Avatar

Back in December 2009, my husband and I went out to dinner and then strapped into three hours of 3D mayhem with James Cameron’s overrated Avatar.  In no way do I encourage the 3D movie industry that has plagued theaters recently, but I am lucky to be one of those who is not hindered by the 3D experience.  Clearly, I see that in 3D films, everything is dimmed and colors are not nearly as bright, but it does not give me headaches or makes me queasy in the slightest.  The effects, 3D and otherwise, of Avatar were appreciated.  However, the recycled plot really brought me down.

In a way, I have to applaud Cameron’s technique on making a 3D movie not look so dingy.  The use of bright colors and contrast went a long way in the theater.  It was still saturated, but the contrast makes it more difficult to detect.  And with so much action constantly going on, my eyes were glued so well that they vetoed my begging bladder for the last half of the film.  Damn that 32 ounce soda.

Oh yeah, there was a plot to Avatar right?  Somewhere between all the visuals they snuck in some Dances with Wolves meets FernGully: The Last Rainforest story set on the futuristic planet of Pandora.  Don’t open that box, you don’t know the power of unobtanium!

Sorry, let me start at the beginning; seems that military forces from Earth have come to Pandora to learn about its inhabitants, the Navi, and drill its natural resource, unobtanium.  On the Earth base, there is a clash between the military personnel, lead by a scar-headed, G.I. Joe action figure model, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), and the “egghead” scientists lead by Grace (Sigourney Weaver).  It’s your typical brains vs brawn approach to how to handle this new planet.

Plot structure dictates that the protagonist must be able to have his foot in both courts, so bring in Jake (Sam Worthington), a disabled marine whose recently deceased  identical twin brother was a scientist on the Avatar program.  How convenient.  Rather than toss out the Na’vi body government money has made for his brother, Jake simply replaces him, with no training or scientific knowledge of Pandora or the Na’vi to aid him.  Grace isn’t happy about bringing a jar-head in to do her research, and Quaritch is excited to have a man he can trust on the inside.  Jake quickly gets a sort of double-agent agenda, do the Avatar program, but report to Quaritch about how to overrule the Na’vi.  When Jake gets lost in the jungle and eventually becomes accepted by an entire Na’vi tribe, falling in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), the king’s daughter, and learning that unobtanium is the life force of the planet, his agenda changes.  He has to help the Na’vi defend their planet.

There is no doubt that all the astounding visuals are huge technological achievements for the film industry.  Huge kudos to Mr. Cameron there.  But honestly, after that first viewing it becomes a novelty.  Once I’m over the pretty colors and flying mountains, I yearned to feel like I have for some real movie moments that were naturally beautiful.  There is sense of adventure I always feel watching the helicopter first land in Jurassic Park, with the jungle and waterfall behind it.  The buffalo stampede in Dances with Wolves is a heartpounding experience that leaps off the screen without 3D.  The sprawling deserts in Lawrence of Arabia have this majestic feeling of vastness and being that I just don’t find in Avatar.  Even Peter O’Toole’s camel ranks higher than that neon pterodactyl.

It is not enough for a film to be a wonderful visual overload and leave me hanging for that emotional connection or sense of adventure.  I knew the plot structure too well, therefore the only surprises were for my eyes and not my mind or heart.  In the climatic battle, I had a moment in the theater where I stepped back from the action and asked when the chick with the helicopter would make a surprise attack for the good guys…and there she was.  You’re not supposed to let me be able to step out of the moment and predict that Mr. Cameron.  Big no-no.

“I see you.”

Born on the Fourth of July

Born on the Fourth of July is partly a coming of age film and partly an anti-war film based on Ron Kovic’s biography.  It opens with a look at Ron’s childhood in 1956, on his birthday, the Fourth of July.  He watches the parade on top of his father’s shoulders and excitedly points out, “Look daddy, the soldiers!”  These are old men being pushed in wheelchairs, flinching at the sounds of firecrackers, but I think all young Ron sees are decorated American heroes.

