James Cameron has been a filmmaker since 1978, and to this day, if we skip “Piranhas 2″ and start in 1984 with “Terminator”, he has only made seven films, counting this one. All of them exceptional. Cameron isn’t into quick jobs. He tackles every project like it’s the most important thing he’ll ever do, and the passion he puts into his movies always shows and ensures that whatever he comes up with will easily make the best efforts of hacks like Michael Bay seem laughable by comparison.

“Avatar” is a fantastic film. It’s flawed — maybe more than any other movie Cameron directed. But it’s also his most ambitious and daring film, and what he and his crew have achieved here warms my heart. Nothing is half-assed about this production. Every inch of it was carefully constructed, and even if it fails to work for you — you’ve got to respect the effort. It’s passionate filmmaking.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a paraplegic ex-marine whose twin brother, a scientist named Tommy, has died. Tommy was part of a team of scientists on planet Pandora, where the invading humans and a native species called Na’vi are clashing for territorial control — thanks to the former being interested in an extremely valuable mineral the planet possesses. Jake takes his brother’s place as an avatar pilot — avatars are bioengineered versions of the Na’vi, controlled mentally by the scientists to roam around the planet (due to the atmosphere being toxic to humans) and improve relations with the native population.

However, the scientists’ efforts are gradually being replaced by a military approach led by Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who sees no future in diplomacy with the Na’vi — an opinion shared by corporate little shit Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi). Together, they convince Jake to report not only to the team of scientists, but to their team well, detailing the infrastructure of the Na’vi land for tactical purposes. But when Jake’s avatar manages to be welcomed by the natives, he falls in love with their culture and their world, and finds himself in a very difficult position.

Which pretty much means that in “Avatar”, Cameron makes the humans the villains, and has the task of making the audience root for the Na’vi instead of our own species. While normally this wouldn’t be a problem for my misanthropic self, Cameron made sure we would cooperate by creating a fictional alien world that is nothing short of magnificent: from the vegetation, to the biology of every creature, to the religion of the Na’vi, every detail of the world has been carefully thought and executed — to call the experience “fascinating” is an euphemism. Even some details that would usually go unnoticed anyway are explained by the film, like in the moment Quaritch mentions the planet’s low gravity — which is, after all, why the Na’vi are ten feet tall and why everything in the planet is huge in comparison to humans, who evolved in higher gravity. Speaking of that, I was happy, in the beginning of the film, to see the interior of an interstellar ship being in zero-g while travelling in space, since the concept of articificial gravity has always been an omnipresent sci-fi movie cliche.

I will avoid describing the details of this world any further — it would be a disservice to whoever hasn’t seen the film yet, and useless to who already has. Part of the beauty here is to be constantly surprised by the creativity of the filmmakers in detailing the planet they’ve created. Okay, just one more, mild thing: even the deity worshipped by the Na’vi receives a vague, but interesting scientific explanation — like a version of the Internet invented by Nature, would be my definition. And this is important so something that happens in the third act sounds plausible to skeptical viewers like myself.

Cameron is less successful with his characters — a few miss the mark, however most work very well. It’s always interested me, the way Cameron makes stereotypes and cliches work for him — some of the characters he’s created throughout his filmography aren’t deep, but strongly characterized: the hysterical Hudson from “Aliens”, the unstable Lt. Coffey from “The Abyss”, the asshole Simon from “True Lies”, the arrogant Caledon Hockley from “Titanic”. In “Avatar”, these stereotypes are used to portray the military and the corporations in a farcical way: while Parker is introduced playing mini-golf in the middle of an operations room, Colonel Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang in a competent, balanced performance, has a simplistic approach to his job, a southern accent and apparently enjoys practicing a few punches while piloting mecha armor (one of the film’s most inspired visual gags, and there are many moments of well-done comic relief throughout the movie).

And while the antagonistic Tsu’tey (Laz Alonso) is a walking cliche, laughing at the protagonist’s efforts to join the Na’vi, and Mo’at (CCH Pounder) is a stereotyped shamanic leader (in this case the stereotype fails), the protagonist himself, Jake, is not only very well interpreted by Sam Worthington but also interestingly developed by Cameron’s script — a good example being the scene when he is delighted to recover the use of his legs through his avatar. As the movie progresses, I started to share his awe and admiration toward the Na’vi culture and their land — which is a vital point, and one Cameron succeeds in brilliantly. And if Norm (Joel Moore) and Max (Dileep Rao) didn’t leave much of an impression on me, Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) and the pilot Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez) are both compelling in their distinct portrayals of “tough women” that are so typical in Cameron’s films — while Weaver is always excellent, especially working with him, Rodriguez also manages to leave a mark with significantly less screen time. Also I can’t resist noting: goddamn she’s beautiful (and to be fair, so is Weaver, who remains attractive at sixty years of age).

