The Last Airbender......

I don't think there was anyone more excited about The Last Airbender than the group of people at the midnight showing of the movie premiere at midnight this morning. People were dressed up as characters from the tv show, some had arrows drawn on their bodies. I made sure to wear my Appa shirt to show off my own personal fandom. Unfortunately, it was not worth the effort.
I don't want to give out any spoilers for anyone that wants to see it but know that I thought that it was not a good movie..... at all. However, beyond getting the names wrong, Aang was called Ang, AND changing huge chunks of the stories original plot, the movie was just poorly made. I don't blame M. Shamalan though. It just seems like the movie ran out of money. However, rather than using lower quality special effects, the rest of the movie suffered for the few special effects that there were.
The editing of the movie was bizarrely paced. Some sections seemed to drag while other, more important sections, flashed by.
The dialogue was atrocious. For some bizarre reason it seemed as if someone thought it would be a good idea to leave out EVERY pronoun in the movie. This caused some incredibly redundant sentences. This was especially true when referring to the Avatar. I have no idea why.
The bending was also done in a way that seemed to be saving money. Rather than having each martial arts move cause some sort of bending, the martial artists would do these incredible complex moves and then a small little fire blast or air blast would appear. It seems unintentional and another sign that this movie had a very low budget.
Overall, as a fan I cannot seem to fathom why things were made the way they were and why Nickelodeon studios decided to make the movie the way they did. What I do know is that this was a film that ran out of money far before it ended and this combined with poor writing ruined this movie for me. I would say that anyone who was a fan of the show should probably pass and anyone who has never seen it, catch it when it comes to Nickelodeon later this year.

Effects: 8
Story: 6
Dialogue: 2
Overall: 5

Kontroll and Taxedermia

Me and Val have been in search of good Hungarian films to watch lately. We came across two movies that we thought would be interesting.


The first was Kontroll.















I absolutely loved this movie. It's about the control officers in the Budapest metro. It's very funny and stays light even when things get intense. It is a dark comedy so if you like that kind of thing check it out. It is also very beautiful, cinematicaly, and also heavy on the symbolism. Great movie!



The second was a movie called Taxedermia.












Although the picture doesn't seem it, this movie was INCREDIBLY disturbing. From vomiting to masturbation, the movie never ceased to push the limits of what can be shown in a movie. It is, after all, not rated. However, this movie is very beautiful. Colors are used very intentionally and it doesn't seem that anything is unnecessary for any one scene. Like Kontroll the movie is heavy on symbolism, showing representations of all the different eras of Hungary from World War 2 to modern times. Brilliant and provocative, I say see this movie once.... maybe. If you don't have a strong constitution, pass it up. Although it was amazing, the sheer darkness and vulgar nature of the film really stop you from enjoying the movie too often but for all you film people out there, check it out.


Also, if anyone knows of some light hearted Hungarian films, let me know!

AVATAR!!!!.... The Last Airbender

Ok so many people have heard of Avatar, obviously. It's now the highest grossing film of all time, making well over 2 billion dollars. The previous record holder was James Cameron's last hit, Titanic, which made quite a bit of money as well. Anyways, this isn't what I'm talking about. The Avatar I'm talking about is the hit Nickelodeon TV show about a child "airbender" who must save the world. That's a little bit of a simplistic description but the story is incredibly complex and way too hard to describe. The TV show itself was incredibly popular and for the series finale the show had 5.6 million viewers, which is quite a bit for a cable tv show. Anyways, to get back on track, this show is going to be made into a huge movie with special effects done by Industrial Lights and Magic. These are the people that did just about every huge movie's special effects..... ever. If you look them up you'll see what I mean. Well, seeing as I'm a HUGE Avatar: The Last Airbender fan, this is pretty big news. Here's a link to the previews if you want to check it out.

http://www.thelastairbendermovie.com/