Ron (Tom Cruise) is the ultimate American boy.  We see him playing little league baseball with his dad cheering in the stands.  He kisses the pretty little blond girl under the fireworks.  In high school, he’s a star wrestler, works hard at the local grocery store and prays that God will make him a soldier.  He carries a strong sense of pride and duty about going toVietnam, telling his parents, including his WWII veteran father, “I want to go to Vietnam, and I’ll die there if I have to.

Ron’s tour of Vietnamis terrifying.  There is so much confusion and the boys are so scared they just shoot at anything.  They unknowingly open fire on a small village full of women and children and we are not spared the gory mess.  After the boys are trying to figure out what to do and what went wrong they have to make a run for it, and in the confusion Ron accidentally kills one of his comrades, Wilson.  Like the good, honest young man Ron was brought up to be, he tells his officers the fatal mistake, possibly looking for some punishment or penance.  It seems they just want this accident to be swept under the rug, saying Wilsonwas simply killed in action.  This only makes Ron feel guiltier, perhaps the reason he decides to take another tour of duty, where he is sent home, paralyzed.

Even after being told he will never walk again or be able to have children, Ron is determined to beat the odds and walk again.  It’s the American way right?  He can’t just take this sitting down.  We watch him make some valiant efforts in physical therapy only to fall so hard he breaks his femur.  At least we can take some comfort knowing he didn’t feel that, but this incident only keeps him in the hospital longer.  The care for disabled vets at this hospital is terrible and the facilities are disgusting.  These men have bed sores on their butt and poor Ron has to ring his buzzer for over two hours before anyone comes to check on him.  Rightfully frustrated, he yells, “I fought for my country, I deserved to be treated descent!”  Thing is, many of the staff at the hospital have ill feelings about why the Vietnam War is being fought and tend to ignore their more patriotic patients.

When Ron returns home, these anti-war ideals are spreading even thicker.  Ron’s own brother tells him, “You served your country and what did you get out of it, I mean look at you.”  Still, Ron tries to uphold his patriotic values and becomes the veteran in the Fourth of July parade that flinches at fireworks.  It’s not until after Ron is beaten in a riot against peaceful anti-war protesters that he slips into an unpatriotic depression.

It is in this long-haired, alcohol fueled, pissed off version of Ron that Tom Cruise’s performance really bombed for me.  Not only did I like him better as the innocent, All-American boy, but he was slightly more convincing there.  Here, yelling profanities at his strict Catholic mom and getting in a cripple fight with Willem Dafoe after a binge of tequila and whores in Mexico, not only is it over the top, but I could not take it seriously.  But I was glad when he sobered up and become a great anti-war leader for the Democratic Party.  I hope that’s the part that the real Ron Kovic wants us to remember best.

While I did not particularly care for the film, I appreciate it.  Oliver Stone always does a great job directing politically charged dramas, and Born on the Fourth of July is considered to be the second installment (between Platoon and Heaven & Earth) of his Vietnam trilogy.  Ron Kovic’s life so dramatically changed by Vietnam is fascinating, but Tom Cruise does not do it justice.  There’s just something I didn’t believe about being so stubbornly patriotic and then turning into an anti-war hippie so fast.  If this is considered an anti-war film, does that gain or lose young, innocent Ron our sympathies?

“People say that if you don’t love America, then get the hell out.  Well, I love America.”

Platoon

“Somebody once wrote: ‘Hell is the impossibility of reason.’ That’s what this place feels like. Hell.”

By this point in my cinematic quest, I’ve seen a shitload of war movies, but non of them have such a dire feeling of Hell on Earth like Platoon.  From the moment Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) steps off a plane and in Vietnam, he is deep in it.  Before his eyes can even adjust to the light, veterans shout to him, “You’re gonna love the Nam.  For fucking ever.” and to his side, a newbie comrade points to a line of body-bags and asks, “Aw man, it that what I think it is?”

Turns out, Taylor dropped out of college to serve in Vietnam thinking it would be some great honor where he could emerge with a new found purpose and honor in his life.  He soon discovers that his generation’s war has no honor, dignity or purpose.  When his comrades die, they are then referred to as a “pile of shit” and made an example of what not to do.  It is all so brutal and savage and as Taylor becomes more disillusioned, he writes home less, smokes more pot and just doesn’t care if he lives or dies.

