A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Avatar (2009) Written and directed by James Cameron Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Zoe Saldana Although writer-director James Cameron didn't exactly vanish into thin air after his 1997 boffo hit  Titanic  earned a roomful of Oscars and a small bank's worth of box office "take," it seemed that the guy had gone off into a Howard Hughes-like state of reclusion, at least artistically speaking. Of course, Cameron did  not  retire to some Pacific Ocean island to sip mai-tais and bask on a sun-soaked beach; he has been quite active making documentaries, producing TV series ( Dark Angel ) and prepping quite a few movie projects, including two sequels to Avatar. His 2009 science-fiction movie,  Avatar, was Cameron's first feature film in 12 years.  Like Titanic , it was very expensive to make ($230 million), partly because Cameron had to develop new computer graphic techniques, and partly because of the ambitious scope of the

(c) 1979 20th Century Fox Alien (1979) Directed by Ridley Scott Written by Dan O’Bannon, based on an original story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shussett Starring; Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, John Hurt In space no one can hear you scream. Released in the summer of 1979, director Ridley Scott’s  Alien  is the most effective blend of science fiction and horror since Howard Hawks’  The Thing from Another World  (1951). Set almost entirely aboard a commercial space tug owned by “the Company.”  Alien  borrows effectively from Hawks’ chiller about a Cold War era military-science team’s fight against a parasitic alien and Steven Spielberg’s  Jaws.  Its leisurely pace, laser-like focus on characterization, and Scott’s unerring instinct for creating rising tension help earn  Alien  its status as one of the greatest films ever made. As envisioned by Ronald Shussett and screenwriter Dan O’Bannon,