Movie and Television Reviews

I was watching the pregame show for Lost and realized that both Pandora, the planet in Avatar (for the three of you who haven't seen it), and "The Island" in Lost are the same kind of semi-conscious natural god that I describe here. In fact, The Island gives Locke a renewed purpose in life, like Eywa motivates the Na'vi.

Lost: The Complete Seasons 1-5

I saw Avatar and concluded that its anti-American message and derivative story line would limit its popularity, at least in America. I was wrong.

My failure was in focusing on the political aspects of the movie instead of its potential religious appeal. According to a recent Pew poll, many Americans' spirituality has taken a heterodox turn; many of our fellow citizens mix and match beliefs to suit their needs, (often in ways that make no logical sense like combining Christian Heaven and reincarnation).

Avatar is the Passion of the Christ for the unconventionally religious.

Listen to some of the quotes from these Avatar viewers:

"That's all I have been doing as of late, searching the Internet for more info about 'Avatar.' I guess that helps. It's so hard I can't force myself to think that it's just a movie, and to get over it, that living like the Na'vi will never happen. I think I need a rebound movie,"

A user named Mike wrote on the fan Web site "Naviblue" that he contemplated suicide after seeing the movie.

"Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in 'Avatar.' "

Other fans have expressed feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality.

Give me some of that New Age religion:

Avatarianism is a pantheism that focuses on caring and protecting nature. I've mentioned earlier that Avatar and Star Wars both have a biological basis for their religion.

The lack of a supernatural being doesn't harm the attractiveness of Avatarian theology (and may even increase it amongst the "brights") because even a biological god fulfills one comforting aspect of religion: that of a greater intelligence guiding humanity, giving it purpose.** Eywa, the nature goddess in Avatar, semi-consciously urges the inhabitants of Pandora to preserve themselves while causing as little damage to other life as possible. It's similar to other reductionist philosophies from the likes of Asimov. It implies a disdain for manufacturing and advanced commerce like many sustainable living and back-to-the-primitive advocates.

It's a counter-factual, illogical religion because nature doesn't really care if everything or nothing survived (a series that causes one to ponder this question is the Life After People series on the greatest channel in history), but logic might not be a priority for some people.

**Marxism has this as well, with its theory of human progress climaxing in a perfectly equal society.

Life After People (History) [Blu-ray]

1. Same old stuff: Assassinations, moles, nuclear weapons, torture. I love it! I wish it could be on every night.

2. Elisha Cuthbert looks a little better than at the end of last year. My wife is worried about her skin.

3. Jack sure recovered quickly from a 30-minute beating. No marks!

4. I think the Iran-like "Republic" and Russia plot is fairly realistic. The Islam-Caucasian (from the Caucasus, no less) axis should defuse criticisms of racism.

5. The cutting off of the hand was legitimately shocking. I hope they show her as an example of how officials should not be tough.

The Book of Eli starts with a vicarious thrill: I often glare at my cats and wish I held a deadly longbow. Eli lives out this fantasy for all of us.

From this auspicious beginning, we learn that Eli (Denzel Washington) is a drifter in a post-apocalyptic world. Well, not quite a drifter. He's a man making steady progress towards that holiest of American cities, San Francisco, to deliver the temporal salvation of mankind, a King James Bible, all copies of which have been destroyed since the war.

On the way, he encounters a town that resembles what I imagine any American city would if the Democrats were to win 30 strait elections cycles: Godless, barren, crime-ridden, with all commerce going through one man and his flunkies. The leader in this nameless town is Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who wants the Bible so that he may better control his residents. Well, Eli doesn't want to give it to him because 1. it's not his mission and 2. Carnegie obviously isn't properly disposed to dispense the Gospel.

Carnegie first tries to convince Eli to give up the Good Book by bribing him with food and water. When that fails, Carnegie deploys that near sure-fire corrupter of men: he sends Eli his step daughter, the post-apocalyptic babe Solara (Mila Kunis), along with a full complement of wiles. That stuff doesn't work on a holy man, of course (it would have worked on me), and sensing in him a nobility not present amongst the other men in her town, Solara decides to follow Eli.

Eli uses Solara's knowledge of local water sources and ditches her. Eli can't look the other way as highway bandits attempt to rape Solara, however, and once again employs Kitty-slayer (+1) to rescue her. Eli lets Solara tag along up until they encounter an elderly, disco-loving cannibal couple. Carnegie catches up to them and they fight. We get a legitimately clever ending.

