Avatar-Academy Awards Special

This post is part of a series wherein I will review all of the Best Picture nominees. Given how many there on the docket this year, I will be doing nothing for the next four weeks but seeing movies and busting out of my Sansabelt pants from too much popcorn. I have already reviewed An Education, and you no doubt know that I feel it belongs nowhere near the Best Picture List. Now, to Avatar. Oh James Cameron, how you wend your way around my hyperactive, film geek sensibility. Nothing excites us Star Wars freaks like the promise of new, shiny technology. Cameron has more than delivered on that promise. He and long-time collaborator Vincent Pace have created a revolutionary new way of capturing 3-D images on screen. Using stereoscopic cameras, CGI and a "performance capture" stage, Cameron was able to literally change the way that modern films can be made. The result is a film that is beautiful to look at. It is visually stunning, prompting the viewer to question what is real and what is borne of a brilliant imagination. However, Cameron's dialogue is laughable, and the plot hits the viewer over the head with the bluntest of instruments. All of Avatar's actors are good, but it is very difficult for them to shine while having to say lines like "You are not in Kansas anymore!". Moreover, there is something perverse about having Zoe Saldana (one of the more beautiful actresses working today) looking the entire time like Rocky Dennis auditioning for Blue Man Group. Avatar's Utopian world is called Pandora, and it's race of inhabitants are the Na'vi. Lush and verdant, Pandora has myriad food sources and is chock-full of a valuable natural resource called (ready?) Unobtanium.
The message of the film is that we as humans, in our never ending quest for more (money, resources, stuff), have destroyed everything of real value on our planet. We have raped Mother Nature with a blow torch and one day she'll get up, take some jiu-jitsu classes and kick us in the balls. As a result of the movie, there have been several websites popping up that discuss "Avatar Depression Syndrome". The jist of it is that after witnessing the pristine wonders of Pandora, the affected viewer can no longer see Earth as anything but miserable. How these dipshits didn't figure that out after watching Jersey Shore, I'll never know.
The irritating part of all this is that James Cameron is capable of fantastic writing. When it was released, Titanic was technically cutting-edge in ways we had never seen before. But it was almost insignificant when compared with the beautiful fiction that he wove into the true story of Titanic-a story every American was thoroughly familiar with. That we remained engrossed for three hours enraptured by characters in a story that we already knew the ending to; that is the real testament to Cameron's genius.
My Comment isn't about how Avatar relates to society, it's about how it relates to film and the Academy. You might think that because of the way I feel about the film, I don't think it should be up for Best Picture. Well, you'd be wrong. I think Avatar does deserve to be up for Best Picture because filmmaking is not just about acting, or writing or editing. It is also about a movie's contribution to filmmaking in general. And Avatar's contribution to film itself cannot be argued. James Cameron has invented a newer, different and totally brilliant way to make a movie. For that, he should be honored, and millions of people obviously agree. I know I sound whiny, but I just wish I cared about the disturbingly feral avatars the way I cared about Jack and Rose.