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I admit it, I only went to see Avatar so that when the time came to piss all over it, I’d have enough venom saved up to produce more than just a bitchy little piddle.  I’ve been sitting on this rant for a while now – letting it simmer down, if you will.  I think now that the film has won a best picture Golden Globe, it’s finally time to speak up.

Let’s say I’ve got some folks coming over for dinner and I decide to cook a big fish pie.  Luckily for me I have a lot of rich relatives who don’t mind pumping money into each and every cookery project that comes my way, because I have cooked lots of times before and most people agree, my cooking is awesome.  So with a fat wad of bills busting the seams of my pocket I go shopping for ingredients, and I decide to push the boat out.  Way out.  I buy lobsters so fat they look like they were raised by Homer Simpson.  I buy scallops by the kilo, and the finest turbot and sea bass I can lay my greedy little hands on, no expense spared.  I figure if it’s expensive it’s got to be good, right?  So then I fly in the world’s finest sea food chefs and I install them in a state-of-the-art kitchen.  I tell them I want this to be the fanciest fish pie of all time.  I also hire a couple of chefs to take care of the white sauce and mashed potato top, but I figure those things are easy so I don’t give it too much thought.  So the night of the meal arrives and it comes time to put the whole thing together.  The fish is exquisite.  It looks beautiful.  I grab the pot of white sauce to assemble the filling and that’s when I notice it – big horrible lumps.  I taste it and realise it’s all wrong.  Under-seasoned, and made with cheap margarine instead of butter.  The mash is even worse.  Boiled to a pulp and mashed to shit with skimmed milk instead of double cream and butter, it’s just a grey slop on top of my beautiful expensive fish.  As a final insult, I get so distracted talking to my guests about the fish I totally lose track of time and I overcook the pie by a good 45 minutes.  Anyone with their head outside of their own ass can see the pie is a disaster, but miraculously my guests don’t notice.  Likely because they’re a bunch of fucking airheads who don’t know shit about cooking.  They just keep raving about the quality of the fish.  Then they give me an award and tell me it’s the best fish pie they’ve had all year.  I can’t believe it.   I’m sure you can’t either.  Because it’s not fucking right.

Avatar is not the best movie of the year.  There, I said it.  No, don’t try to argue, because you’re wrong.  It’s not a matter of opinion.  It’s not to each his own.  It’s not horses for fucking courses.  I don’t care if you enjoyed Avatar.  Some people liked White Chicks.  So people like ball-stomping porn.  Some people still like Kanye fucking West.  We’re not talking about enjoyment here.  We’re talking about the fact that we live in a world in which a boring, trite, over-baked slushfest of a movie is named THE BEST OF THE YEAR.  Fuck that.

Most of the time I feel like I shouldn’t bother opening my mouth.  Or lifting my pen.  Or whatever.  But goddamnit someone has to say something, and as a lifelong fan of cinema I feel a certain sense of responsibility.  Now before I go on, let me just clarify: I’m not writing this just to shit all over Avatar.  In fact, as far as big budget action/adventure blockbusters go, I’ve seen a lot worse.  My issue is not with the film itself, but with the culture of effects-worship that has evolved around movies recently.  If all there was to movies was state of the art CGI and thrilling green screen action, we’d all be happy enough to sit at home and watch someone playing the Xbox.  But film is a collaborative art and there are lots of ingredients to think about.  See what I was getting at with the fish pie scenario?  ‘But what’s wrong with special effects epics?’  Well, there’s nothing inherently wrong with them, but strip those special effects away and what are you left with?  Nothing.  And I’m sorry, but a one trick pony should not be winning a fucking dressage competition.

So what’s my point?  My point is people are too easily blinded by pretty pictures these days.  Avatar is not badly made, it’s just quite obviously a vehicle for James Cameron to bring his little fairy-tale land vision to life.  Performance, writing, cinematography and every other aspect of the filmmaking process is sidelined in favour of the special effects and somehow, no one minds.  I have never heard anyone say ‘The movie wasn’t great, but the sound design was awesome,’ yet I’ve been told by several people ‘It’s alright, but the special effects are unbelievable.’  Well so what?  It’s just one ingredient.  It’s just expensive fish.  And it’s not enough.  For me, anyway.  And it shouldn’t be enough for you either.

I am a realist though, and as well as posting this article I might as well try pissing uphill.  In a world where a cover song by the latest X-Factor winner is guaranteed number 1… Wait a second, maybe there is hope.  You want to see a well-made, special effects laden sci-fi movie?  Watch District 9.  It didn’t cost $250 million to make, and is incidentally far more politically relevant than Avatar, despite what some dickhead hacks will tell you.*  It’s also fucking awesome.  Hollywood is full of assholes whose only goal is to make money – not to make a good movie – just like those fucks on TV who sell you cover songs with a rags to riches sob story.  Fuck them, don’t do what they tell you.

* A bunch of American marines going to a faraway land where people have different coloured skin, to mine for a precious resource?  If this is considered a political undertone, the Dr. Dre song Bitches Ain’t Shit must fall into the category  ‘faintly misogynistic’.

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