But the heart of the movie is truly Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana in a brilliant performance that rivals Andy Serkis as Gollum in “Lord Of The Rings”. Always moving with sharp precision yet irresistible grace, Saldana’s expressions are remarkable — from her intimidating scowl to her beautiful, sincere smile. She uses the amazing performance capture technology to its fullest — in fact, she makes that technology her bitch for the entire duration of the film, resulting in a character that feels completely alien and yet beautiful, admirable and fascinating. Completely aware of this, Cameron introduces her with an excellent close-up of her face as she examines the stranger in front of her.

It should come as no surprise that the visual effects in “Avatar” are the greatest achievement in the area I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing in Cinema so far. And it’s not just the magnificent rendering, the detailed performance capture and the amazing eyes of the Na’vi, always full of life unlike most digital creations in other films — the colorful cinematography and unbelievable art direction are vital to create a three-hour-long visual spectacle. Even the animation of the Na’vi’s ears is impressive.

Once again proving his commitment not only as an innovator but also as a filmmaker, Cameron never uses the technology for the sake of using it, instead applying it as a great storytelling tool — resulting in an unforgettable scene that has everything that’s good about “Avatar”: Jake’s first flight on an Ikran. As he and Neytiri fly around floating islands, beautiful landscapes and framed by the colossal planet that decorates Pandora’s sky — all this to James Horner’s excellent soundtrack — I realized I had a wide smile on my face, delighted by what I was seeing.

But “Avatar” is a flawed gem. Its many qualities are not enough to overshadow its problems — aside from some of the weak characters, the narration by Jake — thinly disguised as a videolog — comes off as unecessary most of the time. The movie also loses some of its emotional momentum on the third act, when Cameron allows for excessive dramatic slow motion, and falls victim to some cliches — like a character dying on another’s arms — when it would have been more impactful if he was found already dead.

However, I said it loses emotional momentum — when it comes to action, though, the third act is sublime, featuring a sky battle that is almost impeccably filmed, never leaving any doubt as to what’s happening in it, and competently scored by James Horner as well (except for a few moments when, in typical Horner fashion, the composer overdoes the drama a bit). And the fight between a Na’vi and a human in a mecha suit is not only exceptional, it also reminded me pleasantly of a similar moment in “Aliens” — except I was rooting for the alien this time. Full circle, eh?

Many complained about the film’s “obvious” message, but I don’t see that as a flaw. The message itself is perfectly valid in today’s world — just replace the movie’s fictional mineral with oil. Honestly, would the same message be better under layers and layers of subtlety? No, in this case I think it would only seem more convoluted — Cameron wanted this one to be obvious, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be. And at least within the film’s universe, the message works. I didn’t want the humans to succeed in their invasion of Pandora because at that point I had already fallen in love with the planet, and the tractors piloted by humans destroying all that amazing vegetation and threatening such an interesting culture were painful to witness.

“Avatar” is a fascinating, beautiful experience. Its main flaws are hard to overlook, but Cameron thinks big, and sets out to bring his vision to life as best as he can.

I went to an alien planet and in the end I was sad I had to leave. I could care fucking less about the flaws. “Avatar” is a resounding success.

OBS: In 3D, I believe the theatre I went to wasn’t properly equipped to handle the film, since the glasses darkened the visuals immensely (which is a problem with 3D in general, but in this case seemed excessive), ruining the cinematography. I could tell, however, that the 3D is properly used, never trying to call attention to itself gratuitously (pay attention to that one, Robert Zemeckis). But probably due to the problematic 3D theatre I went to, I found the experience much more beautiful in 2D.

A while back I tried reading “Twilight”. I thought it would only be fair, right? Before hating it? Here’s my experience, summarized on Twitter to everyone else’s horror.

You know what I’m doing before sleep? I’m reading the first chapters of “Twilight”. You know why? Not fair to hate what I don’t know.

Upon the first words of the fourth chapter, I literally covered my head with my hands and let out a painful “oh my fucking God”.

I think I can now stop the torture, yes? I’m qualified to talk shit about this now?

Due to popular request (exactly one person), here’s my summary of the first three chapters of “Twilight”.

I thought the fact the first chapter failed in any way to endear me to the self-pitying bitch of a protagonist was a little problematic.