His platoon is lead by two opposing sergeants, Barnes (Tom Berenger) and Elias (Willem Dafoe).  Barnes is the indestructible, scar-faced, brute who has seen a lot of action and doesn’t give his men any slack.  Elias is a more spiritual, passionate man who smokes dope regularly and tries to connect with his men.  Both Berenger and Dafoe were nominated as best supporting actor.  When Taylor realizes a horrible injustice between Barnes and Elias, the battles won’t just be left out in the jungle anymore.

The film quickly becomes a collection of horrific images.  We witness the men slay innocent villagers for no reason.  They kill each other, leave the weak or slow behind and watch their dramatic and iconic death.  After the final battle, the amount of bodies scattered around is just staggering.  One of the last images is from a helicopter we see a crater and all around, almost neatly spaced, are fallen men in and around the crater.  These images are not about gore, but the brutality, destruction and devastation of the Vietnam War on human life.

With all these horrible things being just another day in Nam, it is no wonder that many of the men turn to drugs and alcohol.  In a bunker, they smoke pot and drink beer just to escape reality for a while.  This form of escapism brings out the anti-war message.  These men realize that they are not really accomplishing anything out there, their fighting and dying is just an undignified bunch of bull.  With that astonishing level of mental defeat, yeah, I’d be lighting up too.

Oliver Stone wrote and directed Platoon after his own tour in Vietnam where he won a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.  He has said, “I believed in the John Wayne image of America. My father was a Republican, and he taught me that it was a good war because the Communists were the bad guys and we had to fight them. And then there was the romanticism of the Second World War as it appeared in the films we mentioned. Obviously, the reality was very different.”  We can easily see that Sheen’s character is loosely based off Stone’s own motivations and experiences.  Stone was introduced to drugs and revolutionary anti-war music while in Vietnam.

From Stone’s experiences in Vietnam sprung this great film, one of the most brutal and honest depictions of war you can find on film.  He put his actors through an exhausting boot camp before filming even began to give them that haggard look of just wanting to go home.  It worked.  Platoon rightly won the Oscars for best director, sound, editing and picture.  If you can stomach two hours of Hell on Earth, Platoon is a must see film for all generations.

Finally, I hope you don’t mind my quote choice.  I just never thought I’d hear this outside my hometown.

“Ain’t nothing like a piece of pussy, except maybe the Indy 500.”

All Quiet on the Western Front

It was in a high school history class that I first encountered All Quiet on the Western Front.  Even as my classmates groaned over the black and white, I think Mr. Acton realized this was one of those films that everyone needs to see.  Between then and now, the film based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque and directed by Lewis Milestone, resonated just as well within me, just as it has for generations over the past eight decades.

In Germany, WWI is beginning like a fanfare outside the windows of a classroom full of young men, barely old enough to sign up for the war.  Their old teacher fills them with pride, calling them the “iron men of Germany” and asking if they will join up.  While he makes war sound like a romantic and honorable duty, some of the boys drift into their own fantasies about making their parents proud in the German uniform and riding in a parade in their honor with women all around.  Throwing their young ambitions to the wind, the entire class signs up and together they learn the cruel truth about war.

All Quiet on the Western Front was one of the most violent and graphic films of its time.  It was not until 1934 that the Production Code was enforced, keeping films less graphic and racy.  We see the gritty side of trench warfare full of rats, barbed wire, amputations, men being mowed down in waves from the early machine guns and bombs exploding at all hours.  Between seeing these young men cope with dying, being driven mad and becoming ruthless killers the psychological aspects of the film are just as compelling as the visuals.

One of the most captivating scenes in the film is when Paul (Lew Ayres) is stuck in a ditch overnight with a man he wounded.  With bombs and gunfire all around, he cannot risk leaving, but between that and a man slowly dying by his own hand, he becomes very disturbed.  He goes back and forth from hating the man, wishing he would die faster to wanting to help him.  It is such a poignant and emotional scene that puts faces to either side of the war and shows an inner struggle within Paul that many soldiers try not to think about.  This was one of the most memorable scenes back in that classroom nearly ten years ago, and it remains one that affects me the most.

