Avatar, The Godfather, and masculinity in American cinema

Avatar is a live action film that was written and directed by James Cameron and released in 2009. The film features a new and more advanced level of special effects and which creates a truly immersive cinematic experience marked with revolutionary technology that is capable of both story-telling and astounding the visitor with its intensive and sweeping production quality. The film tells the story of Jake Sully, a marine who has been injured in the field, and who is confined to a wheelchair. The marines are invading a planet known as Pandora which has rocks on it which are almost priceless on earth, fetching prices of around $20 billion per kilogram on Earth. The marines uses a technology of creating "avatars" to infiltrate the Na'vi -- the indigenous people of Pandora. An avatar is made for Jake, allowing him to walk again as he fulfills his mission to infiltrate the Na'vi so that they will help him and the other marines mine the ore, or at least stay out of their way while they try to mine it. Jake meets Neytiri and falls in love with her, causing him to better understand the Na'vi. The movie climaxes with a final test between the Na'vi and the marines as the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

The film did not impress me the way it impressed other friends of mine. Basically, I found that while the technology was mildly impressive, the story was predictable. I don't feel that James Cameron deserves all the esteem he's been lauded with for this film, since it was more a triumph of computers than cinema. This film indicates that the future of film-making will probably rely heavily on advanced technology since this was such a blockbuster. It has showed me that films are made in response to what sells and that more American films will probably gravitate to this formula since it's been profitable.

The Godfather

The Godfather directed by Francis Ford Coppola and written my Mario Puzo and released in 1972 tells the story of the Corleone family. The film opens on the wedding day of Connie Corleone, the sole daughter of Don Vito Corleone, to Carlo Rizzi. The movie is a gripping portrayal of the crime, violence, infidelity and the tangled web of this criminal family.

My experience watching this film was that it was very long. I felt that the editing was very indulgent and that at least an hour could have been chopped off the film. I felt that had the film been better edited, it would have been much tighter and more meaningful. There were too many parts of the film which struck me as slow. However, I did enjoy the portrayal of the Corleone family. I felt that many of their actions were very realistic in their treatment of crime and violence: they reacted to it without a lot of drama or fanfare. Violence was often treated as just another aspect of their business.