Stephanie M — Isabella Swan is, to summarize, an inconsequential, self-centered, superficial and faux-humble neurotic.

Okay, so she’s flawed! I could accept that until she began fingering herself at the first sight of Edward Cullen.

Okay, so the book doesn’t say she fingers herself, but she comes — er, she GETS very close to it.

Her entire reason for falling in love with Edward is “he’s incredibly supernaturally pretty and it seems like he hates me. Oooh, mystery!”

Then we get to the point when Bella is almost hit by a car, and is saved by Edward, which instantly made me hate him.

(and no-one in the enormous crowd sees Edward sprint to Bella and stop the car with his bare hands except — Bella, accident victim.)

(she’s so convinced of it, in fact, that she gets angry at the guy who just saved her life for not telling her how he did it)

(I mean, it’s only courteous to wait a day or so before being angry at the guy who just saved your life, you bitch)

Bella continues to be a cunt to everyone who isn’t immediately useful to her, and wetting herself at the sight of Edward.

The fourth chapter starts with, “In my dream…” and I could feel my rectum instantly shut. TMI, but I’ve been asked my reaction.

It continued with, “… and what dim light there was seemed to be radiating from Edward’s skin.” My rectum swallowed my buttocks.

That’s when I stopped. But I think I can guess what happens next. “I could feel his icy cold hand freezing my cheek and turning me on.”

“Serenely, he smiled that perfect smile, every single one of his thirty-two teeth perfect, especially the canines, sharp like scalpels.”

“I’m turned on by sharp canines, freezing skin, passive agressive behaviour and color-changing eyes because I’m such a complex character.”

“Leaving aside the male-dominance metaphor, I took the initiative of pulling his pants down, exposing the freezing stalactite, his penis.”

“I was delighted to see the urethra had canines as well!”

(All you need to make me stop is say it, guys. Honestly.)

“I started to lick his freezing member, and then realized my tongue had gotten stuck to

“And then the sun came out, he started shining and I went blind too, but that’s just my duty as a submissive future housewife.”

“His eyes had gone white now — no, wait, his eyes were so rolled back in absolute pleasure they were looking into his own head.”

“Then I realized it was actually pain — my mouth had gone numb with the cold and I was biting his dick.”

“I woke up from the dream covered in sweat — no, wait, vaginal juices, actually.”

Two people so far asked me to stop, everyone. In fact, one begged. I face a serious dilemma.

“I staggered my way to school, because Stephanie Meyer’s understanding of ‘clumsy’ is based on Inspector Closeau.”

“Like every day, everyone loved me and wanted to have sex with me. I feel so left out.”

“One boy seems to like me very much, being constantly helpful, chivalrous and kind to me. What an uninteresting idiot.”

“And then I saw Edward, looking at me, once again, with that expression of deep hatred that turns my vagina into a geyser.”

“Why am I so interested in him? Maybe I’m an idiot.” (sadly the book treats this as false)

I presume this repeats for the remainder of the book. I don’t think I’ll ever find out, my heart is threatening to stop beating if I try.

Not that I needed any encouragement from my organs to stop reading this shit. Okay. So how many people died throughout this summary?

During a Skype conference, some friends suggested an idea for a Pitch Black strip, involving a great scene from PULP FICTION. So I made three. Enjoy.

(SPOILER WARNING DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU’RE NOT UP TO DATE WITH TV SERIES “DEXTER”)

The first season of “Dexter” remains unbeatable, which is no surprise. I doubt the writers can ever surpass its twisted storytelling, when Dexter found himself mourning his serial killer brother more than he ever mourned anyone in his life save his father. And while the (competent but heavily flawed) second season and the (excellent) third season experimented with different ideas, they always succeeded in one thing: developing the protagonist, always played phenomenally well by Michael C. Hall.

In this regard, the fourth season is no different — in fact, perhaps it’s better at character development than any other season, even the first. To Dexter, family life is much more problematic and nervous than serial killing, and the number of things he had in his mind at any given time during the episodes was impressive. And there was also the fascinating Trinity Killer played by John Lithgow with immense competence, in a performance that easily rivals with Jimmy Smits’ from the previous season (on a different character, but equally brilliant as an actor).

Until the finale, the season was being excellent and well-plotted, and it had all it needed to be memorable. And then the writers made a narrative choice that elevated it to a new emotional level, and save a major misstep on their part (to be discussed shortly), they couldn’t have made a better choice.

