Tom Petty & The Heartbreaker. Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band.
Some artists' identities are so intertwined with the bands they front that to remove them from the group changes their whole musical make-up. It's as if, without the band, they take on a different persona.
Such is the case for Booker T. Jones. You know him better as the keyboard prodigy and leader of pioneering Memphis Soul band Booker T. & The M.G.'s.
(And I bet you didn't even know his last name was Jones until I just told ya.)
Normally I would feel cheated if Booker T. came to town without the M.G.'s, the ensemble that was once the house band for the iconic Stax Records in the '60s and gave the world one of the most well-known instrumental riffs of all time with the bluesy hit, "Green Onions."
To hear him play selections from last year's Grammy-winning album "Potato Hole" however, I will make muzzle my protest.
For Potato Hole, Booker T. temporarily traded in the M.G.'s to record with the groovy, cowpunks the Drive-By Truckers. Neil Young also dropped by the studio to offer some guitar accompaniment.
The result are a mix of scintillating originals and reworks of diverse works like Outkast's "Hey Ya" and Tom Waits "Get Behind the Mule" that prove artistry is not dead and albums can still be gorgeous and alluring without a vocalist to coach the listener along.
Of course, none of these all-stars will be at Wired Live with Booker T., but my guess is that he has a few other tricks up his talented sleeves that should make this live solo experience a night to remember.
For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.
The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).
Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.
Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.
The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.
Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.
A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.
There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.
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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.
