By Aaron 3/23/2008

Why does a movie with a whopping 9% rating on RottenTomatoes deserve the time of SaltyStix, who can’t even seen to pull it together to write ANYTHING in March? If they were going to write up one movie WHY 10,000 Before Cinema? All my bones about RottenTomatoes aside (well, in a nutshell they run against my main philosophy in life that every movie – except Evan Almighty – has some redeeming factor that prevents it from being less than 30%), I wanted to see a movie and that was really as good as it was gonna get when you live in the middle of nowhere in red country. So, without further ado.

“It’s a horrible movie” – Richard Roeper
Context please. The movie follows D’Leh (Steven Strait) a hunter from a tribe desolated by slave raiders as he sets out, with his arch rival, the old man who raised him yet doubts his bravery, and a young kid who worships him, to save his tribe and the woman he loves (Camille Belle). The movie is not Citizen Kane. No, things actually happen in this movie. Think Apocalypto meets, well, Independence Day, but spoken in English, not ancient Mayan. And from the guy who said Definitely, Maybe was better than Love Actually and who probably thought Emmerich’s earlier Day After was far superior (I’m making a completely baseless claim on this part, but he did say that about Love Actually).

“Even a cameo by Pauly Shore in Encino Man would liven up this bombastic bore” – USA Today
This quote leads to where I was going when I was done railing on Siskel-lite (Roeper). This quote in particular begs the question of whether the writer ran away with themselves. Sure you referenced an obscure early 90’s movie no one has seen that DOES deal with cavemen, but do you find Pauly Shore funny? And you trust that person’s opinion of 10,000? The point is: accept the movie for what it is. This movie is what you drop six bucks for when you want to see some action with minimal thinking. There’s cool shit. They hunt mammoths, deal with saber-tooth tigers, run from killer ostriches, and fight some cavalry archers. There’s barely enough time to catch your breath the movie moves so fast and it doesn’t commit the mistake of so many shoddy action movies: pausing for a breather and trying to be something it’s not.

“The less said about historical accuracy, the better” – New York Daily News
Oops, I mentioned the mammoths and tigers and the New York Daily News (does anyone even read that? Heard of it before?) has to bring up HISTORY. I will spot them that it is extremely unlikely humans used mammoths to haul heavy objects – especially in the desert. Anyone who saw the preview knows that is ridiculous. But quite frankly do you care if Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part One is more historically accurate than 10,000? Do you want to see a movie about what life was like TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO? We’re talking before ANY of the metal ages – bronze, iron – ZIP. That means no real weapons and certainly no domesticated animals (ie exciting horse combat/chase scenes). I am also obligated to mention there ARE fringe historians who write on how it a civilization pre-dating what we know as Egyptian society existed circa 8-9,000 B.C. that some argue started building pyramids. That is beside the point. Accept that you are going to see an action movie. From the director who breathed in American history and exhaled The Patriot, who swallowed a gulp of science and burped Universal Soldier. Did anyone give him trouble about the existence of aliens and Area 51 when Independence Day made a bajillion bucks? Now that I think about it Steven Strait makes a very similar speech to Bill Pullman’s inspirational speech at the end. Or is it Bill Paxton? I can never remember.
 
“The best acting comes from woolly mammoths, man-eating ostriches and a saber-toothed tiger -- and those babies are digital. It’s the human actors who look fake” – Rolling Stone
Strait up unfair. Steven Strait doesn’t have a lot under his belt, and Camille Belle isn’t even wearing one, or much of anything. But they do a passable job. Camille Belle probably does better than those random-women-with-perfect-bodies who want to be actresses, for her first flick. And I thought Strait was solid in his performance cosiderin he had to work with a shoddy script and sometimes corny concept. He also had to do it in a pretty ridiculous get-up. So maybe Peter Travers should cut the guy some slack. I mean what if I just ranted about how Rolling Stone has great cover art but the content seems fake. I mean, would that be fair?

“Barney Rubble had a lot more charisma than anyone involved in this movie” – Detroit News
I will say the Detroit News is much more eloquent than Travers – and they squeeze in some appeals to our childhood past. But basically Camille Belle screentime means the audience is wide-awake and pretty “charismatic” just waiting for her to…well. I mean sure Strait doesn’t have the power Butler had in 300, but his character – and the movie – are different. Strait’s character isn’t much more than a kid and he comes from a place and a time where he doesn’t know what’s going to happen and he doesn’t know what to do so he does his best (kind of like Emmerich) but the point is, he wasn’t supposed to be this driving force (well, I guess the story does portray him as such) but he’s just a boy.

“In the realm of heroic historical loincloth adventures, 10,000 is much less than 300” – Minneapolis Star Tribune
Yeah, I guess my example above opened the door for this. But what I was saying above still holds – that they are drastically different movies and have drastically different intent. I loved 300 – I would say it’s closer to art than Hollywood – that’s something I knew going in. I didn’t expect this movie to top 300 – although I’ll go out on a limb and say the movie’s story trajectory did a lot more and accomplished a lot more than the foregone conclusion of 300. As an afterthought I will admit 10,000 would have been a lot better with Lena Heady, but then so would every movie.

In the end I think the movie is worth about $5 and if that means you see it in theatres, go for it. If it means you wait until it comes out on Blockbuster, that’s fine but the movie is entertaining. Breathe in, let it all go. History is for school, realism is for Oscar, and Camille Belle is all for you. 5/10 SaltyStix.

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.