Running with the Oscar Nominations: Avatar
Tokufumi Noda Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:02AM
The Oscar nominations are out! See the link below for the full list. Some notables include: Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Bastards, Precious, Up in the Air, all with a number of nominations. As usual, I haven’t seen half of these movies; it’ll take me at least a few years to catch up (or never to catch up).
So now I turn my attention to the only one of these I did watch, Avatar. After talking to a number of my friends, the consensus is:
“the story is OK but it’s worth watching for the 3-D effects.”
Avatar (2009) dir. James Cameron
The basic premise of “Avatar” sounds a lot like “Dances with Wolves” (1990). Earthling goes to foreign planet to fight the native population but ends up…, etc. How many of these kinds of movies have we seen? I suppose it’s a variation of the timeless “stranger comes to town” story.
On the other hand, I’ve heard some complaints that this kind of movie is insensitive to native culture. At times during “Avatar,” I also wondered how I would react if the Navi (native-alien inhabitants of the planet Pandora) were dressed in samurai clothing.
Would I feel offended? Wait, haven’t we seen this before?
Ok, I did thoroughly enjoy “The Last Samurai” (2008). My dad said he cried during the movie (the last time I saw him cry in the theatres was during Powder). Maybe I wasn’t so offended, just because Ken Watanabe made us Japanese guys look cool, and not just short, awkward and deferential. But I did wonder, why is Tom Cruise the last samurai? The closest movies I could think of that had Asian characters come into a Western setting and wreak havoc were “Brother” (2000, a gangster flick featuring Omar Epps and Beat Takeshi) and “Rumble in the Bronx.”
The verdict? Someone should make a movie called “The Last Cowboy” starring Ken Watanabe. And, go watch Avatar while it’s in theatres; I promise it won’t be the same on your laptop.
For a list of all the Oscar nominations, visit: http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/82/nominees.html
Reader Comments (2)
Avatar may have awesome graphics, but with the whole Fern Gully/Pocahontas/Danes With Wolves thing, the extreme predictability of the plot, and the totally flat and boring characters... It does not deserve to be best picture.
Tommy Boy, just saw Avatar. Was like the Matrix, Pocahontas, Zelda and Star Fox all rolled into one ball. I had such low expectations that I actually enjoyed it. And in response to the other commenter: yes, bad plot, but that has nothing to do with Best Picture, which it defly had.