Avatar(2009)
Directed By James Cameron
Directed By James Cameron If you take the giant winged creatures from Miyazake's "Nausica and The Valley Of The Wind" and the blue skinned giants from Leloux's "Fantastic Planet" and mix them into an apocalyptic episode of the Smurfs you get "Avatar", a really, really, really, really expensive cartoon. 
I love action adventure epics, and seeing CGI monsters and armies battle for the fate of the universe in exotic locales, but I don't believe that all of these stories and films have to be mindless, vapid, or completely predictable. 
Fantasy and science fiction in literature have authors who have dedicated themselves to moving the genres forward by thinking of themselves as artists first and genre peddlers second or not at all. 
Sci-Fi "new wave" writers like Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. Lu Gluin, Stainlaw Lem, J.G. Ballard, R.A. Lafferty, and Micheal Moorcock (whose essay "Epic Pooh" (http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953) attacks the epic fantasy of Tolkien and CS Lewis for being colonial dreck intellectually equivalent of "Winnie The Pooh" and is recommended reading for the "Avatar" age) to name a small few, all wrote exciting and thought provoking stories so I know it's possible to have your ray gun's and eat them too. 
The "novel of ideas" may have died amongst the literary set (many Creative Writing programs at Universities to this day commonly reject "genre fiction" flat out), but it survived on in the low art, lower class paper backs and fan rags til it found a cheap home on TV and in the movies where it's cashed in on today. 
It's hard to depict "ideas" dramatically, so most focus on what grabs attention the quickest; the alien, the action, and the uncanny aspects of such stories, strip mining them much the way the barbourous future humans do peaceful planet Pandora. On Pandora no one thinks outside the box. 
This in the case of the first two films I mentioned at the top and is not always a bad thing (though I wouldn't describe either of those films are brainless or heartless), and sometimes it's enough for a film to skate by on, the way some actors get by being attractive and slightly charming. 
Avatar is not one of those, not really. 
"Avatar" is science fictio action adventure, to be precise it's "space opera", about a hero who goes to a faraway kingdom, get's a magical weapon (in this case a whole new body), meets a princess(literally a princess in this), and saves said kingdom and maybe even the world, from an unstoppable evil (smooth talking backwards chair sitting blood thirsty generals and their corporate overlors)
There is little too nothing scientific about it. 
Though the special effects are striking with the phosphorescent neon jungles and the "tree of souls" being particularly impressive, it's nothing that has never been depicted before. 
Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus" made at a fraction of the cost of Avatar, uses special effects to create surreal landscapes that could never possibly exist. 
Though that film was pretty patchy in plot points too, it at least had what "Avatar" claimed, things I had never seen before. 
Like "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within", "Beawolf", and "The Polar Express" before it, today's earth shattering special effects will become tomorrows corny joke if all it seeks to do is be a little more detailed and a little more realistic than the rest.
It is a terrible irony to me that at a time when Dali-like fantasia's of infinite possibility can be easily generated we are consumed with technology only in so far as it can be used to make the expressions on animated humanoid faces a bit closer to our own.
I don't much care for Frank Miller but when once asked about why his art became more simplistic in his later works, he said "I want to see Super-Man fly, I don't want to see the sweat beneath his armpits", and reactionary as that statement might have been, I understand it. 
Fantasy and SF films of today fail because instead of imaging the impossible they are content to infinitesimally replicate the improbable; e.i. what would a ten foot tall blue giant's face look like if he were concerned, angry, or is not sure if he left the iron on?
As for the movies "pro-green" or "anti-war" message, it has neither. 
The gods of the N'avi ultimately save them (contradicting the idea that the "tree of souls loves everyone and takes no sides" espoused by Princess), which makes this movie in the very literal sense holy war, pitting the good indigenous against the evil capitalists infidels and their demonic machines ("Krull" anyone?).
