James Cameron 101

August 2009, Blyth, Ontario
Oh, 2009. So much hope and anticipation....well, for Avatar, at least.
A friend named Steve and I were talking over upcoming movies and just how pumped we were for them. The Lovely Bones (we hoped for a great movie. its not what happened, but we hoped), and Avatar, along with other 2009 2010 hits and misses.
Me: "Actually, I dont think I have seen a Cameron film aside from Titanic"
Steve: "...are you serious?"
Me: I think so
Steve: Terminator?
Me: No
Steve: Aliens?
Me: nope
Steve: Ok, thats not good. You need James Cameron 101. Its going to happen, you and me and every movie the guy has made.

One year later. You know. After life gets in the way. Steve had another kid, plus work all over the place. I had work, school, life bullshit. It never happened. Never did Steve's plan for me to learn to speak french, either. Reference: " more failures, now with 100% fail!" for more information.
So, last night we go out to the old farm house Steve is staying in for the week while he is in town doing lighting for the Blyth Festival (Shameless plug) 2010 season now in full swing, come check it out! (http://www.blythfestival.com/).
With the help of a very cool standing movie screen, a kick ass projector and his macbook, he was able to convert an upstairs unused room into a makeshift theatre.
First on the List: Alien
Ridley Scotts Alien is one of those movies I really should have gotten off my ass to see before now. Steve's intro to it included how, if nothing else, the movie was a work of art. This movie is C-G less. No computers. Just real sets, costumes and models. And most of it in the dark. So to have that kind of lived in,intricate and detailed world come to life on screen is a very cool thing to see. Then you have the fantastic camera work going on, with a great score and some genuinly frightning alien action and suspense. Plus some very tense scenes with Mrs Weaver, selling her characters fear without a hint to old school horror movie cheese. So yeah. Alot to get into.
Then was Aliens, which was Camerons sequel.
What is interesting about this movie is the way Cameron made the franchise his own. Steve said it well when he said the first film is very much a haunted house sort of thriller, while Aleiens is a vietnam style war action movie. 57 years have passed since the first movie, with an entire colony having settled on the planet the alien and its nest were found on in the first film. What follows is a whole lot more of the same aliens from the first movie, and Ripley(Sigourney Weaver) and her crew of commando's blowing the place to hell.
Steve called it a night, but left me with Terminator 2. At this point it was 12 30, but I was determined to see this movie through to the end. The cheesey models Cameron had in the first Terminator had been replaced with then state of the art C G and real stunts. An entire transport truck runs off an overpass in this one. And you just know it was done for real. Its interesting how the sequel really is more famous than its original, being quoted far more often. However, I do think people over do Arnold's accent when they do his lines. Come with me if you want to live? Not that foreign sounding, you guys.
So, at 3 in the morning I called it a night as the credits rolled for T2, and I was thinking about what Steve said about how James Camerons films become dated quite fast. He sets a bar, and alot of work following his are going along with the same new technologies and ideas. So I wonder, 10 years from now, what kind of kick ass film is going to make Avatar look like the original King Kong, or Clash of the Titans? Or you know. The Muppets.
We will see. And who knows. Maybe Mr Cameron will be the one making his movie look all old and wrinkley.