Opinionated Fat Guy

My new buddy (and my boyfriends neighbor) Laurie recently wrote a great dissection of Avatar as a facebook note.  Not knowing him well enough to post a 5+ paragraph response to it, I decided to post my thoughts to his interesting points here.   

I have to admit, I didnt hate Avatar like I thought I would, but rather, was entertained by it and thought it was surprisingly good. If a film must be all about special effects and things blowing up, this one does so with a healthy dose of social commentary (albeit simplistic- but still, atleast it’s there) and by far one of the most beautiful marriages of colors on a screen I have seen in a long time and not to mention, thoroughly entertaining. 

That being said, their are flaws.  Yes, Sigourney Weaver was good… at being Sigourney Weaver. Not much range there, but she has a hold on that passive-aggressive elitist role and she plays it well. She could have easily been talking to a gorilla or about her dead gay son.  It would’ve been nice to see something different from her.  The rest of the cast is serviceable, and Stephen Lang does a great job of playing the stereotypical military tough guy in the form of Colonel Quaritch- who is two-dimensional but is supposed to be.  Unfortunately, I found many of the other characters who were meant to be well-rounded rather flat. 

I admire Avatar, more than anything for its magnificent aesthetic, its engaging but not over-bearing use of 3D, and its ability to transport an audience, to a breathtakingly beautiful place on the brink of destruction, during its 3 hour run.   Still all other things aside, the problem I have with Avatar (and with most of Cameron’s work) lays in the story. The visual beauty of this films merits a better story and a better script- I’d even go so far as saying better acting but I know thats going to be arguable.

What makes films like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and even Harry Potter timeless epics in my opinion, is a winning combination of yes, being visually entertaining but special effects aside their is a solid nuanced story with well-written dialogue being delivered by masters of their crafts.

Will Avatar change the playing field and raise the bar for films of it’s kind in the future? In many ways, I am sure it will- though I dont see Hollywood dishing out 300+million for every attempt- so I suspect we’ll only see these type of uber-budget epics sparingly but when they do, yes they’ll have to be meeting or exceeding the strides Avatar made in order to play in the big leagues. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if the next one was also an offering by Cameron, that is unless George Lucas decides to take a risk and try to one up his opus.  

Still, Laurie noted something in his writing that everyone in Hollywood continues to ask themselves: What will keep theatrical distribution models afloat in the era of high production quality television, VOD, and the internet?  Will films of epic proportions like Avatar be the only thing that light a fire under peoples ass to get them into a cinema?  I dont think so- I think short of any amazingly groundbreaking new technology the numbers of moviegoers will remain what it is- yes less than at what it was at one point but not vastly lower than what it is today. The experience at home will never be the same.  Will we continue to see more 3D, I think so-if not only because when well-done, as in the case of Avatar, it can heighten the experience to spectacular levels, but because 3D makes downloading it at home or buying a pirated copy not just harder but not the same experience even if you have a 60 inch plasma.  

In his facebook note, Laurie wrote about Avatar, “this movie is deeply, gloriously beautiful, and drove me almost to tears more than once, in the way that a symphony can for other people: not because anything sad is happening, but just sheer joy that anything so beautiful can exist.”

The fact that Avatar so moved some people is awesome- we dont see that much with mainstream cinema anymore.  Still I wish in this case, someone would have taken the ‘conductor’ aside and said “It’s okay to conduct your own composition- and its okay to have the brass section showing off their might just because they can and yes, it does all  sound good…but what about the melody?”