As my friend Chris Kimsey at Flixter said of the movie and this point in particular, "This movie suffers from major issues, for one, it is an overtly romanticized look at colonization and resource harvesting, and the film has an illogical and ridiculously unrealistic conclusion. 
I suppose if the people who are being "pushed" out are actually right and founded in fact, which they never are, then this film would make sense. 
But the Native Americans were wrong, the Native South Americans were wrong. 
The only thing which makes these peoples success make any sense is that their theological beliefs happen to be correct....
You see if the Aztecs were like the Na'vi then they would have prevailed against Spain, because Jaguar men and gods of the forest would have helped them! DUH!"
Likewise to the "pro-green" message if the Earth didn't want to be raped of it's resources it would retaliate in a fashion similar to "The Happening" or "The Ruins" or I'm personally hoping "Little Shop Of Horrors".
Like so many colonial fantasy films the N'avi would be helpless also were it not for the intervention of a hero from the colonizer's side, marshaling them like children by manipulating their religious beliefs of being "the chosen one". 
Remember the story about Cortes being mistaken for a God when he arrived at Tenochtitlan, well in "Avatar" like 2000's "The Road To El Dorado", they take the idea and run with it.
I do not accept that "Avatar" as just a sci-fi flick or an action movie and one you shouldn't really think about it. 
I think the best SF is made to be thought about and the best action does not requite 300 million dollars, because David Cronenberg made one of the best action scenes of the decade with "Eastern Promises" brutal naked knife it in a sauna.
I am also not impressed with realistic depictions of an alien landscape which aside from a few slightly mutated plants and animals isn't that alien (compared with any Rene Laloux movie), and downright normal if you were raised on Saturday morning cartoons, or anime, or other movies from this genre camp. 
So what's left is just an untalented actor in a wheel-chair (I'm guessing this is to help us sympathize with him going native and preferring his N'avi body) talking into the camera like a really bad reality show. 
"Avatar" was not terrible, and genuinely better than "Transformers 2" and "District 9" which preceded it this year, but they had both already lowered the bar so much, this didn't have very high to leap over. 
The film is humorless, the characters one dimensional, the performances weak, and the concept so traditional for this type of material it has lost all meaning. 
Once the next really expensive thing is made with a large chunk of that expense going to a huge ad campaign, we will all swarm over it, and look back at this as being one of those hokey movies with cheesy outdated effects, nothing more (ex: I've included several shots from Avatar the video game in this post, try and see if you can tell the difference between the "real" film and the game). 
For now it's fun though, I liked when the animals attack the machines.
Take that bad guys! 
I love action adventure epics, and seeing CGI monsters and armies battle for the fate of the universe in exotic locales, but I don't believe that all of these stories and films have to be mindless, vapid, or completely predictable. Fantasy and science fiction in literature have authors who have dedicated themselves to moving the genres forward by thinking of themselves as artists first and genre peddlers second or not at all. Sci-Fi "new wave" writers like Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. Lu Gluin, Stainlaw Lem, J.G. Ballard, R.A. Lafferty, and Micheal Moorcock (whose essay "Epic Pooh" (http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953) attacks the epic fantasy of Tolkien and CS Lewis for being colonial dreck intellectually equivalent of "Winnie The Pooh" and is recommended reading for the "Avatar" age) to name a small few, all wrote exciting and thought provoking stories so I know it's possible to have your ray gun's and eat them too. The "novel of ideas" may have died amongst the literary set (many Creative Writing programs at Universities to this day commonly reject "genre fiction" flat out), but it survived on in the low art, lower class paper backs and fan rags til it found a cheap home on TV and in the movies where it's cashed in on today. It's hard to depict "ideas" dramatically, so most focus on what grabs attention the quickest; the alien, the action, and the uncanny aspects of such stories, strip mining them much the way the barbourous future humans do peaceful planet Pandora. On Pandora no one thinks outside the box. This in the case of the first two films I mentioned at the top and is not always a bad thing (though I wouldn't describe either of those films are brainless or heartless), and sometimes it's enough for a film to skate by on, the way some actors get by being attractive and slightly charming. Avatar is not one of those, not really. "Avatar" is science fictio action adventure, to be precise it's "space opera", about a hero who goes to a faraway kingdom, get's a magical weapon (in this case a whole new body), meets a princess(literally a princess in this), and saves said kingdom and maybe even the world, from an unstoppable evil (smooth talking backwards chair sitting blood thirsty generals and their corporate overlors)There is little too nothing scientific about it. Though the special effects are striking with the phosphorescent neon jungles and the "tree of souls" being particularly impressive, it's nothing that has never been depicted before. Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus" made at a fraction of the cost of Avatar, uses special effects to create surreal landscapes that could never possibly exist. Though that film was pretty patchy in plot points too, it at least had what "Avatar" claimed, things I had never seen before. Like "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within", "Beawolf", and "The Polar Express" before it, today's earth shattering special effects will become tomorrows corny joke if all it seeks to do is be a little more detailed and a little more realistic than the rest. It is a terrible irony to me that at a time when Dali-like fantasia's of infinite possibility can be easily generated we are consumed with technology only in so far as it can be used to make the expressions on animated humanoid faces a bit closer to our own. I don't much care for Frank Miller but when once asked about why his art became more simplistic in his later works, he said "I want to see Super-Man fly, I don't want to see the sweat beneath his armpits", and reactionary as that statement might have been, I understand it. Fantasy and SF films of today fail because instead of imaging the impossible they are content to infinitesimally replicate the improbable; e.i. what would a ten foot tall blue giant's face look like if he were concerned, angry, or is not sure if he left the iron on? As for the movies "pro-green" or "anti-war" message, it has neither. The gods of the N'avi ultimately save them (contradicting the idea that the "tree of souls loves everyone and takes no sides" espoused by Princess), which makes this movie in the very literal sense holy war, pitting the good indigenous against the evil capitalists infidels and their demonic machines ("Krull" anyone?). As my friend Chris Kimsey at Flixter said of the movie and this point in particular, "This movie suffers from major issues, for one, it is an overtly romanticized look at colonization and resource harvesting, and the film has an illogical and ridiculously unrealistic conclusion. I suppose if the people who are being "pushed" out are actually right and founded in fact, which they never are, then this film would make sense. But the Native Americans were wrong, the Native South Americans were wrong. The only thing which makes these peoples success make any sense is that their theological beliefs happen to be correct....You see if the Aztecs were like the Na'vi then they would have prevailed against Spain, because Jaguar men and gods of the forest would have helped them! DUH!" Likewise to the "pro-green" message if the Earth didn't want to be raped of it's resources it would retaliate in a fashion similar to "The Happening" or "The Ruins" or I'm personally hoping "Little Shop Of Horrors".Like so many colonial fantasy films the N'avi would be helpless also were it not for the intervention of a hero from the colonizer's side, marshaling them like children by manipulating their religious beliefs of being "the chosen one". Remember the story about Cortes being mistaken for a God when he arrived at Tenochtitlan, well in "Avatar" like 2000's "The Road To El Dorado", they take the idea and run with it.I do not accept that "Avatar" as just a sci-fi flick or an action movie and one you shouldn't really think about it. I think the best SF is made to be thought about and the best action does not requite 300 million dollars, because David Cronenberg made one of the best action scenes of the decade with "Eastern Promises" brutal naked knife it in a sauna.I am also not impressed with realistic depictions of an alien landscape which aside from a few slightly mutated plants and animals isn't that alien (compared with any Rene Laloux movie), and downright normal if you were raised on Saturday morning cartoons, or anime, or other movies from this genre camp. So what's left is just an untalented actor in a wheel-chair (I'm guessing this is to help us sympathize with him going native and preferring his N'avi body) talking into the camera like a really bad reality show. "Avatar" was not terrible, and genuinely better than "Transformers 2" and "District 9" which preceded it this year, but they had both already lowered the bar so much, this didn't have very high to leap over. The film is humorless, the characters one dimensional, the performances weak, and the concept so traditional for this type of material it has lost all meaning. Once the next really expensive thing is made with a large chunk of that expense going to a huge ad campaign, we will all swarm over it, and look back at this as being one of those hokey movies with cheesy outdated effects, nothing more (ex: I've included several shots from Avatar the video game in this post, try and see if you can tell the difference between the "real" film and the game). For now it's fun though, I liked when the animals attack the machines. Take that bad guys! 
