I see you

by Leona Lewis

Walking through a dream
I see you
My light in darkness breathing hope of new life
Now I live through you and you through me
Enchanting
I pray in my heart that this dream never ends

I see me through your eyes
Living through life flying high
Your life shines the way into paradise
So I offer my life as a sacrifice
I live through your love

You teach me how to see
All that’s beautiful
My senses touch your word I never pictured
Now I give my hope to you
I surrender
I pray in my heart that this world never ends

I see me through your eyes
Living through life flying high
Your love shines the way into paradise
So I offer my life
I offer my love, for you

When my heart was never open
(and my spirit never free)
To the world that you have shown me
But my eyes could not division
All the colours of love and of life ever more
Evermore

(I see me through your eyes)
I see me through your eyes
(Living through life flying high)
Flying high
Your love shines the way into paradise
So I offer my life as a sacrifice
And live through your love
And live through your life
I see you
I see you

It's one of the biggest movie hits of the decade and has revolutionized the use of technology in film. But James Cameron's 'Avatar' may also be a profound interpretation of one of humanity's oldest scriptures. That's according to writer and director Sudipto Chattopadhyay, who writes in the Passion for Cinema film blog that Cameron's choice of title was deeply thought out from the Hindu perspective.

"The ancient Hindu scriptures have forever reiterated that whenever the world would be on the brink of disaster and mankind faces extinction, whenever the vessel of sin is about to spill over to create death and destruction, the divine Lord Vishnu would considerate his duty to manifest himself in mortal, palpable form to save mankind from the impeding doomsday....In the larger perspective the Avatar is meant to be the savior, the messiah of his own race and people," says Chattopadhyay.

"Despite the fear of being lynched by Hindu Fundamentalists," Chattopadhyay continues, "I propose that Cameron is alluding to that tenth avatar of Vishnu becoming manifest as the US marine (the character played by Sam Paddington) in Pandora's universe. The deliberate choice of the blue skin instantly, magically and metaphorically relates our protagonist to two previous avatar’s namely Rama and Krishna."

Despite the film coming under criticism for a weak story line Chattopadhyay instead lauds Cameron's "Avatar" as "a truly post-structuralist, post-modern work of epic proportions both in terms of story telling and redefining how the human eye can perceive a constructed image in motion."

"After this, cinema will be divided into two eras — Before Avatar/After Avatar."

Just days after the Jan. 4 premiere of Hollywood blockbuster Avatar in China, the box offices across the country had gone beyond 100 million yuan (around $14.7 million), thanks to the enthusiasm of huge number of Chinese movie fans.

As the year's first foreign movie in China, the sci-fi film has grabbed the imagination of tens of millions of Chinese. China Film Group Corp. Estimates are that the total box office take may ultimately top 500 million yuan. So far, the Hollywood disaster film 2012 has fetched the most at the box office in China's history at 460 million yuan.

Though almost every movie theater in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai gives Avatar top billing, with as many as 20 show times a day, Chinese viewers still find it tough to get a ticket. In Beijing, the Wanda Movie Theater in Shijingshan, the first IMAX theater in Asia, is the theater of choice for Avatar moviegoers. The theater's general manager told Chinese state-run broadcaster CRI Online that the theater shows the 3D IMAX version of Avatar five times a day, and that tickets are generally sold out a day in advance.

In Shanghai, to get an IMAX ticket for Avatar can mean waiting in freezing weather all night for a show three days later. Shanghai local media reported that on Friday, around 500 people were queuing for tickets at 8 a.m. in front of the downtown Peace Cinema, including some who had waited for 12 hours. Movie fans came equipped with quilts, wooden stools and snacks, in a scene reminiscent of that at train-station ticket windows before the Lunar New Year holidays in China, when huge numbers of Chinese travel to be with family.

For the 3D version of Avatar, ticket prices varied for different theaters and time slots, ranging from 60 yuan to 120 yuan. Meanwhile, illegal tickets traders asked as much as 600 yuan for the IMAX version in Shanghai. The Peace Cinema is planning to raise the ticket price for the IMAX version to as much as 200 yuan from the current 150 yuan from Jan. 14 for some time slots.

A report by the People's Daily (in Chinese ) attributes the difficulty in getting tickets partly to the scarcity of 3D screens in China. The report said, 'According to insiders, the number of 3D screens in Chinese movie theatres has sharply risen from the original 330 to around 700 now; however, there are only 11 IMAX commercial theaters in nine cities across China.' Several upcoming 3D productions, including 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and the seventh Harry Potter movie, are expected to bring daunting challenges to movie theatres when they land in China.

