 5

Director - James Cameron

Writer - James Cameron

Starring - Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Joel Moore, Giovanni Ribisi & Michelle Rodriguez

Release Date - 18 December 2009

MPAA Rating - PG-13

Avatar starts off on a spaceship that has just arrived in orbit of the moon Pandora. Pandora has become a great interest to a Corporation from Earth who built an outpost there. The company is there to mine a mineral called unobtainium which sells for millions of dollars per kilogram. Pandora has a humanoid species called the Na'vi that are in their way, and an atmosphere that is poisonous to humans. Because of this, they create the avatar program that genetically creates a Na'vi out of a humans DNA that can be remotely controlled by the human safely on the outpost. On the ship is the movies' narrator, a disabled veteran named Jake Sully who is permanently in a wheelchair. He signs up for the avatar program to make money to get his legs fixed to walk again. What starts off as following orders, turns into much much more.

Tise film, like Titanic, has all of the action in the last third of the movie. Cameron keeps your attention and never gets boring in the "slow" parts because he is teaching the viewer all about the culture of the Na'vi and the ecosystem of Pandora and showing the greed of the humans who run the human outpost, lead by Colonel Miles Quaritch and lead miner Parker Selfridge.

The film is visually awesome. You can tell that it took a long time to make by the great attention to detail. It did have two years of post production. You could say that it looks like a cartoon with the blue people and pastel colors of the native wildlife, which is true if it were set on Earth. Do you really think every possible planet or moon would look exactly like Earth? Everything that has been transported to Pandora from Earth looks just like it would here on Earth from the humans, from the habitats, to the methods of transportation.

I have been hearing stories that the film is racist. If humans conquering, destroying, and relocating other beings to get what they want without any care to the beings or the environment is racist then so is Avatar. How District 9 is the science fiction version of the South African Apartheid, Avatar is the science fiction version of the way European settlers/early Americans treated the Indians to get what they wanted. Those people complaining about Sigourney Weaver's smoking are out of their mind, because she has a cigarette like three times in the two hour and a half hour film.

Avatar is truly a film that has to be seen in 3D. It was filmed with 3D cameras to be in 3D and not digitally converted into 3D like most 3D films are. Seeing it in a standard 2D theater would be a waist of money. If you can make it to a true IMAX theater, it would be even better being that the screen is bigger then standard 35 mm or digital 3D theater.

Wall*E

Spanks - 4

Director - Andrew Stanton

Writer - Andrew Stanton

Voices - John Ratzenberger, Sigourney Weaver, Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin, Ben Burtt, and Elissa Knight

Release Date - 27 June 08

MPAA Rating - G

Wall*E is the third Pixar movie Andrew Stanton has directed and the sixth he has written. I must say it is the most original of all of them. It is also very different then all the movies made now because there is very minimal dialogue throughout the entire film (there is only eight different voices in the entire 98 minute film). It is awesome that Pixar is not afraid to try something different. This is also the first Pixar film that incorporates a live action character.

The film is science fiction with many references to classic sci-fi films, but it is more importantly a love story. Wall*E is the last robot still active whose task is to clean up the Earth while all the humans are on the spaceship Axiom. He develops a personality and starts collecting human idoms includeing a VHS tape of Hello Dolly. He comes in contact with probe EVE and falls for her. EVE completes her directive and is picked up and taken back to the Axiom, but Wall*E won't let her go and follows her back. On the Axiom all the humans are fat and lazy and just watch tv and eat all day with not a care in the world to get back home. EVE's realizes here directive isn't compete when she arives on the ship and with the help of Wall*E works to complete it.

Like all Pixar films it has a deeper message for you to take from it and I take on of them one as just be yourself. If you do not have kids, you will still enjoy the movie, as it is more grown up then the previous Pixar films. I look forward to see what Pixar does next to keep animated movies original and ahead of all the rest.

The short attached to Wall E was the best yet. It is called Presto and its about a magician trying to pull a rabbit out of his hat.