Photos
Look, I enjoyed Avatar, but I know that it was a ham-fisted sci-fi adventure movie about Pocahantas aliens with magic sex ponytails directed by a mildly misogynistic ego-maniac with Fraggle Rock hair and an ego made from pure unobtanium. But tell that to the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT. From Reuters (via /Film):
“Titanic” director and deep sea explorer James Cameron took part in a brainstorming session with scientists, academics and Washington officials on Tuesday on how to contain the six week-old oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, environmental sources said.
U.S. agency officials said Tuesday’s meeting was “part of the federal government’s ongoing efforts to hear from stakeholders, scientists and experts from academia, government and the private sector as we continue to respond to the BP oil spill.”
Fuck. Fuck it.The government is inviting James Cameron to workshop his ideas on how to stop the Gulf Coast oil spill? You know what that means, right? We’re fucked. Boys, if you could play us out that would be great. I mean, I know that James Cameron has the world’s most extensive collection of Titanic figurines, and that one time he wore a fanny-pack to Brazil so that he could hug the jungle back together, but I am pretty sure that if the nation’s leading Actual Ocean Scientists and Trained For Real Oil Spill Disaster Relief Experts are running so thin on ideas that we are inviting “the dude who made Abyss” into the chambers of power to try and, you know, mix it up, I for one am saying goodbye to my loved ones and climbing onto the roof of my building with a life-preserver around my neck and a gun with one bullet in the chamber tucked into the waistband of my HAZMAT suit. Goodnight, nurse!
 |
 |
Spongebob Squarepants creator Stephen Hillenburg has been asked to lead a think tank on ways that the oil might be comically absorbed.
This was only after Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof’s plan of sending Jack Shepherd to, “put the magic cork back in the hole” failed miserably.
stealing your movie premise is one thing… but to steal our monarch’s hat… that’s a step too far!
Uh, do you have every hat the queen wears memorized? Or do you just know her hat style well enough that upon seeing Cameron in that fluffly beauty you thought to yourself, “hmmm, that resembles an 09 style hat for her?”
Because I assume that she wears a lot of hats (literally, not metaphorically; metaphorically, I assume she really only wears one hat).
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
Caps for Sale!
What’s that from? Do we know or was this the result of awesome google searching? It looks familiar…
It’s from my youth! (/dramatic)
And its from a illustrated childrens book about a mustachio’ed man with multiple hats for sale on his head only to have each stolen by mischievious monkeys during a nap. I thought this was a suggestion for stopping the oil spill (which I actually took a minute to figure out…)
Psst! Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business
by Esphyr Slobodkina
[Amazon link]
Such a beautifully illustrated book! Give it to your favourite baby monster.
P.S. This really should be a reply to Patrick M’s comment below but the Reply button is nowhere to be found.
And yet it WAS a reply to Patrick M huh wha?
They’re not asking Kathryn Bigelow for help, which maybe refutes Sigourney Weaver’s tits hypothesis
Makes good sense, actually. We’re fighting one disaster with another. Fire with fire.
Wtf?I bet Kathryn Bigelow could come up with a better plan than James Fucking Cameron on about 10% of the budget.
Democrats, always be cheatin’ the taxpayers. Amirite, teabaggers?!
The problem is that half of Bigelow’s strategy would be suing anyone who cleaned oil from the gulf without paying for it for stealing from British Petroleum.
Har, topical movie news joke.
Nope. I’m back to being a luddite, in my basement, making bombs for BP (okay, that’s a hella program title, forget Food for Bombs (or whatever), I’m starting Bombs for BP). I really don’t want to be in a world where the solution to a hell-fucking-hole of human greed, desire, and disaster is probably going to be: “Lose the camera filming the gaping hole that is a literal metaphor for the destructive nature of our culture’s desire and replace it with a brand-new 3D camera, put special effects all over the oil and make it pretty, meaningless, bright lights that distract us from anything resembling the real.”
Maybe if the old lady throws the diamond into the ocean JUST RIGHT, it’ll fall into the hole and plug it up! Because of how big the diamond is!
