Insert Palin-approved title here

AVATAR. I feel like I should write something about the movie (trailer) because, aside from being the highest-grossing movie of all time, I think it will take home best picture at the Oscars tonight. It will make me almost as sad as the night the movie-which-shall-not-be-named won.

This is going to be much simpler because I agree with pretty much everything you already wrote. I do think that if it does when tonight, I will not be completely upset because as a technical piece of filmmaking, it has pushed the medium forward. James Cameron has created a 3D movie where, as you mention, it is not a gimmick intended to raise the price (making it easier to become the highest-grossing movie) but instead a full part of the experience. I found myself so immersed in what was happening that I eventually did not even notice the 3D and felt a bit more like I was a part of the action -- and shooting action has always been something Cameron has done well. Use of 3D was particularly useful for this story, which was about manufacturing a reality and someone becoming immersed in another world by proxy without becoming truly part of it. Something crosses over from being a gimmick to a stand-out approach when the form follows function, not the other way around. Being in 3D furthered his story and so he was right to use it here. I will be curious to see if he or any others are able to do the same when the plot is not quite so conducive to 3D.

So that is the good about Avatar. Now for the bad. I was so glad to see this movie got the general slap in the face of being nominated (and having a good shot at winning) best picture without so much as a nod for the screenplay, which does allow for 10 movies to be nominated. For all of the money spent on developing, shooting, and promoting this movie, you would think that Cameron and company could have invested in a screenwriter. He might be a talented director, but Cameron is tone deaf at writing dialogue. The story is somewhat ordinary but I was fine with the general arc of the movie. What I found inexcusable was how corny the dialogue was at times and the lack of any depth to the characters, other than possibly Jake Sully (Sam Worthington). Just as I think 3D is poorly used when it takes one out of the movie, a screenplay is bad when the ineptness of the language is so distracting that it takes the viewer out of the movie. I laughed and groaned at multiple times where it was not intended and entire scenes where ruined for me because I was so distracted by the bad dialogue.

In all Avatar is certainly a movie I would recommend seeing for its amazing visual effects that suggest what the future of film could be. It might have still been a movie I would say some might enjoy on DVD even without the benefit of the 3D movie experience, but Cameron went and ruined that opportunity. I am glad I went, but I cannot imagine sitting through that movie without the 3D and in that he has made sure that the movie for me is one that will not allow for repeat viewings.