Not only the scene was set-up in a way that led to a dramatic crescendo (with Dexter realizing what the ring of Rita’s cellphone means), it was directed brilliantly by Steve Shill. The use of slow motion and few sound effects might feel like a melodramatic combination, but not if it’s correctly used — and it is, not only thanks to the excellent editing and Daniel Licht’s low-key but beautifully composed music, but especially thanks to Michael C. Hall.

Many talented actors would have gone for an emotional explosion. Not him. As human as Dexter became throughout four seasons, he is still a psychopath, and the really tragic thing is that, as terrible as Rita’s death is — to Dexter, it was a scenario he knew could happen. So when he finds her corpse, you can see it as it dawns on him — the look on his face is painful to watch, and most of all when he sees his son crying on a pool of blood. Not surprise — only guilt.

However, the writers seriously fuck up with their use of voiceovers, not only in many scenes throughout the episode (and the season), but especially in THIS SCENE. This scene needed SILENCE. Total silence save for Licht’s music. This is a moment when Dexter needed to be speechless. And while the voiceover doesn’t ruin it, it certainly prevents it from reaching its full potential.

In fact, the writers are relying too heavily on Dexter’s voiceovers — which are often darkly funny and delivered greatly by Hall, but they go way too far into Dexter’s emotions, clearing them up for the audience instead of letting us interpret for ourselves — mainly in this episode. Hall doesn’t NEED voiceovers — he should be trusted to do his job without aid. “Dexter” is a smart but arrogant series, patronising the audience more and more, and it’s vital it stops doing that.

I think this is indeed Dexter’s best season since the unbeatable first. The fascinating characters, good dialogue and brilliant actors (Hall stands out from them because he’s just too good) ensure it’s always at the very least entertaining, even when the writers misstep (the eleventh episode of the third season saw Dexter being kidnapped… by Masuka). It remained surprisingly consistent and engaging, and the ending managed to withstand the voiceover fuck up.

“Look, a black princess!” says Disney, proud of itself for being so stunningly ahead of its time, like we’re all supposed to let our jaws drop and applaud pretending it isn’t a marketing strategy, but a genuine attempt to show the world that it doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white — which paradoxically defeats the purpose of this film, since if it doesn’t matter, why the fuck should I care whether the princess is black, white, albino or vomit-green? I thought the whole idea of this “no racism” thing is, you know, not taking skin color into account?

And okay, Disney, if you really must act like a little kid seeking mom’s approval, at least do it by giving your film the same thing your older classics used to have: a heart. “The Princess And The Frog” is one of the blandest animations ever made by the studio, so irritatingly happy, artificial and unimaginative that the mostly well-done 2D animation stops mattering. This from someone who grew up on Disney movies.

The story is set in Jazz-era New Orleans and it’s about Tiana, a black waitress with no flaws whatsoever who is a darling to everyone and comes from a equally perfect family, therefore establishing herself as a painfully dull character. Dreaming to have her own restaurant, she finds herself in a desperate situation and, suffering from a lack of mental faculties like everyone else in this film, she keeps asking a star to help her out. Eventually, a talking frog shows up and asks her to kiss him so he’ll go back to being the prince he was a few minutes ago before being cursed. But when she kisses the frog, she becomes a frog herself and they’ll meet several characters in their journey to blah blah blah insert artificial love story and monologues about the importance of dreaming here yawn fuck off.

Of course that, for the entire film, you don’t see the slightest bit of racism. Proving that their “look, a black princess!” bravado was just as shallow as this film, the most Disney risks is portraying class differences, but never showing a single black character being noticed as such, despite this happening in a time when racism was much more blatant. In fact, in an overcompensatory fashion, there are no good WHITE characters in this film. Tiana’s white millionaire friend (yes, Tiana has a millionaire white girl as her best friend, I’m completely serious) is the closest we get to one, and she’s a vain idiot. And the black villain, Facilier, divides his evil deeds with the prince’s aide, an evil white fat guy who looks quite a lot like poor Timothy Spall.

And of course, Facilier is the ONLY black villain in the entire movie (and the only character, save the hunters, who is even slightly interesting, ironically). Every other black character in the film is nothing short of an angel (the arrogant prince is from another country and his skin color is kind of mid-term, so I’m not counting him) proving that while the filmmakers wants us to believe they understand racial differences, they completely fail to understand people.

And that’s the film’s main flaw: it tries to make a big deal out of its supposedly important “breakthrough”, but making a film about skin color in such an era and failing to address how it truly was like is far more offensive, mainly to the portion of the audience who likes using their brain every now and again. Black people, white people, people who use piercings, religious people, gay people, they’re all PEOPLE and as such, you’re going to meet many who suck regardless of sexuality, fashion preferences, beliefs and skin pigmentation in any time period you care to name.

