Film and Television

Go See Avatar

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Avatar-james-cameron-movie-1024x576  It doesn't matter whether you're into science fiction or not, if you love movies, you have got to see AVATAR. Even if you don't love movies, go see it. Visually, AVATAR is the most amazing thing I have ever seen in a movie theater. At first, the 3D feels like a gimmick…you're very aware of it and the glasses. Even the initial shots of the blue creatures look like typical CG. But once the movie gets to Pandora, you are immersed in a spectacular world and you will totally forget the technology that got you there. The images on screen are stunning, detailed, and utterly convincing…and the 3D puts you right into this make-believe world in a way that no other movie ever has before. It doesn't matter that the script and characters feel achingly familiar (think DANCES WITH WOLVES with blue aliens), or that the villains are one-note, one-dimensional cliches in an astonishingly fresh, 3D wonderland.  What you're seeing is so amazing, that the serviceable, on-the-money dialog and predictable characters are irrelevant. It's an experience. It's not just the 3D that's incredible, it's the realism of the computer-generated world. Every leaf, every drop of water, every machine, every creature, looks like a real thing, not some computer-rendered object. The blue aliens actually look as if they are made of flesh-and-blood instead of code. This movie is a monumental step forward in film-making that you have to experience. AVATAR is going to make a trillion dollars…and it deserves ever penny.

Flop Pilot Bonanza

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Warner Brothers is making some hard-to-find busted pilots available for sale on DVD exclusively from their site. The $19.95 titles include Irwin Allen's CITY BENEATH THE SEA, Gene Roddenberry's GENESIS TWO and PLANET EARTH, and  Andy Griffith's two "Sam McNeill" movies – WINTER KILL and DEADLY GAME (the concept was later reworked in two, one hour-long, ADAMS OF EAGLE LAKE flop pilots). They've also got some cool stuff like the pilots for the short-lived series MAN FROM ATLANTIS and THEN CAME BRONSON.  It's a real bonanza for TV geeks like, well, me.

No Limits to the Praise

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51BywRwlFwL._SS500_ Novelist James Reasoner said some very nice things on his blog about my movie FAST TRACK: NO LIMITS, which is now out on DVD. He said, in a part:

Katie needs money to save her garage, and her only real hope is to win a series of races with her cars. (She doesn’t drive herself, just provides the cars and takes part of the purses when they win.) Throw in more cops, some gangsters, a nasty villain, assorted bank robberies, beautiful women in skimpy outfits, several races, and a handful of really spectacular stunts, and you’ve got a highly entertaining action/adventure movie.

Most of the cast is European, but the two leads are American (Erin Cahill as Katie) and Canadian (Andrew Walker as Mike). Everybody does a good job, the script has some funny lines and several very effective dramatic moments, and the stunt drivers really steal the show. I don’t know if Lee has any more of these in the works, but if he does, I’ll watch ’em, you can count on that.

Thanks so much, James!

Prime Cut

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Prime_cut  My crime film fest continued last night with a weird entry from 1972… PRIME CUT starring Lee Marvin as a Chicago enforcer who heads out to the fields of Kansas to collect a $500,000 debt from Gene Hackman, another enforcer who has gone into the cattle business. But beef isn't all Hackman is selling…he's also selling women like cattle. Literally. The movie isn't quite sure what it wants to be, a satire or a violent bit of Farm Noir. Marvin's performance is steely, tough, and straight…but Hackman is chewing everything in sight, from the scenery to big, heaping plates of pig guts. Sissy Spacek makes her movie debut naked…and in a ridiculous role as an orphan raised to be a sex slave. Hackman made this movie right after shooting THE FRENCH CONNECTION, where he played NYPD detective Popeye Doyle, a character based on real-life cop Eddie Egan, who has a bit part in this movie as a mob boss. 

Vanishing Point

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Vanish  Today I watched VANISHING POINT, the 1971 movie starring a white Dodge Challenger and Barry Newman. The car was a lot more charismatic that its c0-star. I do not get what all the hoopla is about over this movie, which has a loyal cult following. I thought it was dull and as seemingly endless as any of its many shots of the wide open road across a vast desert. You can pass on this one.