The Invisible Counterpoint

In the interest of scientific exploration, I offer a few random dialogue samples from the 3-D cavediveapalooza survival adventure Sanctum: “Life’s not a dress rehearsal — you gotta seize the day!” “The exit! Shit!” “Where’s my mask? Goddammit!” “I am not wearing the wetsuit of a dead person!” “You spend your lives wrapped in cotton wool! You want to play at being adventurous? Yeah, this is it!” And last but not least, the ever-popular “We’ve got to get out of here — now!” Sanctum wasn’t directed by James Cameron — he’s merely an executive producer — but the script is pure Cameron gibberooni, the kind of language that would embarrass a ’40s comic-strip character if he found it penciled into one of his voice balloons. (Stephanie Zacharek, “ Sanctum Wasn’t Directed by James Cameron, But It’s Dumb Enough to Seem So,” Movieline, 3 Feb. 2011) For what it's worth, I really like this bit of dialogue from "Avatar": GRACE: 
Alright, look -- I don't have the answ...

Like its star, Salt is a spare and lean piece of work; it’s everything a modern action movie should be, a picture made with confidence but not arrogance, one that believes so wholeheartedly in its outlandish plot twists that they come to make perfect alt-universe sense. The story — the script is by Kurt Wimmer — draws numerous outrageous loops, but Noyce neither dwells on them ponderously nor speeds through them in a misguided attempt to energize his audience. And he makes fine use of his star, an actress whose lanky gait is as delicious to watch as her spring-loaded leaps are. Noyce frames the movie around Jolie’s finely tuned sense of movement, and yet it’s her expressiveness that anchors the story emotionally: In an old-fashioned, old-Hollywood way, Noyce and his cinematographer, Robert Elswit, are wholly alive to her face and all its possibilities. [. . .] Noyce has made his share of action thrillers (he’s the director behind the Tom Clancy adaptations Patriot Games and Clear...

However, there may be no director whose themes are more schizophrenic than James Cameron, who constantly flips between worshiping grand technology and stigmatizing the kind of personality who employs it. In Avatar, as in Lucas’s Ewok battle, the high-tech invading troops are laid low by organic fighters who have no need for electricity at all. In Titanic, just the idea of the incredibly expensive boat is held up as the height of hubris, despite the fact that Cameron himself was making the most expensive film ever at the time, and he’s not exactly the first person you’d expect to scoff at hubris. The Terminator films vividly portray the apocalyptic future that results when technology is left unchecked, but Cameron is a constant innovator in those fields, consistently surfing a high-tech cutting edge and even inventing new technology himself in pre-production for his movies. (Tellingly, his undersea documentary Aliens of the Deep purported to show how natural ocean dwellers could be mo...

"[T]he lumbering, gentle Oher", "in a cautious and economical performance", "is the only one who automatically sits down at the table to eat, presumably out of simple good manners, but also out of some idea of what Thanksgiving should be, drawn less from his own experience than from Norman Rockwell's 'Freedom From Want.'" ( Zacharek, "Oscars 2010: In defense of Sandra Bullock" ) + "'Crazy Heart' is exceptionally modest in both its ambitions and its scope." "[P]laying their characters' cautious affection [. . .]" "Gyllenhaal is an understated, guileless actress -- she always lets the role come to her instead of going after it with gusto. Her speaking manner is casual, and as an actress she's often soft-spoken in a way that hints at deep personal shyness." "a strange and slightly awkward sentence that doesn't even have the shelter and the protection of a song around it." ( Zac...

Seriously. Ask anyone who's seen it, ask someone who's just walking out of the theater — ask them what happened in the movie or if they remember any particular lines or scenes or dramatic or memorable moments. (Amity, response to post, “James Cameron: Artist, termite, or elephant man?” Salon, 20 January 2010) It would be inaccurate (to how they experienced the film) and distracting for people to think of the particular, when they are still collecting themselves after being offered, not just an affecting experience, but almost a new philosophical/psychological/spiritual DIRECTION, a right-seeming/feeling way of being that has captured the kind of rescue they want for the way ahead. They're not quite sure why they like it, but they know there's something important in it -- some essence -- that has made them very happy, and are right now drawn more to cover, flame, and relish its overall fire than risk losing its source by stepping back to examine. They'll happily off...

Still from Avatar (Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation) (Note: This is a reply to Stephanie’s Z’s review of the film, which I just missed being able to comment on.) Saw this movie; thought Cameron felt this movie way more than you're arguing he did. Special effects so awesome, a world so beautiful, so eternal and seductive, a story so satisfying and true: neither we, nor he, are ever supposed to decide to leave. The next step for him, that is, is not the next movie, but for this movie to be made to seem our world. I don't think he was a distant individual paying homage to some "other,"or ever for a moment thinking bachelor, but someone who is making clear that this story is his soul, as he humbles down , in a way, to embrace the communal lush. People on this thread are talking cosmopolitanism and philistinism. Cameron has always been an interesting case. If philistinism is lapsing into group think, losing yourself to emotive child stories, in a way ...