bobbyfranky Reviews

Avatar (2009)

Absolutely revolutionary!! The best!! Why, even the wife liked it!

[10/10 · 30 January 2010]

I waited awhile, trying not to get caught up in all the hype. But I heard and read enough people saying the 3d movie was a transformation in movie history, and that it should be seen in a theater before being seen on big screen TV, so I went before it leaves the theater.

The wife, who hates these kinds of movies (sci-fi, action-adventure), went too (we are older). She is glad she went, and agrees, as do I, that YES, THIS IS MOVIE-MAKING HISTORY UNFOLDING HERE. She is even working on getting our 30-something daughter and her husband to go; they are busy with young ins and she, like her mom, is not into these kinds of flicks.

You simply must see this movie. While not as transitional a moment as silent to talkies, it is more transitional than black and white to color. It is not just the 3d effect; it is the way the story is seamlessly woven into the 3d - there are no silly 3d pop-out-at-ya moments, that is, it does not treat the 3d as THE MOVIE; it does not dwell on the fact that it is in 3d.

Take one small scene in the movie, for example, as an illustration: the 3d allows you to feel in a deeper way than ever before how much raw nerve and bravado it takes for the marine character Scully (in his Avatar) to jump onto the hanging vines of the floating mountain, since you can see just how high up they are. You feel his fear, because you see what he sees, you see what he is afraid of just as if you too, are standing on that rock edge about to leap into mid air so so high up. It takes your breath away. And that is just one brief moment - but scene after scene is like this.

Simply put, the seamless 3d effect allows you to enter into the movie yourself - you are not WATCHING the characters move around on a screen in front of you; rather, you are walking WITH them, standing beside them on Pandora; you almost do become an avatar on Pandora. In fact, this I believe is Cameron's 'head fake' on us all - it is called Avatar because, just like Scully LITERALLY enters into the world of Pandora through his avatar, we LITERALLY enter into the world of Pandora through all of Cameron's ground-breaking hhocus-pocus - as if we are controlling our own avatar. Cameron has achieved his dream - he takes his audience ACTUALLY, REALLY into the world he creates; in the past we watched Hollywood worlds from afar; now, with modern technology, it is possible to take us INSIDE the Hollywood-created world.

To illustrate how we are INSIDE the movie's world instead of on the outside looking in, an interesting thing happened at our showing - a man a few rows in front stood up and looked in his pocket for his ticket before going out to get popcorn -- AND HE BLENDED INTO THE MOVIE! He was not in front of us blocking our view, he looked just like he too was one of the characters IN the movie! He was real, all the 3d characters next to him and us on screen were fake, but they all, the man and the on-screen Navi folks, looked like they were all standing there together, side by side, some closer and some a little further from us. I half expected a Na-vi to shoot him with an arrow or something!!! I asked my wife about this later and she immediately laughed and said yes, she noticed the exact same effect too! It is weird!

So hats off to Cameron...with this he has sealed his destiny as one of the greatest persons associated with movie-making, ever. He takes great risks, financially and professionally, to push the movie-making envelope, and I am glad to be living in his time, to see these works of his. He pushes it, and in the end, he delivers the goods.

Again, all I can say is go see it, in 3d, in a theater! Don't worry about the cost or 3d premium; my wife and I felt all of it was well worth it. We are going to see it again, in 3d, in a theater. We rarely ever go to a movie more than once - we wait for the Red Box DVD release. Not this time. This is a once in a lifetime movie-going experience.

Yi Yi (2000)

Do You See What I See?

[10/10 · 20 November 2003]

Yang Yang the boy character in the film takes pictures to help those around him see what they cannot, and Yang the director takes pictures to help us see what we usually do not - that every moment of life is beautiful, deep, wonderful, rich.

Yang masterfully uses the everyday things of life on a least two levels - the literal and the figurative - beginning with the title of the film, which means literally "one one" (in Chinese) or "individual", but is presented as a Chinese "one" on the screen, followed slowly by another Chinese "one" appearing on the screen below it, which then becomes "two". (In Chinese, one is a single line, and two is two singles lines, one above the other.)

We are individuals, together. Our lives involve us, and others. Our lives involve relationships, get their meanings from relationships.

Relationships like that of little boy Yang Yang's encounters with girls, violent at first as they poke him from behind (in the back of his head, where he cannot see), and he pops balloons in their faces, scaring them. And then as the electricity builds between them, between Yang Yang and the girl in his school, just as in the nature film in the science lesson presented in the audio-visual classroom, passion as an electrical spark comes to his life.

There is Yang Yang's sister Ting Ting in the school of life too, with her ever-present potted plant that cannot seem to bloom. In class, she is told that overfeeding can cause it not to bloom - and Ting Ting herself tries too hard to bloom, longing for "music in her life" as she listens to the concert duet played by a man and a woman while she glances at her date, the boy called "Fatty" - he is slim but does he dine too much at life's banquet? (That question is answered later, as violent storms - storms of love, of life - pass overhead, not expected again "until Thursday".) Ting Ting wears white, and could be at her wedding, but she is not.

Their dad, NJ, does manage to find the music of his life once again when he encounters Sherry, the flame of his youth. They take a train back into time they remember as simple and romantic, but the memories of the past veil the complexities that existed then, and now, for the two of them.

NJ's wife Ming Ming wishes to escape. Her work colleague Nancy asks her, "You're still here?" to which she replies "Where can I go?"

Indeed, where can we go? No, we must stay and wake up each day, and try to remember that each day is a first time, that we never live the same day twice, as enchanting Mr. Ota, NJ's potential business partner, reminds him, and us.