Avatar (2009)

Sam Worthington is my new favorite actor. He looks great in 3-D, too.

Okay now a few words about the movie. The story is quite good, keeps you riveted despite the length (2:42), in a way similar to Titanic but with significantly less love story and more Al Gore story, but in a good way. Versus Titanic, Avatar has even more incredible eye candy.

As everyone says, the 3-D starts a bit gimmicky but soon becomes more subtle and very pleasing. The world is beautiful. I couldn't suppress any of my gasps and murmured 'wow's in several scenes. Avatar is one of the few movies that I would go to see again in the theater. I don't know how or whether the 3D can be done well on DVD, but I kept the glasses just in case.

I did notice that at points the 3-D imaging with some particular camera lenses resulted in strange sizing effects with things looking out of proportion. Some people in the center of the frame looking much bigger than those at the edges. Hopefully this can be fixed in future 3-D films.

Outing Riley (2004)

After the film, I thought Pete Jones, the actor playing the protagonist (as well as writer and director) must be gay, but it turns out he has a wife and kids. I suppose he must have some great gay friends because the film turned out well. I'd read some criticism on imdb of the film that it wasn't gay enough. But actually I thought it was pretty well spot on and rang pretty well true.

Star Trek (2009)

Finally saw it beginning to end on dvd. I'd previously only seen the second half on a plane. How excellent!

The dvd has some enlightening extras including a part in the "making of" about lens flares when in fact during the movie, I noticed that these were nice realistic lighting effects that I had never seen before. It also talks about the camera shaking, mirrors and miniatures. J.J. Abrams is brilliant.

But what was the deal with the 20th century crashbar on the door and the concrete block design of the Delta-Vega outpost manned by Scottie (Simon Pegg)? One might think they would have changed from two century old Earth-based design elements by then?

I also just noticed that Vulcans are the elves of space. They have the same pointy ears as the LOTR elves, are 'wise' in a certain way, live up to 250 years, and are always in danger of extinction. They even have special powers like mind meld and nerve pinch. Perhaps this is why Vulcans weren't given night vision and the males don't have long hair. It would be too much of an obvious thematic copy.