Of course people eat this shit up. They want to take Disney’s hand toward a future where there is no racism, but Disney’s notion of morality is way back into the past. I’ve had people, including friends, make racist comments to me in this day and age. Making a big deal out of a black princess won’t achieve a thing — you’re still setting black people apart from a different direction, and announcing this loudly and proudly helps absolutely no-one but the filmmakers themselves.

Having a black princess go through the same motions of every other Disney film will only mean marketing and money for the studio. The least I expected was for Disney to have some balls, instead I was treated to a pretentious film that tries its hardest to end on the happiest note it possibly can — even a character’s death is compensated by retarded symbolism.

To make things worse, “The Princess And The Frog” is painfully badly-written, with bland dialogue and uninspired characters. It takes only a few hours for the frog prince and the frog princess to go from hating each other to wanting to marry each other, and the new friends they make in their journey, an idiotic jazz-playing crocodile and an idiotic firefly, are written in such a jolly way they kept reminding me of the adorable Happy Tree Friends, with the exception neither of them dies in hilariously gruesome ways (which is the reason the Happy Tree Friends are so adorable: they die horribly).

Only the three hunters who show up halfway through the film are truly interesting and funny, being hillbillies depicted in a relentlessly stereotypical fashion — and their participation lasts no longer than five entertaining minutes, after which we’re back to the frog prince falling in love with the frog princess and the supporting characters trying to be adorable and only managing to be retarded.

And here’s the film’s idea of a good one-liner to be said in a moment of triumph over the villain: “It’s not slime, it’s mucus!”

The musical numbers fare slightly better, failing to be memorable to the ear but the eye is treated to some inventive animations (especially during Facilier’s turn). However, some notes on the first song reminded me strongly of “You’ve Got A Friend In Me” from “Toy Story”, and the composer of both films is Randy Newman, so I think it’s a fair guess that the guy was simply out of inspiration and not willing to try any harder. As for the cast, I saw the version with Brazilian voiceovers, so I can’t form an opinion on the original actors.

As for the visuals, I caught some bad animations here and there (depictions of characters walking, mainly), but overall it lives up to Disney’s standard of fluidity and energy, and there’s some good visual jokes (like a couple dancing very exageratedly, and it’s a shame the camera barely gives them two seconds of screen time).

So yes, the studio most definitely should go back to 2D animation — it was stupid they ever gave it up to begin with. But next time the usually ingenious John Lasseter should remember to attach a good story to it, and try and make that the film’s highlight rather than the amount of melanin in the protagonist’s skin.

As I try to finish the second draft of my novel “Ares” while consistently keeping up with the astronomical (hahaha, clever adjective for a sci-fi novel, eh? EH?) amount of research AND creating promo material AND thinking of ways to distribute it AND writing the usual amount of flash fiction and short stories AND doing the usual amount of illustrations AND not killing myself…

… this is my half-assed attempt at reviewing comics and other things I’ve been reading. This will be written in no particular order, no particular structure and perhaps no particular coherence either, but that’s the best I can currently manage. If you’re interested in a specific comic review but can’t tell whether or not it’s included in some obscure paragraph of this text, CTRL+F is your friend.

Right. Since this is a fairly loose format, might as well start with a novel. I’ve been reading Noah Gordon’s “The Physician”, borrowed from my father, who doesn’t share my prudent habit of reading English-written books in English because he doesn’t speak the language fluently and because he clearly isn’t capable of getting his head around the utter incompetence of Brazilian translators. I am capable of this because of years reading American and English comics translated to Portuguese, and the things translators do to the complex, curse-heavy dialogue by writers like Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis is nothing short of magnificent in its stupidity. I have to admit there is some entertainment value to be had, watching translators struggle to try and get the dialogue right in a completely different language, and still fail horribly.

“The Physician”, however, has set a new low, since the title of the book in Brazil is “O Físico”. This means “The Physicist”.

The first gross mistranslation is in the TITLE of the book.

Which, of course, makes it hard for me to talk about Noah Gordon’s narrative — I am sure many subtleties were lost in translation, but I did find his prose very basic in its use of similes and descriptions. His style is fairly bureaucratic (and again, this might be the translation’s problem, mostly), and he has the annoying tendency of using exclamation marks in the narration every now and then. But the story itself is very interesting, about a young and gifted barber surgeon in the Middle Ages who wants to travel to Persia to learn everything he can about medicine. There’s many interesting characters, and Gordon is particularly competent in his portrayal of the flawed protagonist as he grows up and learns — the narrative starts with him as a child and proceeds from there, so far, with no leaps in chronology.

