Reviewing Avatar is like opining on sunshine. At a certain point, sheer global approval makes a critique willful, redundant and even silly. Actually, Eyewear saw the 3D spectacle with his six eyes (doubled specs) and enjoyed the retro feel. The future is 3D we are told because it foils pirates. It also makes cinema feel like an event again. The Leicester Square audience applauded after the screening. Of the plot, it is the nothing new. A bit of Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, Braveheart and The New World, The Mission, along with Aliens and Matrix. Still, it is great to see Giovanni Ribisi put to good use finally after Boiler Room. The animation and effects are state of the art. One felt one was in the 70s poster art world. I found it a thrilling if predictable ride and was moved by the attempt to redress the evils of Western imperialism and anti-Gaiaism through this fantasy. If only film changed the past! James Cameron has begun to look more visionary than Spielberg. With the two top-grossing films in the world under his belt all he needs is a third act hat-trick to be truly monumental - Avatar 2? Ribisi will be back!
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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