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I hope I'm not the only one who considers it one of the greatest animated films of all time, but I digress...domino harvey wrote:Am I the only one who didn't realize how popular 101 Dalmatians was?
OMG Dude!!11, but it made 2 Bil. u suck. Lulzzz.zedz wrote:Well, I’m bored, and that news is fucking depressing, so here’s my Avatar rant. I succumbed and saw this last week in IMAX 3D. Like other IMAX 3D stuff I’ve seen, the effect is sort of cool for the first ten minutes then rapidly fades into the background and is neither here nor there. I’m sure there are undreamt of applications for the technology that will take cinema into new realms (hint: let Michel Gondry loose on it for some R&D and then see where we stand), or filmmakers who could make the technology artistically meaningful and aesthetically expressive, but this sure ain’t it.
Technology aside, as cinema this is pretty feeble. The plot and characters are so generic and predictable it actually resembles a Saturday morning cartoon more than most other modern action cinema, even of the lowest common denominator kind. Even those tend nowadays to a pretense of complication, desperately hoping the tides of fanboys will mistake it for complexity. In this film every character is absolutely stock and every plot development is telegraphed at least a half hour ahead. Even the individual ‘beats’ of each sequence arrive with thudding predictability.
All the film has going for it is its look, and though this is technically impressive, I suppose, in that it’s really detailed and in goshwow 3D, the lack of imagination behind it is stultifying. The visuals are straight out of the mass-market fantasy posters that you’d find in an adolescent’s bedroom in the 1970s, and the plot, with all its puerile ‘transformation and mastery’ clichés, come directly from the accompanying wet dreams. The only iota of interest is in what all these generic vistas would look like in 3D. SPOILER: They look exactly how you expect they would.
As a fantasy world it’s not even half-realised. Apart from the general staleness of it, it’s all so undifferentiated: the characters travel for hundreds of miles but never leave the same jungle, like an old Tarzan programmer, and the same flora and fauna laboriously introduced early on come back right on schedule for the denouement . I known this kind of mechanical narrative efficiency is considered the ne plus ultra of ‘good scriptwriting’ in Hollywood, but it’s always been bullshit. The film would like to think it’s all about wonder and discovery, but it’s as mired in dull functionality as its accountant’s spreadsheet.
If I had to find something nice to say about it, I’d note that Cameron can construct action sequences that have a modicum of coherence. But just because that’s a dying skill doesn’t make it much of an achievement: he never manages to construct one with a modicum of surprise, interest or wit.
B...Bu....But she's 60.zedz wrote:I did get one genuine laugh from the film: when naked Sigourney appears in a custom-fabricated fern bikini (!) that serves no purpose whatsoever except to preserve the delicate sensibilities of the acned moppets seeing it for the umpteenth time (and, of course, in order to give the same boys something to whack off to that night).
It's her avatar, which is more like 25.Noiretirc wrote:B...Bu....But she's 60.
Maybe I should go and see this.
Just did.domino harvey wrote:Well, noexte wrote:Could Avatar break 2 Billion? Holy schmoly...
No such warnings on Firefox on my MacBook. It's Box Office magazine's site. Maybe it was an ad that was marked malevolent. Anyway, here is the only relevant portion:Saturnome wrote:My Firefox Browser is telling me that this link lead to a Ill-intentioned website («Site Malveillant» in French).
You can also seem the cumulative gross on Box Office Mojo.Sunday Morning Update (10:35 a.m. PT): 20th Century Fox is reporting that Avatar grossed $95 million from 11,327 screens in 120 countries this weekend, which pushes the sci-epic past the $2 billion mark worldwide.
With television and dependably quick DVD/Blu-Ray releases challenging the centrality of cinema attendance, and the generally more fractured media landscape that exists today, I don't think Titanic or Gone with the Wind numbers are possible in this day and age.Nothing wrote:Anything but an adjusted gross is meaningless. It still has a loooong way to go to beat Gone with the Wind or Star Wars (or, indeed, Titanic).
I would love to hear more about the world of Pandora, and find out what became of Jake’s brother Tommy, and the future of our home planet, Earth.
Not to defend Avatar, but go and see how many pages Watchmen generated and this thread won't seem all that outrageous.strangerinparadise wrote:I'm utterly amazed and amused that this trashy blockbuster is generating an incredible amount of discussion on what I thought was supposed to be a film connoisseur's forum. 'Nuff said already! :-#
domino harvey wrote:I only got one paragraph into Kenny's defense. When did he turn into this?
Glenn Kenny wrote:I turned into this (and I by no means wish to place a particular time on this) after I saw the film (and by saying so, I am not trying to claim that it's as good as it gets but it's pretty good) Avatar (but please keep in mind that I am no 'Avatard' (as it were (if we're to go by the phrasing of kids these days (who see movies in 3D))).
)(Story Continues On Next Parenthetical)
Ordinarily I'd agree, but I'm sensing a pattern here:domino harvey wrote:The Hurt Locker may or may not win, but Avatar is definitely not going to win
domino harvey wrote:I can only imagine the derisive laughter this trailer will receive from audiences this weekend.
domino harvey wrote:$73 million opening weekend gross. Unless it gains next week (fat chance), this thing won't make much more than twice that in America.
domino harvey wrote:...there really hasn't been anything equal to [Titanic]'s mass appeal since, and two giant kittens nuzzling necks definitely ain't gonna match it.
domino harvey wrote:Well, noexte wrote:Could Avatar break 2 Billion?