And as far as I can tell, with my vague knowledge of the Middle Ages, it’s an incredibly well-researched novel, incredibly detailed — I particularly liked the way Gordon describes recipes (one character is a skilled cook) and the protagonist’s learning experience with several skills.

It’s an interesting and enjoyable book, so far.

As for comics, the last two issues of “Unknown Soldier” (13 and 14) were a disappointment, because of their choice of artist that made me miss Alberto Ponticelli. Pat Masioni seems to have been picked for this book solely for being from the Congo. I hear he has a respectable curriculum as an artist, but none of this changes my opinion that, regardless of whether he’s from the Congo or from Mars, his art is absolutely atrocious, failing to achieve even basic storytelling and severely hurting Joshua Dysart’s writing, which didn’t feel nearly as inspired as usual, either. Masioni always draws the Unknown Soldier with the same slightly stunned facial expression that has nothing to do with the character, and the man has no subtlety at all. Strangely, they got the competent Jose Villarrubia (from Desolation Jones) to color it, but there’s not much he can do with art this ridiculously weak. Only Clem Robins continues to impress with his typically excellent and intense lettering, which, in this arc, has seen many uses of the competent type he created to portray the Ugandan language. However, a very forgettable arc, for the first time in the series — but a book this consistent is unlikely not to get back on its feet almost instantaneously,

“Punisher Noir 03″ is a bad joke and I lost my patience with it. Painfully bad writing wasting a potentially good idea and decent artists. But “Punisher Max 01″ turned out to be enjoyable, if derivative. There’s the typical “bad guys meeting to plan protagonist’s demise” scene, the equally typical “loud-mouthed idiot who gets sodomized by the newly-introduced villain”, the even more typical torture scene — and the use of a MAX version of the Kingpin because, apparently, creating new and original characters is hard work. Which seems to be Frank Tieri’s mantra on “Punisher Noir”, by the way. Jason Aaron’s dialogue is entertaining enough, though, I like the scene with the eyes and there’s Steve Dillon’s wonderful art to save the day (Kingpin’s expression on the last page was a bit overdone, though), colored unsurprisingly well by the great Matt Hollingsworth and with the familiar and efficient lettering by Cory Petit. This could turn into a good series.

“Supergod” is off to a much better start than “No Hero”, and just about as promising as “Black Summer” was. They’re all part of the same unnofficial superhero trilogy. “Black Summer” ended poorly — good series, mind you, but uninspired conclusion. “No Hero” started okay, sagged here and there, seemed to be going somewhere great and gave in to a ridiculously over-the-top ending and a plot that requires several characters being idiots for it to make sense. And since one of these characters is meant to be a genius, this caused coherency problems that, along with a lack of character voice in the dialogue (one of Ellis’ recurring problems as a writer, in my opinion) and the aforementioned over-the-top ending (involving a spine), resulted in a series I do not hesitate to call weak. But “Supergod” seems to be more comedy-oriented, in a dark way, and told in a monologue with flashbacks (which suits Ellis’ dialogue style perfectly). Issues 1 and 2 are fun, inventive and enjoyable, with competent artwork by Garrie Gastonny, a welcome replacement for the talented but flawed Juan Jose Ryp (who did the artwork for “No Hero” and “Black Summer”).

I take my hat off to Christos Gage’s and Roberto Viacava’s “Absolution”. I didn’t expect this mini to be this interesting and this good. Gage explores the depths of morality with intelligence and sensitivity and Viacava’s artwork is astonishingly competent (I especially like how he heavily tilts a splash page’s angle for dramatic effect, in a great portrayal of the protagonist’s psyche). So far as the latest issue, 4, a very good and very pretty piece of work.

And I’m running out of time and finger-energy, so let me conclude quickly (hey, loose form, remember?): “Ignition City #5″ was a lame conclusion to an initially promising book, “Astonishing X-Men 032″ is fun but that’s about it and “The Walking Dead 067″ has an interesting plot twist and some good moments, being overall a competent issue.

The game GTA 4 for PC has an amazing video editor that easily surpasses any other in games, even “The Movies”, a game developed with this in mind which failed horribly, lacking basic video editing options like slow motion, filters, etc. I’ve been using the GTA 4 video editor constantly, and decided to film a long shoot-out in a heist mission. First, some screenshots:

The video is best seen on its original page due to the aspect ratio, so here you go. Enjoy.

