POST-HASTE,
AND IN ONE FELL SWOOP, John Nolte's review at Big Hollywood ruined any last hope for me of magic for James Cameron's mammoth, half-billion dollar production of Avatar. It took me one loooong week of press-pummelling to rethink Tiger Woods, and only ten minutes of reading Nolte's review to realize one big, amazing thing: Nevermind! No way, Jose!
All the money, special effects, blue-skinned aliens, political correctness and 3-D in the world don't buy this love in my book.
Web: I love you, and respect your opinions. You may turn out to be right.
ReplyDeleteBUT (You somehow knew there was a "BUT" coming; didn't ya? :-)...
I intend to give it a look anyway, in spite of Nolte's snotty review. Maybe, even, because of it; especially because of many of the comments to that review ("I hope Cameron loses his shirt on this one!", and so forth).
Why?
Deja vu.
When I first started roaming the internet, in the late 90's, I frequented various newsgroups, including ones devoted to movies.
For a solid YEAR before the release of Titanic, a lot of people there conducted a holy war against James Cameron, because of his autocratic style of working and the 200 million dollar cost of making it. ("He's going to bankrupt Fox and Paramount!", "NOBODY'S going to see this chick-flick!", Etc.).
They seemed almost desperate for that to happen because they said it would happen. And then, after it came out, the same people never forgave him for proving them wrong. They STILL hate his guts for that.
As for Mr. Nolte's cheap shots at "messages", many of what he describes are from classic science-fiction going back over half a century.
I can't shake the feeling that he had his mind made up before seeing the movie, and like some current climatologists we've heard about recently, carefully cherry-picked items to prove his point.
Maybe he'll turn out to be right, but all of my experience and instincts make me very skeptical of his review.
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Thank you, Paul. Please let us know what you think! Eager to know from such a conservative! Best wishes.
ReplyDeleteEager to know from such a conservative!.
ReplyDeleteWould you believe that when I was twenty, I considered myself as a radical? :-)
Im my defense, that was when I was twenty. I'd really like to believe that I've learned.
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Ok, Web, I've seen it and put my incredibly amateurish attempt at a review into a post on my blog.
ReplyDeletePaul (http://paulinhouston.blogspot.com)
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Thanks Paul, can't wait to read it soon. (After being on the road for 11 days, I'm a bit behind in my reading and writing....but plan to catch up soon!) And also thank you for catching the anonymous comment with bad links I just deleted which I'd let slip by. Really appreciate it!
ReplyDeleteThanks, for the kind words.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that post is probably the lamest one I've written so far, thanks to rushing to put up something with ideas barely half-formed.
It's actually a fairly good example of how NOT to post anything.
I'm leaving it up, as is, as a kind of a slap to my face to prepare myself better next time.
When I've done so, and actually have something more substantive to say, I'll very likely revisit that subject again.
Hope you had a nice Christmas, and have a Happy New Year.
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