_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

I know sexy

xposts - i'm technically an 'arts & culture' critic but have done my fair share of film stuff. glad not to be a full-on film critic tbh.
yeah lol embargo
in my unprofessional opinion: i am going to see this again next week just to make sure i wasn't high because it was AWESOME (and yet some things abt it could've been better)

The thing I keep forgetting re: this movie is that I tend to really really really like James Cameron movies (although some, like "Titanic", have the shine wear off of them really really quickly).

You'll laugh, you'll cry etc.

while watching you're really not gonna be thinking abt the shine wearing off

Wonder what the first film will be where its embargo just trundles on forever, never to end?

x-post to a bunch of people

No one talked about the game-changing special effects of "T2" for months in advance. Same with "The Matrix," which, like "Titanic," actually only did modestly at the box office when it first opened ($37 million opening for "The Matrix," $28 million opening weekend for "Titanic" - for some scale, albeit not totally analogous, "Spider-Man" opened with $115 mil; maybe more illustrative, Tim Burton's Batman" opened around $43 million ten years before "The Matrix"). As for "Star Wars" and "Jaws," no one knew what they had until they had it. They were all "game-changers" in retrospect. Cameron called "Avatar" a game-changer MONTHS ago.

game changer = Phrases I Never Want to Hear Uttered by Talking Heads/Press/Politicians Ever Again

reviews are everywhere now

Let's see some! I don't know where to look..

to start with:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/avatar/

I have no idea what you are talking about re: "The Matrix" considering that entire half hours of entertainment news television programs were dedicated to talking about the filming techniques and wire work that went into the making of it.

My memory could be wrong, but (and I saw the movie opening night, mostly by chance) I don't recall months of anticipation for and lead-up to "The Matrix" and do recall it taking a lot of people by surprise, which in turn lead to all the making-of features. That's why I cited its opening box office - it was no out-of-the-gate hype-baby hit. Sites like aintitcool were up and running back then, weren't they? Were they going nuts? (Honest question; I've been trying to dig up that site's contemporaneous reviews).

the matrix was one of those films that once the commercials hit people were like "whoa" (lol), but unlike some of these other flicks it wasn't something that was hotly anticipated. i mean keanu reeves/laurence fishburne sci-fi from the directors of 'bound' could have been anticipated as 'johnny mnemonic 2'

I recall nothing but mountains of hype aimed mostly at sci-fi/comic book geeks in the months leading up to its release.

*anticipated before people started to see the ads, i mean

Original AICN "Matrix" review (for reference): http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=3353

Doesn't read like something he'd been looking forward to for months, seems like it sort of took him by surprise, too, etc.

Wow, the Matrix. I remember downloading my first ever cam of that. After I saw it in the theaters, of course! It took a couple weeks I think....

Matrix definitely took me by surprise, and I was a pretty big scifi movie nerd in HS.

The Matrix was not in anyway overly hyped when it came out. It was shunted off into a spring release because there wasn't much faith in it from the studio. There adverts for it, but not really any media saturation. It surprised a lot of people, both in its qualities and in its financial success.

pretty sure T2 was hyped to all hell though.

^^^yep. see: GnR video

yeah, but of all the films I mentioned, it was also the only sequel. And sequels, by definition, get hyped and anticipated. But c. that GNR video, no one knew T2 would change movies and make "morph" a household word.

i did! and i tried to tell everyone! and i got shoved into a toilet for my troubles....

Well, I mean, I did, too, but I was under embargo at the time.

T2 et al didn't have special effects in every single frame, though.

I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

I mean, those movies were absolutely packed with effects, regardless. Heck, half of "The Hangover" appears to have been shot against green screen. As far as all-effects arbiters go, "Phantom Menace" was all FX, all the time, and that was ten years ago.

four stars from rog:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091211/REVIEWS/912119998

And Cameron and his artists succeed at the difficult challenge of making Neytiri a blue-skinned giantess with golden eyes and a long, supple tail, and yet--I'll be damned. Sexy.

Glenn Kenny

RIP Embargo I guess

yeah all the cool kids are saying PWN.

i think he's joking?

feeling more and more like i'm gonna be a lonely voice in the wilderness on this one.

um, not that i'm expressing any of my reactions to this movie.

Titanic was hailed by a huge number of critics as a masterpiece when it came out, and I'd like to see how many have changed their minds. I think people are just wrapped up in it. Or, more likely, once the embargo is officially lifted, there will be a healthy number of naysayers.

i mean, it ain't the phantom menace, but this is getting ridiculous.

Cameron's Twitter is terrible. Decrying 'best of decade' lists before people have seen Avatar.

yeah even i think these initial reactions are kinda over the top, and i'm on board

never underestimate the super geekdom of film critics i guess

but damn if i'm not seeing this again asap

i think these initial reactions are kinda over the top

Yeah, it makes the months of internet chucklehead snarking look sober by comparison. What am I saying, no it doesn't.

i think the embargo is in place bcuz avatar marketing ppl will know that the only people to break the embargo are the people w/ positive reviews bcuz those people know they won't get bitchslapped in the future by said marketing team. therefore early word of mouf is all positive and momentum builds, etc...

someone up thread may have already suggested this.

http://io9.com/5424663/the-public-explains-the-plot-of-james-camerons-avatar

great punchline

So the embargo is lifted today, right? Can those who have seen it here give us their thoughts?

not till thursday im afraid

http://picturingamerica.wiki.ccsd.edu/file/view/10231137A~Freedom-Of-Speech-Posters.jpg/94225332/10231137A~Freedom-Of-Speech-Posters.jpg

Gah. Thursday daytime is the only time I can go see it before next week. Can anyone at least signal whether I should bother to make the effort or just wait until next week?

interest for this film (712 posts) is as bemusing to me as the tiger woods story is confusing; shrug.gif

http://www.anbg.gov.au/images/flags/semaphore/semaphore.gif

Avatar is the corniest movie ever made about the white man’s need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt.

Only children—including adult-children—will see Avatar as simply an adventure film; their own love of technology has co-opted their ability to comprehend narrative detail. Cameron offers sci-fi dazzle, yet bungles the good part: the meaning. His undeniably pretty Pandora—a phosphorescent Maxfield Parrish paradise with bird-like lizards, moving plant life and floating mountains—distracts from the inherent contradiction of a reported $300-$500 million Hollywood enterprise that casually berates America’s industrial complex.

http://www.nypress.com/article-20710-blue-in-the-face.html

Leave it to Armond to attack this from the "boo white people abandoning their culture" angle