The final exclamation point is what sold me on an upvote. You’re just so enthusiastic about explaining!
I hope he gets some sweet underwater footage for Avatar 2!! I mean, the Gulf looks like a fairly alien scene at this point…
Okay, I loved Avatar too. And Titanic. I even thought Avatar should have won the Oscar [unless The Messenger was nominated. Was it nominated? That was a really good movie.] And I know there was a lot of groaning around these parts about this movie and James Cameron. But you know what? Dude is actually really smart. Did you know he made new cameras to film Avatar? And that no other movie has ever been filmed the way Avatar was? I’m assuming that he didn’t make these cameras all by himself in his garage with parts from the ole’ scrap yard, but the fact that he produced and designed them and was able sew together live-action sequences with CGI in order to make the characters appear as lifelike as possible is pretty fucking impressive, in my humble opinion.
Yes, it’s weird that he is being invited to help clean up the oil spill. But he obviously has a lot of technical skill. My thinking is that the government wouldn’t have invited him if they didn’t think he could do something about it. Why else would they do it? Publicity?
#JamesCamerongum
I read the government invited him as the government invented him, and now I am convinced that James Cameron is a android or something
There is an eerie resemblance:
I can’t… I’m sorry.. I… I just can’t.
I think he also invented new underwater cameras for his documentaries “Aliens of the Deep” and “Ghosts of the Abyss.” I think he actually has a significant presence in undersea research, and in particular research that occurs on the floor of the ocean.
That’s actually a better reason than mine.
He does. He developed a lot of the technology for underwater remote vehicles and underwater filming.
It doesn’t mean he can write a line of dialogue to save his life, but he does know a thing or two about little submarines.
Well he sure knows how to hire people that can do develop that technology
He actually has a degree in physics, and he actually did develop these technologies, albeit with other people.
Look at me, Professor JamesCameron! [I don't really care that much about him and I don't know why I won't shut up about him. Must be the humidity.]
Hey dude, thanks for posting this; your pragmatism is admirable.
I guess we are fucked. If they actually listen to his ideas, it’ll take ten years and a comically large budget to create an unoriginal, ham-fisted solution to the oil spill.
At least it will be pretty, though.
This is the correct joke. You win the Internets!
“What the fuck, BP? This solution to the oil spill is exactly how we ended World War II- but in 3D!”
now they’re saying that they might not be able to stop the geyser until december, by which point basically the entire gulf is going to be oil. also, hurricane season this year is supposed to be worse than 2005, which of course was the year that brought us rita and katrina. so basically we are going to have flammable hurricanes. which is like something out of a fucking megadeath album. huzzah!
Since you are the only person I even e-know that lives in Louisiana, I have been concerned for your well-being. “Shit, the oil spill is still going? What will happen to southernbitch? She’s so angry about the crap state of her city already SHE WILL EXPLODE IF OIL GETS EVERYWHERE.” Sorry, I’mcreepygum.
hahaha! right now the oil spill isn’t affecting new orleans so much (besides the fact that when they burn it you can smell it and it is horrrrrrible), it’s the smaller communities along the gulf proper that are getting fucked. this is straight up going to destroy the economy of southeast louisiana, and then it’s going to destroy what’s left of the marsh, and then it’s going to destroy new orleans. so we have a few more months of drinking in the streets before we have to pay too much attention.
Yikes! Stay healthy, Lousiana/New Orleans/Southernbitch.
PS I like you but you are so righteously angry so much. So basically I want to give you a hug but I don’t want you to bite me.
…..*cautiously opens arms*
God. I was reading about that the other day. As a fellow southern monster, I’m really looking forward to a flaming hurricane flinging oil all over me and my loved ones.
i know. thinking about this freaks me out because last time the city flooded, that shit caught on fire anyway. and the water was super toxic already. so this is like, super foreboding for me- even more foreboding than simply thinking about summer in new orleans and the water around us already is. me and my friends sit on our porch and make jokes about what this could mean and talk about how no matter what we’ll ride out any storm (whether or not that’s a true statement, cuz we said that about gustav but we left) because what else are we supposed to do?
