Another season of Survivor has come to an end, and the castaway who won the title of soul survivor is…Natalie? This season, which took place in Samoa, has been one hell of a memorable season, namely due to a manipulative player named Russell. Despite his despicable tactics throughout the course of the game, he easily became the favorite this season because at the end of the day, everyone had to admit that this guy knew how to play the game. He lived up to the show’s tagline: outwit, outplay, outlast. But then, so did Natalie, and to a lesser extent, so did Mick.
There are often some undeserving people sitting in those final two or three seats, hoping that the castaways that they had a hand in voting out, will throw them a vote to win a million dollars. Ultimately, Erik, the first castaway to take a spot on the jury, was the one who put things in perspective at the final tribal council. He pointed out that Mick, while meant to be the leader of his tribe, never did anything to motivate or lead his tribe in 39 days, nor did he really earn a place in the game. Erik, who was a bit conniving in his own way, then pointed out that Russell’s dishonest and dirty game play was not something to be proud of, let alone something to be rewarded. Finally, he pointed out that Natalie may be viewed as weak, but the fact that she is sitting in the final three makes her just as threatening as Russell.
Is what one might call riding someone’s coat tails good game play? Hey, maybe it is. Natalie actually had a strong (more…)
It’s been 12 years since James Cameron’s last theatrical film, Titanic, swept the Oscars, so no matter what, his follow-up film was bound to have certain expectations to live up to. Rather than meet those expectations, Cameron blew them away with Avatar, the most expensive film ever made that is most definitely a memorable epic and a cinematic achievement. Sure, it’s a familiar plot, a twist on the hero’s journey, and the actual bare bones of it are quite similar to The Last Samurai. But despite a plot we’ve seen before, now set over a thousand years in the future on an alien world, Cameron manages to make everything about Avatar surprisingly real and believable.
In 2154, Earth has set up a military operation on the planet Pandora, hoping to use the planet for its resources and industrialize it. Their problem is the indigenous race called the Na’vi, who they have been unable to negotiate with or build any relationship with whatsoever. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a now paraplegic marine, arrives to replace his twin brother on a mission. Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) and the humans pioneered a way to harvest Na’vi bodies, avatars, compatible with a particular person’s DNA, so that person can get a full sensory link to their avatar and gain insight to the Na’vi. At first, Sully maintains loyalty to the gung-ho Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) who is hellbent on finding weaknesses to the Na’vi and exterminating them, but as Sully spends more and more time learning from the Na’vi, particularly Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), he grows more sympathetic to their way of life.
Yes, this is absolutely a sci-fi epic, a fantasy, but what makes it so much more than that are the finer details. Avatar is 40% (more…)