golewis

While this isn’t exactly hot off the presses, we here at the ‘Dump can’t help but voice an opinion on James Cameron’s Avatar, which we decided after the first trailers came out was probably a bad movie. If you’re pressed for time and don’t feel like reading an entire essay on why we feel the way we feel, suffice it to say that after seeing it, we still thought it was a terrible, terrible movie. So begins the rant.

The dagger to the heart is always when the story sucks. If you’ve ever seen that old cartoon Ferngully, you’ve already got most of the story for Avatar. The only difference is that instead of fairies and a shrunken protagonist, it’s blue cats and engineered avatars. While some may think it ridiculous to criticize Avatar for a resounding lack of originality, the story feels very, very tired, contrived, cliche-ed and predictable. I’m sorry, but a cornball is still a cornball even if it’s a fancy, 3-D, motion-captured cornball.

Movies today (shakes fist) are very much on the downslide. You can only be hit with so many “reboots”, sequels, Star Wars Episode Ones, Predator vs. the Flavor of the Week, IAJATKOTCS, and other crap before you can’t take it anymore. You wanna know what the best movie I’ve seen in the last five years is? There Will Be Blood. Why? It stank of an originality that I can’t put to any other film in recent memory. It was well-acted. By an actual human being. It actually had a goddamned STORY, for Christ’s sake! Avatar, on the other hand, is last year’s leftovers reheated in a multimillion-dollar microwave and drizzled with truffle sauce. Apparently, only the very perspicacious (cough) realize that they’re being fed a meal unfit for a dog.

Still, it’s great for the kids, right? Oh, sure. Just like Episode One. Remember that? Oh, well it’s for the children. That makes it all okay. I’m reminded of what good ol’ George Carlin once said: “Fuck the children.”

You want to know why it costs twenty fucking dollars for two people to go to the movies today? Because the movies cost $500 million dollars to make. You know why they cost $500 million dollars? Overcompensation. A great movie is, has been, and will continue to be one that I walk out of the theater saying to myself, “Man, I wish I had written that…”. Not the one that leaves me saying, “Man, they don’t make cartoons like they used to.” And believe you me, they don’t

I hate CG. Hate it. I’ve said it ruins movies before, and I’m saying it again. It adds very little, and the argument that it saves money is clearly contrary to the empirical evidence of the last ten years. If the other argument that it allows filmakers to do things they couldn’t otherwise have done is true, why all this old, tired shit? Can we call it a lack of imagination? Think about that one in the context of Avatar.

Some say that this film is a milestone for cinema. I say it’s a big, fat step in the wrong direction. It’s certainly the apex of a long trend in movies towards bigger budgets, gimmicks, flash, and all at the cost of storytelling.

There’s more to say on the subject, but not today. I’m not sure how I feel about the whole 3-D thing, at this point. Whether that’s here to stay or not, who knows? I can’t help but come back to the fact that of all my favorite movies, I can’t see how any of them would’ve been better if they’d been shot in 3-D…. And I’m also not sure I have any appreciation for movies that take a middle ground between great cinematography and actors, and a good ol’ Pixar movie. Both can hit the spot where their bastard children don’t seem to be able to.

Where’s the originality, I ask? So says the fellow who has a website that basically repackages other people’s work.