A Film Review: Avatar

Has my blog been reduced to this: amateur film reviews? Bear with me, this one has been building in me for a while - I think that James Cameron's hype-driven, hyper-drive 3D epic Avatar has enough cultural ripples to warrant examination.

Aliens vs Pocahontas is quite a good film. It's better with the passing of time, as I can now don rose-tinted shades and look back at my last cinema experience of the noughties decade with something approaching warm feelings (I must here note, that there is a mournful lack of good "-ies" names for the decade now upon us - "teenies"? "tennies"? ugh, no.) I was skeptical, too. It had been so long in production that I had come to see it as uncool - Cameron had invested an embarrassing amount of effort into one film, past that line where respect for creative investment gives way to an impression of overinvestment and, ultimately, nerdiness. But the film succeeded in both its sheer enjoyment factor and on a nerdier level - at least for my mother, no small achievement, since I've been trying to involve her in nerdy pursuits for some 16 years or so.

It is firstly, a good story, but it is a genuine pity that Cameron felt that in order to make it qualify as "epic" he had to pepper the narrative with unmitigated clichés and stock ideas.

Let me explain: when I say that the film is a great story, I don't mean that it's original (it's highly derivative in a multitude of ways), or that it did anything but follow the anticipated trajectory, but I do think that it conflates enough human cultural threads into a single narrative to make that narrative resonant in the same way that Disney animations have traditionally succeeded at. That works. But you can't miss the completely un-self-consciously processed-cheesy dialogue, any more than tired pantomime villainy of Giovanni Ribisi' "money-without-a-soul" capitalist or Terminator-surplus Colonel "Quaritch" whose absurd hyper-masculinity produces script gems such as "You are not in Kansas anymore" and "Come to Papa!" These starchy, 2D characterizations stand in stark contrast to the lush 3D visuals.

The IMAX was actually very immersive - the seats were at a bizarre, leg-cramping height that made me identify with the wheelchair-bound protagonist! Is it a revolution in film-making? The 3-D was artful, its importance easily missed and dismissed, precisely because rather than dominate the experience it instead enhances the visual perception of the film whilst remaining subtly integrated, leaving the world's environment utterly engaging.

Zoë Saldaña deserves to be commended - her acting as the CG-generated heroine was phenomenally raw and believable. And she can be credited with one of the only subversive moments in the film - the female lead taking the final killing blow to save the day, protecting a male "damsel in distress." Despite a 'disabled' lead, and the forefronting of the issues faced by aboriginal populations in colonialism, the film is nevertheless a far cry from the ideological exploration of Aliens. The colonial themes, whilst admirable, are also produced through some colossal unsubtleties, particularly about environmentalism and a version of white guilt that has more to say about the white lead's internal life than that of an oppressed people.

James Cameron is perhaps more comfortable expanding on existing concepts - such as in the masterful Terminator 2 and Aliens, which both dwelt on complex ideas about parenting. He seems to have definite trouble with originality - his other original feature Titanic is even more melodramatic. Of course, finding the films that Avatar liberally borrows ideas from has become an international cause celebre (everyone knows about Pocahontas - I also noted FernGully, Dances with Wolves, and the brilliant La Planète sauvage). But the threads it brings together create a surprisingly enjoyable and entertaining whole - what Cameron undoubtedly knows best is entertainment. That the film remains so good despite its innumerable flaws is one of the most confusing things about film, and reviewing it critically, because it seems callow to say that the film is good and yet full of flaws. Maybe the initial impression of embarrassing overinvestment by Cameron has actually worked in reverse - he spent so long on it now, that we now just feel we ought to like it! Regardless, like it I did.

And the best thing about the movie? Sigourney Weaver is (part of) god!

RIP the Sugababes, the most badass girl group in pop

I have rather belatedly learnt that Keisha Buchanan has been booted from the Sugababes. Which is a strange statement to be making, since she was the last original Sugababe left, so what we have now is the bizarre continuation of the band's name under a zombie crew of imported 'Babes, consisting of Heidi Range, Amelle Berrabah and now Jade Ewens/that girl from Eurovision.