Wow. It seems he really is the Head Motherfucker in Charge.
(after, you know, Kevin Costner)
“Dude, whatever. I’ll buy the world a new ocean. Maybe even two. I can afford it. Remember Avatar? Yeah, that was me. Titanic? Me again.”
“Oil be back.”
“Foillow me if you want to live.”
I guess now, at the ripe ol’ age of 27, is a good a time as any to quit my job and start going through my bucket list.
Team KevCo!
All the Jack haters must be feeling pretty silly right about now.
I hated Avatar but I feel like the world will pelt me with stones so I don’t tell people that. The visuals blah blah blah were amazing but the movie was cliched and the acting was atrocious. “I see you” Barf.
Are you new here? You are POWERFULLY on-message. That movie was so intensely panned (particularly here, but elsewhere) that I never bothered to see it.
You are home!
When I saw the movie I couldn’t wait till Monday to see Gabe’s review because I just knew he would have hated it along with the rest of us monsters that saw it. I was so disappointed when I read that he enjoyed it.
Enjoy is such a strong word! One he may have actually used. I am not going to go to the post in question to check. I do recall that he seemed to echo a lot of your feelings. Meh! Meh.
But the important thing is, unless James Cameron is going to stuff his head, his fanny pack, his mountain of cash and/or his ego in the oil-hole, we are in a lot of fucking trouble!
Don’t get me started…Don’t even get me started.
Well, fudge mcducks, my pic didn’t work!
Who do you think is going to fix the problem? Poor people? Cameron wasn’t invited because of his “ideas”.
Maybe it’ll be like that AIDS episode of South Park and Cameron will just literally throw so much cash at it that it clogs the thing.
This reminds me of when Sean Penn flew down to Katrina and took some crappy boat out into the lower ninth ward to save people. After saving no one, Penn needed to be rescued by the Coast Guard after his boat began sinking. I know this is completely different, but it just reminded me of that and I laughed.
I am right in assuming James Cameron is a multi-millionaire right? That he has literally more money than most people in the world? Then why is he ALWAYS wearing a crappy thrift shop button up tucked into his dad jeans with a fannypack?
Because a fanny pack WILL get you laid, every time. I only keep condoms in mine.
I misread “stakeholders” as “skateboarders,” and given the context it took a moment to realize my mistake.
I’m hoping that the brainstorming session was packed with actors for hire portraying scientists so Cameron would stop yelling at the White House through the gate at 2AM.
Hey Gabe, I’m scared too. But you’ve got to know that James Cameron, such a tycoon, is an expert when it comes to underwater Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs). He spent a lot of time working with submarines to explore the Titanic and other areas of the deep sea, developing electronics that can be functional at analyzing and correcting the gushing leak.
So let’s let the billionaire who has an extensive history with underwater exploration in toxic situations have a try at fixing this. It’s one thing to make fun of an ego-centric Hollywood director (who is making bank for developing cinematographic magic), but please don’t make fun of scientists without doing a little digging first. I’m tired of this shit.
And, honestly? Why not turn to James Cameron, since Obama seems to be tied up pushing his gay agenda on Uganda.
This makes me proud that I’ve only managed to see one James Cameron movie in my lifetime.
Personally, I don’t have a very high opinion of Cameron, but I’ll give him this much: he made documentaries on both the Titanic (no, not the movie with Kate Winslet) and the Bismarck. Both projects required deep water filming and exploration equipment; for comparison, the Titanic is about twice as far down as the Deepwater Horizon spill. I’m willing to bet that Cameron didn’t put on scuba gear and strap on a camera; he had to consult with deepwater experts and that includes scientists.
So, to the White House, Cameron isn’t valuable for WHAT he knows, but for WHO he knows. Furthermore, filming underwater requires manipulating delicate mechanisms from a long way away. I’m also willing to bet that Cameron learned more about working underwater from his filming than BP has from their drilling.
If you’re smart, and you’re in a desperate position, you don’t overlook help from even the most unlikely of sources. And if you turn down that help, YOU’RE the one who’s fucked.