Lawrence Wright speaks at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2013.
Courtesy photo
One of Austin’s most acclaimed literary voices has a new gig: executive producer of a new Hulu drama series. The Looming Tower, a 10-episode adaptation of Austin-based author and New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright’s 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction work, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, debuts on small screens everywhere February 28.
The series follows the events leading up to September 11, focusing on members of counterterrorism task forces Squad I-49 in New York City and Alec Station in Washington, D.C. Jeff Daniels leads as FBI agent John O’Neill, who, along with agent Ali Soufon (Tahar Rahim), is investigating what they believe is an impending U.S. attack. They run into opposition from their CIA counterpoints, Martin Schmidt (Peter Sarsgaard) and Diane Marsh (Wrenn Schmidt), who are holding information that Al-Qaeda agents have entered American soil.
Wright is no stranger to adaptations. His one-man play, My Trip to Al-Qaeda, was made into an HBO documentary by Alex Gibney in 2010. Wright also has a producing credit for the Emmy Award-winning 2015 HBO documentary based on his 2013 smash-hit book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.
The LBJ Presidential Library will host Wright for a special first episode sneak peek and conversation on February 27 at the LBJ Auditorium at 2313 Red River St. Joining the chat will be the real-life Ali Soufon and actor Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man, Call Me By Your Name, The Shape of Water), who appears as White House Counterterrorism official Richard Clarke in the series.
Although not open to the public, those interested can become a member of the Friends of the LBJ Library online to gain access to the event.
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 3D viewing method 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.