What makes this movie unusual is that it places the stylistic action of a Tarantino movie in a non-nihilistic context. This no doubt will throw nihilists off, used as they are to senselessness. Conversely, it will refresh the cinematic palates of the God-oriented who rarely get to see cool God movies.

As a work of cinema, The Book of Eli is fine. There aren't any glaring errors (except that soap is not hard to make). It's funny without being silly. The fight sequences are original and well-done (and it's difficult to impress modern audiences with fights; creative fighting thrown at us every other movie- Bourne, Kill Bill, Matrix, etc).

The issue with the Book of Eli is that it feels flat. The acting's very good so that's not it. The plot is fine.

Why?

Possibilities:

1. TBofE implies what's wrong with a Bible-less world- purposeless-ness, rampant violence, rule by might. Usually, I prefer implied meaning over explicit explanations, but here it's not enough. The rapes, bad hygiene, and cat meat don't instill the creepy terror that the robot-controlled false reality of The Matrix or the almost-familiar societal dysfunction of the Surrogates, Blade Runner and Robocop does.

2. Explicitly Christian movies, books, and other media tend to unimpress because the obviousness of the solution saps the work of any drama. The best Christian movies are about real people and their struggles like Song of Bernadette and Ben Hur (I know, not real), have Christianity in the periphery like Blindside and Not Easily Broken, or operate in a misty religious haze like Knowing.

That this fix has been around for 2000 years and is controversial doesn't help.

(If non-Christians wish to crow that this is somehow a flaw in Christianity, consider that this rule would have applied if the book were the Communist Manifesto, Rights of Man, Declaration of Independence [Star Trek episode The Omega Glory], Shakespeare [The Postman], or the Audacity of Hope.)

Now, if the book were to have contained a discredation of the current on-screen oppressive regime, inspirational words (like Shakespeare's Henry V speech in The Postman) or some fictitious "All Spark," even if it that object referred to a real item or idea; that would be different: It seems to me that the more specific and realistic the solution to the problem, the less effective, from a cinematic perspective.

3. Its a McGuffin movie. McGuffin movies are those that center around one particular person or object. They don't have to be bad. Lord of the Rings is the McGuffin movie that rules them all and it's great. Perhaps because, again, the ring is an abstraction of evil, a weapon, and not a positive, culturally-baggaged solution.

4. TBofE just isn't big enough. All of the action takes place in a small town and a road. The climactic battle involves just a few people. My friend mentioned that no scene really distinguishes itself.

5. The fighting takes away from the movie. Cool fighting brings in the kiddies, but lowers the intelligence level of movies at least two notches. Had TBofE not had severed hands flying about, it may have reached a lower depth level.

Message/Politics:

Christianity as organizing force has precedent. At the end of the Western Roman empire, Christianity rallied the remaining remnants of the Roman empire and barbarians to create the most influential civilization in history. It served the same function for Russia, the Americas, and everywhere it's gained prominence. That it can do so after the collapse of itself, saving another religion filling the vacuum first, is an interesting proposition.

Religion gives men the strength to ignore the temptations of the flesh and focus on a higher purpose. Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, et al should take notice: nothing brings a man more respect than doing so.

The Book of Eli is a very Protestant movie. Sola Scriptura is the underlying theology, as the world will seem to be reconstructed by amateur preachers slinging verses instead of direct successors of the Apostles dispensing sacraments. Catholics and Orthodox believe that Christianity would survive the burning of every Bible, but not the burning of every Bishop.

A note on the movie's violence. As anybody who's read the Bible, studied history, even the history of Christianity, or looks at the plight of many Christians in the world today knows, violence has, does, and will likely be part of the Christian experience until the Coming.

It's right for Christians to dislike violence and try to minimize it- it's what separated Christianity from the war-loving Romans and Norse. It's not OK to think that violence is always wrong. As long as one tries to avoid violence and not like it for its own sake, it's OK to participate in it. In fact, it's our duty to defend Christianity, even with violence.

If you look at the composition of the military, American soldiers tend to be more religious than the general population. One of the reasons is that religious people are more willing to see the need to defend things with one's life, if necessary.

Eli tries to avoid violence at several points in the movie. When confrontation becomes inevitable, however, Eli whoops booty. This is in keeping with Christian Just War theory. Eli is a complete Christian in this regard.