Directed By Stéphane Aubier & Vincent Patar
"A Town Called Panic” does not invite any moments of calm or temprance, or respite from the chaos of the world, instead in revels in its absurd animated mania that would not feel out of place on Adult Swim or Saturday mornings. 
It is defiantly ridiculous, and never offensive, mean, or crude. In a dayglo town, we see old toys moving of their own accord. Toys from a time before action figures, when plastic figures stood on mounted bases and lacked bendable limbs.
A town called “the town”, houses a postman, a policemen, a musical school, a farmer, his wife, and their animals (who attend the musical school), and a horse, an Indian, and a cowboy. The later are the films heroes here making their big screen debut from Belgium produced animated series with the same name as the film.
The trio forms a strange family, with the Horse heading the household, driving, the car, handling the finances, etc, with Cowboy and Indian as the two young impish tricksters getting into various shenanigans.
The action begins when the boys realize they have forgotten Horse’s birthday, and decide at the last minute to build him a barbecue. The boys make a slight snafu when instead of ordering 50 bricks they have delivered 500,000 bricks. 
The best scene a drunken party takes place early on, but where I expected the film to dip after the 20 minute mark, it kept delivering taking us into the center of the earth, into a Penguin shaped mobile Artic…"research”…station, and an undersea kingdom located directly beneath the town. 
Horse in love with the school’s music teacher only wants to get back to his lesson in time, but instead they chase a merman through a series of wacky encounters. 
This was one of the few films that was screened twice during AFI fest and I only caught the 2nd screening on the last day of the festival. The director wasn’t there, but in place there was someone from the Belgium consulate who said that though he had not seen the film he had been assured by everyone who had that it followed in Belgium’s unique tradition of cartoons, comics, and sense of humor. 
He spoke with a vague craftiness more like a producer than a diplomat, but perhaps there is not much difference in the two. In fairness all of the characters did seem to survive of a daily diet of fresh waffles (even the mermen).
The show has been on since 2003 in 5 minute segments, and given their previously limited time, it’s impressive they can develop a full feature that never sags once. 
Though many have referred to the film as stop-motion, it is actually a process called puppetoon, where instead of a single figure photographed and repositioned and photographed again, according to wiki,"…the puppets are rigid and static pieces; each is typically used in a single frame and then switched with a separate, near-duplicate puppet for the next frame. 
Thus puppetoon animation requires many separate figures. 
It is thus more analogous in a certain sense to cell animation than is traditional stop-motion: the characters are created from scratch for each frame…”. Though the effect is light, the production seems painstaking.
“A Town Called Panic” is delightful lo-fi animated film, that doesn’t aim to impart any kind of moral or lesson, but recreate “Looney Toons” like free range explosion built of escalating absurdity and stacking gags on top of gags in a Tower Of Babel to cartoon comedy heaven. 
It doesn’t quite reach these epic levels, but it’s a fun film that I could imagine watching episodically week to week, late on a foggy night or over breakfast cereal the day after (or breakfast cereal later that night).
Enjoyable for the uninitiated (like myself), and probably more of a treat for fans. At 75 minutes it’s a breezy watch, rewarding in easy cheer and quirky charm. 
Along with the more visually pleasurable “Ponyo” this is one of my favorite animated films of the year, and makes clear the point that there are still open avenues available to animators who want to work outside the CG universe.