(Due to the especially problematic nature of this film’s third act, this review has minor spoilers in order to discuss it)

We’ve grown tolerant of science fiction over the years, letting it rape science in the name of awesomeness. Hilarious depictions of human exposure to vacuum, sound propagating in space, people walking around thanks to a rarely-explained “artificial gravity”, aliens who are just human beings with a different skin color and a few prosthetics, and so on.

But Science is awesome. There is no reason it should be ignored. When science fiction manages to respect actual science, the results are immensely satisfying. Stanley Kubrick did it in 1969 with his amazing “2001 – A Space Odissey”, a movie that, to make up for the lack of sound in space, used the nervous breathing of the astronauts inside their spacesuits, a brilliant move to create tension — not to mention how it depicted human exposure to vacuum with impressive accuracy, and it’s a forty year old film.

And then films like “Sunshine” come along, under a pretense of being “scientifically accurate”, and consistently laugh in the face of scientific fact in the name of entertainment, but treating the audience like dumbfucks.

I liked “Sunshine” when I first saw it a year ago. In fact, I loved it. But upon seeing it again, something fairly rare happened — a complete change of opinion. Opposite to my embarassingly well-documented (here, here and here, respectively) experience with “There Will Be Blood”, which I initially didn’t like, but eventually loved.

In this latest viewing of “Sunshine”, I couldn’t help noticing the carelessness in its construction and the constant exposition in the dialogue, not to mention set pieces built entirely around scientific innacuracies. There is a threshold to how much abuse I’ll let my mind take until I start disliking a film, especially when said film likes to think it’s clever. It wants to awe us with its “understanding” of science, as evidenced by the moment a character says “80% of dust is human skin,” for no reason, as if his brain is wired to wikipedia.

The sun is dying. After the failure of spaceship Icarus I for unknown reasons, Icarus II is sent with the same purpose — re-igniting the star with the use of a payload consisting of a powerful bomb . But nearing Mercury, they come across the distress signal of Icarus I, and physicist Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy) suggests a detour to add their payload to their own, increasing their chances of success since the bomb’s capacity of re-igniting the sun is entirely theoretical — which makes two bombs a safer bet. This starts a dangerous chain of events that puts the mission and its crew in serious risk.

And one of the film’s main problems is that this chain of events isn’t believable. It starts with one of the crew members, Trey, adjusting the ship’s trajectory but forgetting to adjust the huge heat shield that protects them from the sun — you’d think that would be hard to forget, but he does. Maybe it would have sounded more credible if it wasn’t for Trey’s interpreter, Benedict Wong, overacting to the point of embarassment upon acknowledging his mistake.

Then some crewmembers realize moving the shield to fix it will make them lose two comm towers due to direct exposure to the sun — they go ahead without consulting their captain, destroying a vital part of their ship without hesitation — someone even says “We’ll need the towers for the return trip,” to which someone hilariously replies in a stunning display of foresight and professionalism, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Finally, when two crew members are outside fixing the damage to the heat shield, right after they confirm they can do it and everyone cheers happily — the oxygen room just catches fire as though it’s saying, “SURPRISE, BITCHES”. And when narrative conflicts just happen like that, it’s a worrying sign of a schematic script.

Sunshine also suffers from a less than impressive art direction. While the Icarus at first seems very believable (being made out of segments like the International Space Station), the heat shield soon reveals itself so unstable that it makes the entire ship a major design fault — after all, the mission includes abandoning this heat shield, using it to protect the payload as it goes toward the sun — so how do they plan to survive the return trip with the much smaller, second heat shield, if the larger one could barely be moved without destroying the comm towers?

And why do the comm towers spin around the ship, protruding so far from it it’s no wonder the heat shield can’t protect them? Artificial gravity via centrifugal force? It doesn’t work that way, but well, at least they try to explain artificial gravity in this film, even though gravity itself is dubiously represented in it — the payload, which has the “same mass as Manhattan”, seems to generate Earth gravity (as seen later in the film) — yet somehow, this doesn’t seem to interfere with the artificial gravity inside the Icarus (both are clearly not the same, since if they were the Icarus crew would have to move around the ship vertically with ladders due to their perpendicular position in relation to the payload). But this latter point is admiteddly more of a nitpick, dubious science that shouldn’t hurt the film.

What does hurt the film, aside from the aforementioned dumb chain of events (which reaches unbelievably stupid heights in the film’s third act, as I will discuss in a moment), is the painful sequence when the astronauts have to make a jump from a destroyed airlock to an intact airlock and only one of them has a proper spacesuit.

