Avatar

When I first started this blog, I promised myself not to let it get too nerdy. I was wrong.

I was reading an article in the Toronto Star that mentioned there was a huge on-line debate brewing regarding James Cameron's new multi-billion dollar 3-D cash grab Avatar. Apparently a large number of people view the movie as racist. You know, the fact that a white, barely literate marine goes undercover into a native populace, learns their ways, wins them over and then empowers them to defeat their white aggressors was found to be a smidge distasteful.

My opinion? Looking for any relevant meaning in Avatar is akin to looking for meaning in a bag of candy floss. If it is in any way offensive, it's surely because its producers were too busy rendering CGI plants to notice. Of course it's racist. It's also story-less, soulless and pointless. But it features three-dimensional renderings of Mech suits battling blue basketball players, so humanity has deemed it more important then financing public housing and blessed it with more dollar bills then Jesus has hairs in his goatee.

Let's speak frankly: Avatar is a theme park ride that lasts for three fucking hours. Remember when you waited in line for the newest ride at Canada's Wonderland, only to find the ride lasted all of 40 seconds? Remember when you got off and thought, "Sure the upside down loop was cool, but it should have been longer." No, it shouldn't have been. Getting our thrills in quick bursts stopped the rush from getting old. I mean, how many times could you have gone around that loop before it got ho-hum? If Avatar was sold to us in quick 2 minute 3-D bursts, we'd keep going back. But having my ass go numb is not something I will pay multiple times for.

We have entered a new phase in visual entertainment. With the advent of modern CGI, where truly anything is possible visually, people WILL spend money for something that looks cool. No one goes into Transformers or GI Joe expecting true cinema, they go to the theatre for artery-clogging food while leaving their intelligence somewhere in the restroom. No one goes to these movies for the acting, story, cinematography, musical score, framing techniques, or political/philosophical thought. They go in to see shit blow up.

So why do these movies even posture? Why tack on a story written by an 8 year old and

proof-read by a high school literary magazine? I understand you're still technically a "movie" but you're not selling us an art film and we know we aren't going to get one. It's a 3D experience and nothing more. So why is Avatar's running time 3+ hours? Because James Cameron takes himself way too fucking seriously.

Apparently his PR team says he "purposefully" made his movie to provoke dialogue on imperialism and genocide. Right. And when I take a shit, I'm making a statement about the political upheaval in Turkey.

Frankly, I would have liked Transformers if it was 20 minutes of robots fighting. Or GI Joe, if it was 20 minutes of battle suits running through the streets fighting. Or Avatar if it was 20 minutes of 3D smurfs flying pterodactyls into star ships fighting. It's the other 2 and half hours of Shia Lebeouf whining, Dennis Quaid sucking or Sigourney Weaver's talent being wasted that made me hate those movies.

I can't believe I'm saying this but here is my message to Hollywood:

Stop giving us story in Blockbuster movies. If you aren't going to do it right, don't do it at all. I would rather see a Terminator cyborg shoot a machine gun then hear Christian Bale scream nonsense. I would rather see Megan Fox in 3D then have her deliver lines.

There are no false pretenses. Give us what we want: Brain-dead bombast. If we want a film, we'll save it for the Cohen Brothers, got it? Stop wasting time we could be using on trying to figure out what the fuck Lost is actually about.

The dark ages our upon us.

That Blogging Bastard

P.S. Oh yeah, Avatar is mad racist. Imagine Jake Gyllenhaal going undercover in Africa in black face, meeting a native tribe, proving himself the natural leader and then leading the Africans against the English. Now, change the black to blue and you've got Avatar. But then again, there is a huge mechanical robot suit, so no harm, no foul.