**Spoiler alert**

One may assume that Solara heads back to her home town at the end to preach Christianity, but the directors hedge their bets a bit. None of the Bible quotations Eli uses are from the New Testament. The printers at the end place the Bible in between the Tanakh and the Koran, making it seem one amongst equals and suggesting that Solara may preach a syncretic religion. I'd also like to mention that transcribing the Old Testament is a huge waste of time when one has a Tanakh on hand, as they're the same book.

Purchase here

Kalifornistan is about a poseur Muslim terrorist (Nick Nyon) in Los Angeles who becomes obsessed with a nameless “brown” stripper (Govindini Murty) while trying to detonate a nuclear bomb. A bounty hunter (John Barrett) employed by a Blackwater-like organization called Blackshnauzer thwarts the terrorist’s plans by taking advantage of the terrorist’s incompetent associates and weakness for women- he’s eventually nabbed while buying a Christmas present for “the girl.”

Chimpie McHitler (George Bush) sends him to Guantanamo. He escapes and returns to LA where he exacts revenge on the bounty hunter, seeks the girl, and encounters both her and her Viagra-munching White boyfriend.

Kaliforniastan is befuddling.

The trailer made me think that Kalifornistan is a comedy that mocks terrorists in the un-PC, conservative way that we never get from mainstream movies, like An American Carol. It is, partly.

An American Carol [Blu-ray]

The humor is two-note, mainly consisting of the mundane thoughts and concerns of a person with delusions of terrorist grandeur, unaware of his incompetence and relative unimportance. He streams paranoid, conspiracy-fueled hatreds of American society in general and in particular, with a focus on George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Republicans, White people (redundant, I know), commercialism, and women. Kalifornistan also features plays on names like “blackshnauzer,” “Glorious Jihad of Kalifornistan” (GJK), and “National Agency for the Defense of a Secure Homeland Against Foreign Treachery” (NADSHAFT). Those two notes aren’t poorly-played. When the terrorist chastises his assimilating cousin for stealing money and continuously hums indistinguishable Middle Eastern tunes, it’s funny. His phallic pride combined with his fear of women is both amusing and crucial to the film’s attraction. Kalifornistan plays a murder and an attempted rape for laughs.

Jason Apuzzo chooses to tell the story through the amateur footage of the terrorist, a device used in Cloverfield and Blair Witch; and Apuzzo’s not kidding.

The Blair Witch Series

Cloverfield [Blu-ray]

It’s this aspect of the movie that confuses: Either the movie is lampooning the first-person camera technique or its one of the least-disciplined movies I’ve ever seen.

Who’s holding the camera? Why is the footage in black and white? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to distinguish between the times the terrorist holds the camera and normal action by having only the terrorist footage in B&W? Instead, the only color we see is the girl waking up. Why?

Some of the situations make no sense. The girl’s boyfriend goes after the terrorist in his car. Couldn’t he have called the police while driving? It wasn’t against the law in 2007.

When the boyfriend doesn’t arrive, the girl goes after him...and finds him! In Los Angeles! How does she know where he is? Why does she leave in high heels?

An intact film was found in radioactive rubble? Is the girl's Christianity relevant?

I’m willing to accept that he bumbles his way off of Guantanamo like the protagonists in Dumb and Dumber accidentally solve a crime, but nobody having names except for the never-seen Azam is unacceptable.

Dumb and Dumber (Unrated) [Blu-ray]

At times it approaches conventional movie-making- you know, with a real plot. The bounty hunter part of the story begins well, with him thwarting his own murder and getting releasing the assailant for a $50,000 check (the funniest moment in the film is when the bounty hunter asks, “you brought your checkbook?”). He captures the terrorist, gets beaten up upon the terrorist’s return, and then, nothing. We don’t see him again. Why focus our attention on the bounty hunter if he’s to play no role in the film’s climax or resolution? Shouldn’t he intersect with the girl at some point?
Wouldn’t it have been better if the terrorist’s captured after the girl overpowers him and then returns to exact his revenge upon her?

Only a Tarantino should even attempt such disjointed film-making.

Overall, Kalifornistan peaks at the sexual assault (not graphic) and I maintained a high level of interest up until the mentioned chase scene when the thriller aspect of the movie kind of falls apart for its lack of internal logic. Worse, I'm afraid that these lapses aren't so much an attempt as artistry as just screenwriting laziness.

With all of its faults, Kalifornistan is worth watching for two insights: that terrorists may be driven by a sense of sexual frustration. This point comes through so clearly that the Apuzzo didn’t have to give us an on-screen statistic. And, that even dumb terrorists are dangerous.

Oh, performances are fine, music’s good, and the direction doesn’t look amateurish.

