Look at all this dust that's collected up here...

Long time, no see chaps.

As usual, I get lazy when it comes to things like this and I forget about it. I'm still watching movies, ofcourse, but the motivation to actually type up about them has mostly been absent lately. It wasn't until I actually revisited my blog that I wanted to at least post SOMETHING. And with the newest trailer for Inception going online last weekend, I've pretty much been whoring it out to anybody willing to watch it. Why? Because it looks amazing. An original story with a blockbuster size budget? Yes, please.

The new trailer actually tells us what the hell the movie is about, without giving away many plot details. We learn that the film is about dreams, and breaking into them to steal other peoples intellectual property. The rest of the trailer is montage of crazy shit going down: Joseph Gordon-Levitt looking badass and floating around and elevator shaft and bedroom, Leo running down an alley which is closing in on him and some Modern Warfare 2 looking action sequences up on a snowy mountain. Hell yeah.

So I'm pretty sure that everyone should, like, watch the trailer ... Even if you've seen it already. Because you're clearly not excited enough for it.

Avatar review.

For a long time I thought that no other movie was going to knock Titanic off its Box Office throne. When The Dark Knight was released I was sure that Christopher Nolan’s second film in his new and “realistic” Batman franchise would be the one to finally top James Cameron’s last movie in 12 years at the box office.  The Dark Knight made $1 billion internationally, but was still a tad off from getting to Titanic-like status, by about $800 million. But it finally looks like James Cameron’s romantic epic is about to topped … by another James Cameron film. Press suspect that Cameron’s new 3D epic, Avatar, will be finally knocking Titanic off its throne in a matter of weeks. But box office news aside, the question is; is Avatar worth the hype?

The film opens with our hero Jake Sully, an ex-marine, played by Rockingham native Sam Worthington, waking up from a 6 year space trip in cryo. How does a paraplegic find his way into outer-space? Turns out he has a twin brother with whom he shares the same DNA, presenting him with an opportunity to explore a new world, and walk again, through his brothers’ Avatar; a Na’vi being mixed with human DNA which allows human users to control them. It doesn’t take long until we’re already on Pandora, the small moon in which the story takes place, where a greedy human corporation is trying to mine for Unobtanium with the largest deposit of it laying directly under Na’vi territory.

The corporation wants it, at the cost of Na’vi lives. Jakes’ job is “infiltrate” the Na’vi tribe and convince them to movie, or it’s goodnight to the blue people. I could continue on with the plot but, to be honest, the story in Avatar isn’t anything new, it’s been told before. But never like this. This movie is truly an experience, an completely immersive. This is where the film truly shines.

That’s not to say that one can’t connect to the films story; it’s the classic tale of an outsider learning the ways of the Natives and turning on his people, becoming a “traitor” in their eyes. Some people have said this movie is racist, with a “white man” joining the Natives and ultimately saving them. One could see this I suppose, if it wasn’t for the fact that the invading force isn’t just White people, but HUMANS as a whole. Humans of many different ethnic groups who don’t care who gets in the way of what they want. And while the story isn’t anything groundbreaking, I found myself completely immersed into this world. When you feel like you’re really there, and the acting from all the leads is top notch, you simply don’t care and accept the fact that this is a story being told like never before.

The cast give strong performances with Zoe Saldana, who appeared in the fantastic Star Trek last year, playing Na’vi Netyri probably being the highlight of the show. The audience can’t help but fall in love with this character, and the more emotional scenes come across as heartbreaking. Sam Worthington proves once again that he’s a rising talent in Hollywood and definitely one to watch. His performance, and Zoe Saldana’s for that matter, isn’t lost in all the CGI, with their facial animations being the best I’ve ever seen. Their performances, and every other Na’vi characters, is 100% there and helps us believe the characters and the journey they’re taking. Sigourney Weaver is also fantastic as always as the snappy, smoking Dr. Grace Augustine, the head of the Avatar program on Pandora. Stephen Lang is also completely badass as Colonel Miles Quaritch, the merciless head of the mining operation's security detail.

This movie gave me one of the best cinematic experiences I’ve ever had. It worked on in James Cameron’s favour; waiting 12 years for technology to catch up to make his vision come true. The CGI in Avatar is truly the best I’ve ever seen, with many moments in the film where it looks like they’ve put some prosthetics on the actors’ faces and painted them blue. Alien creatures often look like they’re real, with many close ups showing amazing detail that make us believe that such bizarre creatures are really there. That is, until we snap back to reality. Snapping back to reality after seeing Avatar, in glorious 3D, can kinda suck. It’s so immersive that you want to be there. And there’s so much that one could talk about in this movie that they could end up writing a review that they think they might be getting too long. I’ve skimmed over A LOT of detail, but none that everybody hasn’t seen yet anyway. Either way, James Cameron came back and bitch slapped all the haters and doubters. Especially with the final battle which firmly positions Cameron back into the spot of one of the greatest Action directors of all time. He’s back, and he sure delivered.

Moon trailer.

Moon. Not New Moon. Moon. Apart from just realizing that saying the word multiple times makes the word sound completely stupid, I've been dying to see this movie for a long time now. It was supposedly released here in Australia, but with it playing in only one cinema in the whole of Western Australia, from what I could tell, I've obviously not got around to seeing it yet.