The crushing sense of disillusion these young men face is what sets this apart from many other war films.  The stark contrast between the boys as they cheer around their classroom to the realizations of a violent death in a muddy trench is startling.  After seeing this level of soul crushing brutality, it is hard to imagine anyone willing to go to war.  That is something rare to see in war films until the Vietnam era, and I believe makes this better than many modern war films.

Because of the film’s realistic and unflattering look at war, it was banned in many European countries until the fifties.  It was playing for a short while in Germany, but during many screenings, Nazis would interrupt the film by storming into the theater chanting their slogans, releasing rats or setting off stink bombs.  While it was still playing in neighboring countries, there would be busses secretly shuttling people from Germany to the screenings.

All Quiet on the Western Front is one of those essential films that everyone should see.  The fact that it is over eighty years old seems to drive people away, but I assure you, it is one of the best quality films you will find from the thirties.  Many times, today’s war films are all gore and no substance.  This is a film that is not too gory by today’s standards, but holds its merit within its ideals.  Between its strong anti-war message, heartbreaking storyline and intense images, the film can still captivate viewers today.

“You’re just a man like me and I killed you.  Oh God, why did they do this to us?”

A Farewell to Arms

A while back, I had a conversation with a friend about movies.  She talked excitedly about how some of her favorite films starred Gary Cooper, but unfortunately went to see The Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez and shook her head saying, “They don’t make them as well as they used to.”  I had to agree.

Which brings me to A Farewell to Arms, a romanticized adaptation of Hemingway’s novel.  Don’t avoid films from the ’30’s, you’ll find less holes in their plots than you will with today’s.  When it ended, I realized I was completely invested in the story and genuinly concerned about both lead characters.  My usual stance is to find faults and groan at how trivial the plot is, but there was something more to this film.  There’s an honest sincerity that comes out when these two people are separated by war, a plot that can be overused, but has never been as wonderful as this.

Gary Cooper plays Lt. Frederic Henry, a ambulance driver in WWI who falls in love with Catherine (Helen Hayes), a nurse.  Catherine has already suffered heartbreak through the war when her old boyfriend was “blown to bits.”  She decided to become a nurse hoping to take care of him with a minor picturesque wound, so she’s pretty disenchanted.  There’s an odd sense of female duty Catherine feels about being with Henry, she says, “We must give ourselves for these men,” even though she doubts that she’ll see him again.  When Henry returns to Milan after being injured in a blitz, Catherine is overjoyed and with a priests blessing, they consider themselves married.  Henry’s recovery is full of celebration and Catherine ducking around her work to be with him.  When bottles of booze are discovered in his room, the head nurse orders him back to the front lines.  Catherine bears a brave face and doesn’t tell him that she is pregnant, another side of her duty.  She decides to move to Switzerland to have the child.  Soon, Henry realizes the war means nothing to him and all he wants is to run away with Catherine, so he deserts the war and runs back to Milan in search of Catherine.

The title obviously comes from Henry’s desertion, which is not a theme I expected in the era between wars.  There are so many war films filled with patriotic duty, honor and love just postponed that sometimes we forget the other perspective.  Not everyone was a proud willing soldier, sometimes it feels like they were told to keep quiet and only let the patriotic ones speak.  Had this film been put off for a few years, we might have never known it.

This film is very good at talking so delicately about sex.  It’s always kept romantic and when terms start to deviate or become invasive, the conversation is stopped.   Catherine asks, “How many women have you, you know, loved?” and we understand that pause.  What’s even better is that Henry says none, an obvious lie to Catherine, but she doesn’t care and even takes it as a compliment to protect her.  This whole watered down, careful conversation might be so foreign or dull to us, but that’s how it was done back then.  Your grandpa might have been a player, but he ain’t gonna tell your grandma that.

When you think about it, the anti war message, topics of sex and an unwed mother are all pretty daring subjects for the early thirties.  I would recommend A Farewell to Arms to anyone, and in the twenty-first century these topics are still very relevant.