Avatar

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm more pissed off about commercial films getting the awards than the really good ones, its not just merely Avatar its the whole thing. Although that has been the way for as long as I remember being into films. Anyone remember Forrest Gump winning over Shawshank Redemption and Pilp Fiction.

I saw all three, and really didn't care who won what. It's all masturbation.

You get upset with who won what and miss the point that the whole system is a chimera, with no real value at all.

Watch some movies, and if you're lucky you'll find one or two you like. It's no more complicated than that.

[Animavore]

Actually looking at the list of films this year there's nothing that sticks out. They may be right to have Avatar there after all. Can't see anything here I'd rather have winning.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Actually looking at the list of films this year there's nothing that sticks out. They may be right to have Avatar there after all. Can't see anything here I'd rather have winning.

See, you chose this year's winner. Nobody.

[Elessarina]

Spoilers guys I haven't seen all of District 9

I think Avatar is being rewarded for its scope - JC invented a new camera for this movie, he has expanded the use of motion capture, improved CGI and created an amazing 3D experience, on top of that he has created a whole moon and it's ecosystem.

Personally it is this kind of film that I wish would win best picture more often as usually the films that win fade away and no one remembers them. The other films in contention are great but none of them are nothing that we haven't seen before - you can't say that about Avatar. Film is a medium that should be exploited to the max and Avatar does that. If you want depth read a book - if you want a cinematic experience then Avatar is it.

[Ian]

I finally got to see it last night!

It was good.

Outstanding FX. Almost certainly the most gorgeous movie I'd ever seen. Although afterwords my wife and I kept talking about how similar the plot was to Dances with Wolves. It's almost exactly the same! But that's not a criticism: "noble savage" scripts tend to do very well (Dances with Wolves, Braveheart, The Last Samurai, etc. Nothing wrong with that, it's just a re-telling of an old story. The entire Star Wars genre is a re-telling of an old archetype story, so I won't complain about Avatar's plot.
I have some criticisms, though. Off the top of my head, the casting of Giovanni Ribisi as the civilian in charge of the corporate mining operations on Pandora was a piss-poor call. He'd be a great lackey working for the character, who should've been a good twenty years older. The Colonel character was played better than I expected, but still came off as a far-fetched charicature of an actual soldier. And quite a bit of the scenery (the floating mountains in particular) was so outlandish I can only assume it was put in there because it looked amazing. Just what the hell causes mountains to float? Pilots briefly referred to a "flux" area, but that couldn't stop me from shaking my head at the sight of it. Na'vi have to climb up the damn things: if the rocks float in the area, why doesn't anything else? Maybe there's a rational explanation, but they didn't spend the ten seconds worth of screen time needed to explain it. I don't think the sight of the "unobtainium" suspended over a gadget on Ribisi's desk covered the concept of how those mountains came to be. Things like that shift the focus of the movie from the high-budget morality tale it was meant to be to one which seems to be an opportunity to display a fantasy with a plot plugged into it, since movies do require a plot.

Overall, 4 out of 5. And maybe I'll get it on DVD.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The mountains were floating because they were riddled with unobtainium.

[Ian]

The mountains were floating because they were riddled with unobtainium.

I figured, but I also thought the thing on Ribisi's desk that looked like a lighted coaster was helping his sample to do that. Like one of those suspended globes that are really just magnets: take them away from the platform and they fall down like anything else.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The mountains were floating because they were riddled with unobtainium.

I figured, but I also thought the thing on Ribisi's desk that looked like a lighted coaster was helping his sample to do that.

The magnetic field is stronger in the area of the Hallucination Mountains. Ribisi's flux disk replicated that in the small.

[GeneticJen]

Hallucination Mountains

Were they really called that (or am I just missing a joke)? I was sure they were called the "Hallelujah Mountains" by the humans.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Hallucination Mountains

Were they really called that (or am I just missing a joke)? I was sure they were called the "Hallelujah Mountains" by the humans.

I wondered if anybody would catch that.

[GeneticJen]

I think I've seen it too many times then.

Iknimaya?

[Jadestone]

I loved it. I am a sucker for good graphics though and these were amazing--I just want to watch the scenes of the forest and all those awesome plants again and again (why yes I am biology nerd). Plot was eh, but I wasn't expecting it to be all that much. I was kind of disappointed the Na'vi were as human was they were--I'd have liked creatures less hominoid/similar, but oh well.

[Red Katie]

Mine aren't. As a writer myself, I'm a great big prick about the writing.

That's a shame for you

Not at all. It's like learning to enjoy fine wine. You can no longer drink the wine everybody else drinks, but you find pleasures the less educated palate can't experience.

Most movies bore my eyes out, but one good, subtle, original line can thrill me to pieces. And an entire subtle, original movie is practically orgasmic. I remember I did backflips for "Portrait of a Lady," by Jane Campion, but no one else got any of it. Even John Simon didn't understand it.

He he. At the end of that movie, I expected the theater to burst into applause, so I began clapping. I was the only one.

[Elessarina]

Not at all. It's like learning to enjoy fine wine. You can no longer drink the wine everybody else drinks, but you find pleasures the less educated palate can't experience.

No, it is we can all experience the great wines but there are lesser wines that have something. There is no merit in being a snob and for someone who claims to have been a whore that seems to be a step further than fake. To constantly look at everything with an critical eye is a failing and a shame. You may be a writer .. but who are you and what have you written? I don't want an answer I am just making a point.

Criticise all you want - I would simply say....James Cameron is the one whose work has made $790million in two weeks if you are so clever .. why don't you do that?

[Red Katie]

No talent for screenplays. Took a class in it once. Didn't go well.