Sunday, February 28, 2010

Academic

As I understand it, the reason that Avatar is a hot favourite for the Best Picture Oscar is that despite the pedestrian acting, the moronic script, the half-assed liberal gesture politics and the fact that it’s simply far too long, it looks really nice.

Fair enough. Big blue meerkat monsters clearly float many boats. But does Avatar have a sequence in which the River Styx suddenly morphs into an enormous black cobra with the head of Tom Waits? No. Well then. It’s not really the Best Picture, is it?

7 comments:

Geoff said...

I'd rather go and see Tim Footman's Avatar and stare at a pipe for a couple of hours.

Rog said...

It's not a pipe Geoff. Don't you ever learn?

Annie said...

Ooh, I love Terry Gilliam, haven't seen it yet. I will never see Avatar though, it looks too tedious for words. He should have stuck with Gale Anne Hurd, his films were still okay when they were together. She reminded him you need plots & characters, as well as special effects.

Annie said...

Just looked at IMDB, it has a funny 'trademarks' feature for directors.

For James Cameron, they observe
"Likes to show close-up shots of feet or wheels, often trampling things."

Steerforth said...

It looked total shite on the trailer and only five seconds in, the crude metaphors were painfully obvious.

One of my colleagues has been to see it 12 times, but I suspect that's because he lives in Goring-by-Sea.

Anonymous said...

12 times? Is he homeless?
(Don't know about Dr Parnassus - nice circus truck in it though.)

Tim F said...

Avatar isn't a bad movie, and it does look lovely. However, this has been a rather good year for non-realist cinema: Parnassus; Moon; District 9; Up; Micmacs; Air Doll. All of which are so superior to Cameron's film that it's a bit embarrassing. Add The Hurt Locker and Up In The Air to the list and you start to wonder how Avatar even got nominated for an Oscar.