Politics/Message:

The two insights above plus an indirect satire at the deranged Bush-haters those of us who follow politics suffered through for seven years.

I'm a conservative (Cu-con). Govindini and Apuzzo are Libertarians, I think. I know they're open to conservative ideas from their association with the Liberty Film Festival. I wanted to like this movie on these grounds, and did. This isn't going to be a game-changer for explicitly conservative film, however. I hope they keep making movies and come out with something fine next time.

What a pleasure it was to sit and watch Sherlock Holmes. No lasers, super-powers, political agendas, 3-D effects. Just a rollicking tale, well-acted and directed.

Well, OK, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is a super-hero of the James Bond, semi-realistic kind; except that Sherlock trades the ability to bed foreign spies for a more-developed sense of perception and steel-trap logic.

And, the scenes of Sherlock deducing stuff are as good as one could have hoped for. Sherlock driven nearly mad at a restaurant by his uncontrollable ability to notice minute details really shows how accursed this aptitude might be, a premise I don't remember from the older movies. His working himself into an almost trance-like state to piece together the amassed clues further illuminates this interesting perspective.

We also get to see Sherlock rough it up a bit. His smarts applied to martial combat is a nice touch.

Little dandiness, however. This Sherlock is a lonely, eccentric rogue with a gift that makes relating to others challenging.

SH begins with Sherlock interrupting a Lord Blackwell's ritual murder of a beautiful maiden and then reels off an effective extended character exposition of Sherlock and Dr. Watson, focusing in part on their queer co-dependence.

The only woman Sherlock's loved, the Victorian hottie Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), enters the picture when we're quite familiar with the duo to ask Sherlock's help in tracking down a midget.

From there, Sherlock uses his powers to find and check the apparently resurrected Lord Blackwell, who convinces a Masonic-like order to attempt a take-over of Britain and, from there, the world.

It's all good fun, even if it doesn't reach a level of super-intensity. It's better than the similar National Treasure movies, anyways. Like in NT, I liked the historical allusions. Britain dominating the world wasn't completely outside of the pale in the mid 1860s and the writers explain how the American Civil War makes an English conquest possible.

Robert Downey continues his scorched-earth comeback, imbuing Sherlock Holmes with a deep charisma. Jude Law as Watson is fine. Mark Watson makes a convincing pre-Black Sabbath Satanist.

SH unabashedly dips into the bag of cinema tricks to pull out the slightly differently-perspectived or new-scened flashbacks that both explain the plot and make us feel inferior to Sherlock for not being able to notice the things genius detectives do.

If I can fault the movie, it's perhaps in its romantic sub-plots. The movie goes not for a love triangle, but a love pentagram. The Sherlock-Adler one is fine, if little under-cooked. The concept of a lover who's also a rival is solid and Downey's acting does give one the sense that she's the only woman who can fluster him. Sherlock seems to find her nude-ness distracting. They hug, kiss once. Yet, we never see them close to passion. I don't want to over-emphasize this aspect of the movie. It's not bad, certainly doesn't ruin the film, and understandably incomplete considering the restricted screen time. In fact, forget I brought it up.

Watson has a fiance who's essentially a prop.

Sherlock and Watson give off a borderline-gay vibe. Their dialogue seems unrealistic unless unless seen this way: I don't think real guys bicker about waistcoats and try to ruin the other's relationships with the opposite sex.

Politics/Message:

The Masonic cult wants to seize power to help the teeming, ignorant masses who'd be lost without their enlightened guidance. Know any political parties with that attitude?

Not too much besides that: Friendship, loyalty, I guess.

Read more »

Tags: homosexual

FernGully: The Last Rainforest (Family Fun Edition)

If he were to read the IMDB reviews, an astute reader would be able to divide the admirers of Avatar into those who believe in its message and those who like pretty pictures. I'd like to add a new category for myself, who enjoyed Avatar not as a movie, but as an anthropological experiment.

If James Cameron is correct and our planet "dies," and the dude next to me right now at the Norm's counter is right and advanced aliens exist, one can imagine the aliens coming back to earth and wanting to familiarize themselves with our society and its political factions, one of which is made up of those late-twentieth/early-twenty-first century creatures called "progressives."

The databases of Daily Kos and Huffington Post having long been gone, and the pages of the Nation having been burned for warmth after the disappearance of the carbon fuels; the aliens may come to rely solely on a copy of Avatar found in the vault of one of James Cameron's mansions.

