Friday, January 1, 2010

New Years Resolution: Don't go to the movies with Niles Gardiner

1. Because he looks like he's been embalmed by an over-enthusiastic undertaker.
2. Because he would find some way to whine about every movie ever made unless an American alpha male killed lots of people in it.
Here is his critique of Avatar
A sampling of the adolescent bleating :
In fact I would describe it as one of the most left-wing films in the history of modern American cinema, and perhaps the most commercially successful political movie of our time

He bases this on
I was disturbed by the cheering from the audience towards the end when the humans – US soldiers fighting on behalf of an American corporation – were being wiped out by the Na’vi
Yes it would have been better if the Navels, or whatever they are, had been turned into Blue Slushies by brave Quarterback types. And a movie's political stance can be judged by how the audience reacts to what they imagine is happening because you can instantly tell what they are cheering for and why.
Isn't the hero a Marine? I dunno much about it.
For a quick solution to  holiday season overeating go and read Nils Desperandum's (see what I did there?) guide to the top10 Conservative movie of some time or another (who can be arsed to remember).

13 comments:

ckc (not kc) said...

...a slick morality tale about the ‘evils’ of Western imperialism...

Western imperialism always gets a bad review - I says it's as good as any imperialism going, says I

Smut Clyde said...

Oh noes! The audience were not taking the side of the murderous greedy corporation or the mercenaries who are following orders and killing natives!

Extra credit to Niles Gardiner for assuming that because the mining corporation is intent on destroying an ecology and killing anyone who obstructs it, it is necessarily American as opposed to a multinational, when there is nothing in the actual fillum to substantiate this.

Also credit Cameron for timing. How long has Avatar been in production? I would have had no idea at the start that it would come out just when global corporates are least popular.

That said, I did get the feeling that Cameron was aiming for a message, like "invading people and killing them and stealing their stuff is wrong", understandably giving Gardiner a sad. So to avoid losing his audience (who might be offended if they saw it as a more general attack on "activities that armies are for"), he was careful to cast the villains as mercenaries, and a loyal Marine type as the American alpha male who kills lots of people for the right side. And the dumb empty-headed Marine turns out to be better at learning native culture than all the fancy long-word-using scientists, providing some anti-intellectual stuff to further assure the audience that Avatar is really on their side.

Pocohontas with smurfs, is how it felt. With substantial bits stolen from The Word for World is Forest and Deathworld, but untrue to both books because neither Ursula LeGuin nor Harry Harrison are fond of Hero-saves-the-day narratives.

ckc (not kc) said...

It's not easy being blue

Substance McGravitas said...

Stupid film, interesting spectacle.

My sister and I were out drinking and agreed that the world would have been a better place if James Cameron had been interested in musicals: he could have been a fine successor to Busby Berkeley and the plots could have been about Putting On A Show.

Captcha says subpfu but I was entertained enough to forget I had candy.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

but the hero was a marine type with a disability he was a cripple, so less than a full person. Maybe 3/5 of a person?

Plus, the handicap is capable trope is clearly a leftist "everyone is good at something" liberal bullshit, so Gardiner is clearly seeing that.

I bet he was the only one in the theater cheering when the Good Corporate ex-Marine colonel turned the Big Stinky Tree into firewood, though. Such is the strength of the Librul Media indoctrination.

Smut Clyde said...

You are all missing the forest for the symbiotic interconnected trees [as indeed are certain argumentative people at 3B]. The whole fillum is clearly an attempt to present the Gnostic fallacy in cinematographic terms. The sleeping soul, drawn down from the realm of the Archons and finding itself trapped in a false reality, becomes convinced that this large blue body is its real one.

It's all in the Nag Hammadi library people!

mikey said...

I heard that some of the soldiers sort of, er, fraternized with the denizens of Pandora, and told stories about it when they got home. All of which inspired the Villiage People to attempt a comeback:

In the Na'vi
You can get some weird disease
In the Na'vi
Having sex with abductees
In the Na'vi
Come on now, people, sure they're blue
In the Na'vi
Imagine what they think of you
In the Na'vi
Come on, even though they're tall
In the Na'vi
Sure it's a long long way to fall
In the Na'vi

Hamish Mack said...

Nag Hammadi library sux. Where is the PS and such? Just old books everywhere.
Our town library is the Living Room of the City. So there.
I think it might be the first Tea Party movie as teh evul gubberment troops try to impose their Liberal facism onto the brave, homo-erotic natives (it's there, don't tell me it's not there).
Yes I know it was written 30 years before the Tea Baggers were a malfunctioning neurone in Glenn Becks head but history , in the words of Victorus Davidius Maximus,is a bugger like that.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Our town library is the Living Room of the City. So there.

So, people pass out there after stumbling in drunk?

Hamish Mack said...

That is not explicitly mentioned in the brochures that got sent to the citizenry but we can only try it to see how committed they are to living room-ness

Hamish Mack said...

Oh dear, it seems I was a little harsh on the very well embalmed Nile he is after all, Director, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom!!!
He has been on "The O'Reilly Factor", "Hannity & Colmes" and "Lou Dobbs Tonight".Plus he writes for the Torygraph (S.Clyde, 2009)
He is not just your usual right wing hack who goes to movies to watch the audience he is a proud member of the right wing welfare community.

Smut Clyde said...

So you could say Avatar is an allegory on the wanks of the Niles

Hamish Mack said...

If one was so inclined, at blogs where that sort of language was acceptable.