With a lack of IMAX theaters, people are traveling long distances to see the movie. In southern China, the IMAX-equipped Dongguan Wanda theater has seen a huge influx of people from Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Wednesday afternoon, due to a technical breakdown of the system, the movie was suspended for an hour, and the sound didn't synch with the picture. In the end, the general manager of the theater had to beg forgiveness on his knees twice to sooth the angry audience who drove a long way to see the movie; the theater had to refund each audience member the full ticket price as well as 200 yuan for traffic expenses.

The stunning visual effects of the film that runs 2hours and 42 minutes are seen as too good to miss even a moment of. Tips from a foreign Web site about what are the best points in the movie for a quick bathroom run have lately made the rounds on China's social network Web sites, and have been translated into a text message that people send to their friends via cell phone. According to the tips , four time slots are suggested, one, approximately 56 minutes into the movie, when Trudy says 'You should see your faces,' the second, approximately 117 minutes into the movie, when Jake laments, 'Everything is backwards now. Out there is the true world and this is the dream', and the third, approximately 133 minutes into the movie, when the colonel says to Jake, 'I might want to give you a big wet kiss', and finally, approximately 142 minutes into the movie, when Dr. Grace says 'This is going to ruin my whole day,' followed by non-stop action scenes.

That raises the question: After waiting patiently in line, will viewers then spend the entire movie checking their watches?

"Avatar" revamped movie watching experience

In less than twenty days, Hollywood 3D blockbuster "Avatar" has grossed around one-billion US dollars in global theatres. Many audience members have acknowledged that by employing a new generation of special effects, the film has set a benchmark in filmmaking history.

In seventeen days of screenings, "Avatar" has hauled in around 350-million US at North American box offices, with a daily gross of around 20-million. So far, its global box office earnings ranks the film fourth after "Titanic," "Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King," and the third installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean."

The general consensus is that the film is more impressive on a technical level than as a piece of storytelling. But "Avatar" reaffirms James Cameron's singular gift for imaginative, absorbing filmmaking.

In a 2009 profile in The New Yorker, Cameron claimed that the digital elements of "Avatar" are believable enough that the audience will be unable to tell reality from computer animation.

The film's such an engrossing experience that many Hollywood directors have use the term "pre- and post -Avatar" to mark film history.

If movie franchises were race horses, we could shoot a broken-legged beast like Rush Hour. Rush Hour 3 is out, and it disappoints on almost all levels, hobbling about on a lazy script and uninspired filmmaking. Some critics say that the film is unnecessary, but this is not completely fair. If nothing else, Rush Hour 3 explains why owners often kill damaged race horses rather than retire them: inferior breeds beget inferior offspring and studs put out to pasture often mate. Well, Rush Hour has produced a litter, and the latest colt isn't going to win the Kentucky Derby.

In Rush Hour 3, partners Lee (Chan) and Carter (Tucker) are back together. They travel from the United States to Paris, from the chamber of the World Criminal Court to the top of the Eiffel Tower, in pursuit of a mysterious assassin and the even more mysterious leader of the Triads, the world's largest criminal organization.

Jokes comprise most of the film… and they are all bad. 9 out of 10 jokes hinge on the ethnicity of the lead characters. Lee is Chinese, Carter is black, and they both expect this to be inherently funny, as if simply bringing up these facts will cause us to laugh. It doesn't. Goofy slapstick and ridiculous out-of-date banter make up the other 10%. In one scene, Tucker and company reprise Abbot and Costello's old and unfunny Who's on First Routine. The result is cringe-worthy.

And the action isn't much better. Chan trades in the speeding buses of his earlier films for a stationary Eiffel Tower in this one, and he doesn't take the same risks he once did. When he dives out of one window, he falls a few feet rather than a few floors. His stunt work markedly lacks the thrills of even his recent pictures.

Still, it is hard to resist a film that boasts such star power. As lame as it is, Rush Hour 3 is an attraction that few movie-goers will want to miss. Chan is a legend, and Tucker may someday become one. Team them up with a supporting cast that includes Max von Sydow, director Roman Polanski, Yvan Attal, and basketball player Sun Ming Ming and you have something that you will remember, even if you don't enjoy it.