What they would learn:

1. It's not good to encroach on other people's territory and change its culture or use its resources. The Earthlings in Avatar have made bad ecological decisions and attempt to steal the Na'vi's supply of unobtanium.

Earthlings shouldn't take unobtanium even if it's their only chance for survival, which seems to go against the natural Eywan law of survival (below). Cameron's going to have to work this one out.

Anyways, humans had their chance to elect Al Gore and they blew it. Now humanity can go lay in its apocalyptic bed.

2. War is justified to protect one's homeland. Similar to the traditional Christian Just War theory.

3. Religion is good, as are priestesses. It's appropriate to appreciate the source of balance on Pandora, the goddess Eywa; therefore, ceremonies are good. It's important to note that Eywa (the "Mother"- in your eye, patriarchists!) may just be some unconscious, material, biological phenomenon, like the microorganisms Midi-chlorians are responsible for the Force in Star Wars. This would seem to make the Eywa dances lively entertainments, but ultimately useless, unless achieving a trance-like state allows one to better "commune with Eywa."

Star Wars Trilogy

Star Wars Prequel Trilogy

Religion should represent reality so that if there really is a force that balances Pandora, and no authority above the planet, that force should be the one to follow. However, since Cameron made Pandora himself, one may assume that it's the kind of religion he prefers. That kind is a sort of pantheistic spiritual communion amongst bio-entities in which the ultimate good is that living things bother each other as minimally as possible. Gluttony is out, moderation evident in the svelte Na'vi physiques.

Even with that understanding, Pandora is still a pretty dangerous place where one wrong move in the dangerous forest, even in dealings with their fellow creatures, can lead to death for the Na'vi. Viciousness is natural, necessary to "maintain the balance." Eywa approves.

Interestingly, for being such a peaceful people, there sure are a lot of Na'vi warriors. Perhaps the different tribes war against each other.

4. Na'vi don't seem to care about improving their technology. It's implied that Earthlings destroyed their planet pursuing technology. The big robots seem especially grotesque next to the colorful Na'vi dragon steeds.

5. No discernible policy on out-of-wedlock sex. Small Na'vi villages tend to be conservative. Perhaps in the bigger villages, "if this leaf-hammock's a rockin', don't come a knockin'."

6. Gay marriage is out. At the appropriate age, a man chooses a woman, for "mating." That's the imprimatured way on earth.

Mating is for life. Another orthodox belief.

7. It's not necessary to love one's enemies. In fact, Avatar is full of hate. First, Earthlings towards the Na'vi. Then, the Na'vi right back. After stripping Earthlings of their capacity to harm, the Na'vi probably could have worked something out with the defeated remnants. Nope. "Go home to your dead world" (not just Detroit, either- all of Earth).

8. Free health care. It seems like the medicine shaman is on call and doesn't require payment. Could be single-payer, which would make them far superior to us.

9. Fashion should allow for the maximum freedom of movement.

10. Slight Xenophobia. Outsiders are not welcome, unless they're willing to completely assimilate.

11. The Na'vi are the ideal people: perfectly in balance; peaceful, yet retaining the ability to wage war.

If this movie is an allegory, then the most noble population group on earth are either Native Americans or Africans. My friends and I argued about this. I kept an eye out for a loincloth malfunction to decide the matter. Alas, none. Fortunately, Stephen Lang settles the issue. They're "Indians":

12. Americans are bad. When anti-American film-makers want to present a fighting force for good, they either internationalize a group like in GI Joe, downplay its Americanism like in Superman, or make it explicitly anti-American like in the Bourne Identity.

The Bourne Trilogy (The Bourne Identity | The Bourne Supremacy | The Bourne Ultimatum) [Blu-ray]

Superman Returns [Blu-ray]

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

In Avatar, all of the bad guys are Americans.

(This is a financial decision. Only half of a Hollywood release's revenue comes from within Yankee shores. Studios figure they can more than make up for offended patriots- who probably don't go to movies much anyways- by appealing to foreign anti-Americans while getting a majority of the Huffington Post crowd, keeping in my mind that most Americans probably won't understand what's going on. In its first weekend, Avatar's overseas business was much greater than domestic revenue.)

13. Marines are good on Earth where they fight for freedom (Cameron makes a point of saying this, so it's not really fair to say that he's anti-military), but bad on Pandora because of point #1. Context is everything.

14. Marines are just the muscle for corporations, which makes corporations the real heavies for their pursuit of profit above peaceful peoples.

Tags: anti-christian, avatar theology, theology of avatar