Tag Archives: James Cameron

Avatar: The Way of Water review — Spectacular and stupid

December 22, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by James Cameron | Written by Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno | 192 min | ▲▲△△△ Rewatching the original Avatar last week I was reminded of Jim Cameron's incredible ambition, impressive technical wizardry, and cluelessness when it comes to reading the room, culturally speaking. The dude understands allegory and… Read More

Avatar (2009) review — Some good, a lot bad in box office giant

December 15, 2022 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by James Cameron | 162 min | ▲▲△△△ | Disney + Having not seen Avatar since the week it opened in cinemas in 2009, I figured it was important to revisit the world-conquering cultural phenomenon before I bought a ticket for the much delayed sequel opening today. In my memory the largely… Read More

Terminator: Dark Fate review — Robotic resurrection is a mechanical waste

November 1, 2019 flawintheiris

Directed by Tim Miller | Written by James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee, Josh Friedman, David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, and Billy Ray, based on characters by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd | 128 min | Netflix Here's the accepted wisdom on this long-running killer robot movie series: The first two films by James Cameron… Read More

Terminator series review — The first two are essential, but the others…

October 28, 2019 flawintheiris

...are a mixed bag. Here's a look back at the five Terminator movies before T6, or Terminator: Dark Fate, expected in the coming week. The Terminator (1984) There's something wonderfully '80s about The Terminator (directed by James Cameron, written by Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd), a peculiar alloy of films from earlier times updated for the… Read More

Alita: Battle Angel review — High production value can’t save wet script

February 17, 2019 flawintheiris

Directed by Robert Rodriguez | Written by Rodriguez, James Cameron, and Laeta Kalogridis, based on the graphic novel by Yukito Kishiro | 122 min | Crave Plus I know it's only the middle of February, but I'm trying to remember if there's been one solid feature film from Hollywood in the past six weeks. One… Read More

Now on Canadian Netflix: Spring 2018

May 10, 2018 flawintheiris

Mute (2018) A sci-fi thriller half a mess and half an interesting exercise in style. That it comes from Duncan Jones, the filmmaker responsible for Moon, Source Code, and, yes, Warcraft, hopes were high this would be a strong genre entry, but Mute never hits above its pulpy elements. We're in future Berlin, which looks… Read More

Alien: Covenant review — Mostly very familiar territory. Mostly.

May 21, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Ridley Scott | Written by John Logan, Dante Harper, Jack Paglen, and Michael Green | 122 min | Disney + The Alien series, which bloodily thrust its way into existence in 1979 with Ridley Scott's original, is very much its own genre—described narrowly as somewhere between a haunted house in space and a slasher movie… Read More

Terminator Genisys review — Fan fiction goes back in time

July 4, 2015 flawintheiris

Directed by Alan Taylor, written by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, with characters by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd I'm a fan of time travel pictures, post-apocalyptic visions, and stories of how our tech will destroy us, so James Cameron's The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day scratch multiple itches with me. Then things… Read More

Alien series review

January 20, 2014 flawintheiris

Alien (1979) Directed by Ridley Scott | Written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett | 117 min | Crave Plus Alien has been around so long it's kind of hard to imagine the world without those cute lil' exomorphs that kinda look like stainless steel dildos with teeth. When I was a kid I remember… Read More

Gravity review

October 3, 2013 flawintheiris

Directed by Alfonso CuarónWritten by Cuarón and Jonás CuarónThe first thing I thought of after seeing Gravity: "I wonder what Chris Hadfield would make of this movie?"Now, I've gone on record saying I'm not being the biggest fan of computer generated imagery. In fantasy and action movies too often it reads as substandard animation, taking away… Read More