The film stars Sam Rockwell, who's just totally awesome, who's working on the Moon mining for Helium 3 in a three year contract for a company that's helping Eath become more enviro-friendly. I could go over the plot and what not, but I haven't seen the film and the trailer could do a much better job of showing everybody how awesome it looks. By the way, in all honesty, I've been lazy the past couple of days. I've been slowly working on an Avatar review that I should hopefully have finished in the next couple of days, this is just a way of posting something up. But it really does look fantastic so check it out:

Fight Club review.

Sorry, Mr. Durden, but I'm going to have to break the first two rules of Fight Club to write this up.

David Fincher's adaption of the Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name was met with mixed reviews when it was released in 1999, and only took in around $37, 000, 000 in the United States during its theatrical run, which Fox considered to be a box office failure. But that sure didn't stop the film from becoming one of the biggest cult movies of all time, making its way into many film magazines' Top Film lists and definitely at the top of my Favourite Movies. It's held that position for quite a while now and is proof that David Fincher is easily one of Hollywood's best Directors.

The film stars Edward Norton, who's character will be called "Jack" for the sake of this review, Brad Pitt as the uber-cool and nihilistic Tyler Durden and Helena Bonham Carter as the slimy, but often funny, Marla Singer. Jack, played fantastically by Ed Norton, is an employee for a car insurance company who spends his time flipping through Ikea catalogue's to find what kind of furniture would, in his words, "define him as a person". Suffering from insomnia, and I use the word "suffering" loosely, he finds comfort in Self Help Groups such as "Remaining Men Together" for men suffering from Testicular Cancer. The groups act as a sort of ventilation time for Jack, allowing him to sleep when he cries in the arms of the people in these groups. This, of course, comes to an end when Marla Singer, another faker, turns up to Remaining Men Together. Her presence in the meetings means that Jack cannot let go of himself and cry, and when he doesn't cry he doesn't sleep. And so the insomnia returns.

During a flight he meets soap salesmen Tyler Durden, easily one of the coolest film characters of all time and one of Brad Pitts' best roles. After returning home to find his condo blown up, which contained all of his worldly possessions, he decides to call Tyler who will allow him to stay at his house if he does him one simple favour; hit him as hard as he could. From there we're taken on a hard hitting, literally, journey as Jack and Tyler create Fight Club and abandon hope and material possessions on a path to nihilistic enlightenment.

I decided to stop the plot summary about there, as that's all one really needs to know from a film review of Fight Club without the pleasure of the story unfolding being ruined. When I saw Fight Club, I had no real idea what it was about which made the experience much better. And of course I wouldn't want to ruin the ending, which would be a crime for anyone who did. All of this, with an extremely memorable performance from Meatloaf as Bob and Jared Leto as Angelface, makes this is a movie that every film buff needs to see, and have a copy sitting on a shelf of some kind. David Fincher, who before directing Fight Club directed Alien 3, Se7en and The Game, has created a masterpiece of a film that will be remembered as one of the best films of all time for many more years to come.

The look of the film is stylish yet gritty, with dim lighting and excellent cinematography. The camera is mostly on the move, using a lot of tracking shots, giving it that stylish look that's one of high points of the movie itself. The film just looks fantastic. Equally as fantastic is the sound, especially during the fight scenes themselves where sound designers recorded sounds of meat being hit to apply to members of Fight Club which gives it a, somewhat, realistic yet brutal sound. On a technical level, Fight Club is a pure example of film making at its best.

I re-bought Fight Club on Blu-ray on the day it was released in it's 10th Anniversary special packaging. I'm glad I did, as this is probably the best this movie will ever look. Detail is fantastic; watch in the close ups to notice things such as stubble and great facial texture to see what I mean. At first this movie may not seem like the jump to Blu-ray was necessary as a lot of films scenes have darker lighting, but this is a definite improvement over the DVD version and is overall a fantastic blu-ray transfer. The sound is also brilliant here on Blu, with Ed Norton's narration and the fight scenes being prime examples of that. Half of the special features have been transferred over from the DVD but with some extra commentaries and footage from Spike TV where Fight Club receives the "Guy Movie Award", this is THE version of Fight Club to own.

"If this is your first night at Fight Club, you HAVE to fight" - Tyler Durden.

Inception.

Oh, and before I head off to the land of dreams, everyone who hasn't seen the trailer for Christoper Nolan's new film "Inception" should watch it right now. Nolan, for those not in the know, is the Director of such films as Memento, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Cillian Murphy. Definitely a strong cast.

One of the great things about the trailer is that it looks super awesome even though it tells us nothing really about the plot. The trailer successfully makes me want to see this movie so badly while keeping me guessing what the hell it's really about, which will make actually watching the movie more of a surprise. Check it out below:

The lame ass reason I made this.

You see, from time to time, I get bored. Yes, it indeed happens to the best of us. As most of you know, that group being my friends who would actually bother to come here and read my stuff, I'm a big film geek. I could talk about movies for hours, which I often do as I study film at TAFE and, in general, just love movies.

I thought that because I happen to get bored, and I happen to love movies, I'll write reviews and other film related stuff while bored and surfing the net. I hope that in my future blogs I don't come across as some up-himself film dork who thinks that his opinion is better than everyone else's, but a film review is technically a person's opinion on a particular movie. So while I may voice an opposing opinion on certain movies that others love/hate, I do keep in mind that others have different tastes than me. That's love. :D

I'm also doing this because I love to write, and haven't really had a way to write a lot lately. So let the good times be had. I'll write reviews for movies I've already seen and new ones too, along with other film news which is getting me all giddy. I look forward to the three or four friends who read this and get a kick out of it!