As with The Smiths, Oasis and other musical greats, the Sugababes' magic erupted out of the fact that they were at each others throats; they were a band of bitches (there must be a porn remake of the Stephen Spielberg series going by that name...). The group tensions had since the band's inception given their music and stage presence edge and fire like no other girl group (surpassing previous title-holders, the 90s' All Saints). They were fundamentally badass, because you knew - or at least had every reason to believe - that behind closed doors these girls were fabulous bullies.

And let's face it, despite first impressions that Mutya Buena was the group's HBIC, it was Keisha who came across as the most persistently demonised figure. First she gave fellow original 'Babe Siobhan Donaghy depression and a swift exit, then it was whispered that she terrorised newbie Heidi Range, until along came a Berrabah, who left the group for prolonged intervals presumably to escape Buchanan's fiery wrath.

Now that Keisha has been kicked and replaced by Jade Ewen, from the institutionally laughable Eurovision vein of pop, like a Guardian columnist or two I have nothing but derision for the "Sugababes" that have come to replace the band that I recall strutting fiercely around for their fantastic hits "Freak Like Me," "Hole in the Head," and "About You Now." And I will be the first to admit that I love Heidi, especially for her durability. It was under her and not Donaghy that the band became great. Not only that, but the eminently forgettable Berrabah seemed saved from critical comparisons to her predecessor, Mutya, when the terrific track "About You Now" followed her into the band. But Keisha's exit is one step too far.

The "Sugababes" now resemble the Corporationless, post-Attitude Era World Wrestling Federation in that they are a story without a villain, made toothless and commercialised to breaking point. The remaining three girls may have talent, but that's beside the point. Nobody wants to see John Hassall and Gary Powell as The Libertines reformed - the band would be a farce without the internal relationship of hero (Barât) against villain (Doherty), even if it was merely recycling old material. Perhaps moreso if it were, in fact.

The end of the Sugababes comes at a significant time in British girlband pop. Girls Aloud - contemporary to the Sugababes, but always the lesser entity in my eyes, having been privileged from inception with the silver spoon of reality television - have outgrown their one-time rivals and taken the decade's pop crown with aplomb. If this spoke only of the group, whose hits are impressive, if not Sugababes-spicy, there would be nothing more to mention.

Unfortunately, however, the victory of the manufactured band has implications that ripple out disturbingly. The music industry that produced Girls Aloud wants to recreate the formula and in doing so produce the Next Generation of British girl group. And this takes the form of the Saturdays, a Girls Aloud-sponsored group being forced down the British public's throats like bad medicine. Indeed, they seem to have been scraped off the high street and costumed in coloured candy-wrappers in order to differentiate one member's blandness from the next's. Far from successors to the Sugababes, the Saturdays instead seem to be cut in the generic model most often used to create 90s boybands. It is a dim future that awaits us in their hands. And what of the inheritors, those "Sugababes-in-name-only"?

As the Guardian reviewer noted, the Sugababes band, for all its cat-fighting, always possessed class - it's now time for Heidi, Amelle and Jade, as their heirs, to exercise some of that class and refuse to keep flogging the dead horse. Because, as of Buchanan's exit, the Sugababes are dead and we are now privy to their successors, the "Sugababes," dancing on the band's shallow grave. It is not the most pleasant sight (you have been warned):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zND0_29t-z4

Dargis Deals in Sexism

The attitude from the offset of Manohla Dargis' review (http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/movies/23amelia.html) of the 2009 biopic ''Amelia'' is ridiculous and offensive:

"The director Mira Nair, whose only qualification appears to be that she’s a woman who has made others films about and with women (“Mississippi Masala,” “Vanity Fair”)"

I am not claiming that Nair is yet a crafter of masterpieces, but this statement belies the $85 million and $30 million her films ''Mississippi Masala'' and ''Monsoon Wedding'' made worldwide, as well as the Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film for ''Salaam Bombay!'', the Golden Lion awarded to ''Monsoon Wedding'', the Golden Lion nominations for ''Mississppi Masala'' and ''Vanity Fair'' and many other accolades. This is no small feat for anyone, let alone a woman from an ethnic minority. Then to have a critic reduce her to her gender, and imply she has relied on positive discrimination, is insulting, and thoughtlessly sexist, in the extreme.

I think an apology should be issued for such careless and cheap journalism.

I expect better from the NY Times.