Their major concern? Freezing instantly when exposed to “-273 degrees celsius”.

So, we have a bunch of astronauts who think the temperature of space is absolute zero and that people exposed to vacuum instantly freeze despite being in a fucking vacuum. And worse, one of them does freeze instantly — we even hear the sound of his skin hardening. In space. Not to mention there is no reason why the Icarus couldn’t have gotten a little bit closer to the destroyed airlock to, you know, make it harder for their colleagues to accidentally float away to their death. It’s a sequence so ridiculously full of inconsistencies it’s barely worthy of a “B” movie.

Relax. I babbled enough about this. The flaws of “Sunshine” are not down to a science advisor who apparently couldn’t get the filmmakers to listen. As a narrative, the film is equally flawed, not just due to its aforementioned schematic script but also because of the expositional dialogue: upon hearing a loud, continuous sound all over the ship, a character explains to the others that it’s just the sound of the metal in the heat shield expanding and contracting due to the change in temperature.

… at the point when he says that, they’ve been travelling together for sixteen months, yet they act like it’s the first time this happens. Even worse, Corazon (Michelle Yeoh) replies “I know what it is, flyboy”, making the exposition even more blatant.

Alex Garland, writer of the script, does try to hide the patronising nature of these lines, but he simply can’t — in order to explain how the bomb works to the audience, he has two characters discuss death in a vaguely-related fashion and one of them starts a simulation of the bomb, explaining it to his friend while actually explaining it to the audience, and finishing it with a line that tries to justify why he just did that, but fails to convince — it’s painfully obvious the film is trying to get its viewers to understand what it’s doing.

Why, instead of that, couldn’t the character have simply gotten into the room and started the simulation to admire it by himself? It could have been a nice, silent scene that got whatever information it needed to get through subtly and quietly, trusting the audience instead of patronising us.

And that’s another problem — it never feels like these astronauts have been actually travelling together for sixteen months. They rarely talk to each other with intimacy, and when they go out on a spacewalk, they act like it’s the first time they do that in sixteen months (speaking of which, let me add the spacesuits in the film look absolutely ridiculous).

Standing out in a problematic cast, the talented Cillian Murphy is convincing as Robert Capa, and his growing fear in the third act of the film helps the absurdity of it all feel less stupid. The other cast member who does a surprising job is Chris Evans, intense as the cold and practical Mace. Hyroyuki Sanada plays Captain Kaneda with charisma, but Rose Byrne doesn’t get any room to shine as the unidimensional Cassie, neither does Michelle Yeoh as Corazon, who suffers from having to say some of the film’s worst lines (the “-273 celsius” bullshit and “I know what it is, flyboy”). Troy Garity is also sabotaged by a very unremarkable character, Harvey, and Cliff Curtis plays an equally uninteresting crewmember, Searle. Finally, Benedict Wong, as I said, overacts constantly and Mark Strong embarasses himself by playing the film’s most implausible and ridiculous character.

Finally, there’s director Danny Boyle. After starting the film with a beautifully realized shot, Boyle succumbs to over-direction. Insisting on countless exterior angles exposing the Icarus, he also goes for obvious symbolism. When Searle is trying to explain two sides of an argument, the camera moves to the other side of a glass screen, illustrating that he’s now talking about the other side of the argument as if we’re all a bunch of retards who can’t understand the basics of conversation.

And as the film progresses, Boyle exaggerates more and more and suddenly decides he wants to do an Alien film. Working with a horrendous editing work that makes Tony Scott look like a genius, the film adds a villain that would have seemed much more interesting if it wasn’t for his putrid dialogue, the pathetically exaggerated way he’s filmed (always out of focus, with the image shaking) and his amazing stealth abilities that make no fucking sense. And at the very end, Boyle goes as far as adding freeze frames and horribly overdone camera movements to try and create some tension.

However, it’s still Danny Boyle, which means “Sunshine” does have some highlights (aside from Alwin H. Kuchler’s exceptional cinematography and John Murphy’s memorable soundtrack): namely, the beautiful scene when the crew of the Icarus II is hypnotized by the sight of Mercury orbiting around the sun, and the moment Robert Capa needs to jump from the Icarus to the payload — a masterfully-shot moment with excellent music that offers a glimpse of the great film “Sunshine” could have been if Garland had revised his script and respected Science, and if Danny Boyle had done the same plus restrained himself.

However, with this much pseudo-science, pretensiousness, inconsistencies, plotholes and badly-developed characters, “Sunshine” is weak science fiction. An interesting premise that needed way more pre-production work before being filmed.