DEVIN DEBATES DAVE POLAND ON AVATAR

It sounds like you're ceding some ground. Not saying that's a bad or a good thing, just...interesting.

This from the guy who found emotion in Watchmen. Seriously Devin, you're a loser. Loser geek, not cool geek.

Look, I didn't even like Watchmen, but it had way more emotion than Avatar. Anyway, there was enough inherent to the material, even if its handling was a little clunky. There isn't a single resounding emotional note in Avatar. Devin, your theories can be a little out there sometimes, but this Mad Libs one I can dig.

I've given you shit in Avatar threads before but that theory you're percolating is correct in my opinion.

Looking more and more like Artie Lange every day.

Not a bad theory, Devin. It pretty much worked for me that way in Avatar, but I have to tell you, upon a second viewing, Worthington's performance does get better. And all you fuckers bashing Watchmen: You have no idea what you're talking about.

I thought that Avatar had emotion. I'm not really here to endlessly debate about it, but I was enchanted by the relationship shown between Neytiri and Jake, because it was initially more about earning trust. I also felt that, as hollow as some people claim that the characterizations are, the acting really elevated them, such as Saldana's very emotional scene in which Neytiri angrily casts Jake out of the tribe.

jesus, just admit you loved the movie. Avatar's one of those films that I think will need time to be fully digested. Like titanic. I remember after I saw titanic, I actually spent time in my room dreaming about ways Jack could still be alive, I liked him that much. I even watched Leo in other movies thinking he was jack, but of course he wasn't, jack's dead... :(

Move along.

#8 - if you're being sarcastic, that was funny. If you're serious, YOU'RE funny.

I've seen Avatar 3x, once not in 3rd. All 3 times it has been great; it's not the 3d that makes the movie. And I disagree with a lot of Devin's favorite movies because his 'favorties' contain elements of movies done before also, so i mean....its a contradiction so his review of Avatar does not matter to me.

Poland wiped the floor with you, devin. Especially at the end with your "The movie is only successful because its in 3D". He destroyed you on that one. To the cockbag that felt no emotion while watching Watchmen: I pity you.

Funny what a complete hypocrite Farci is, he has had a major hate boner for this film since long before anyone saw even a single frame of the damn thing. Yet he is more than happy to make money of it by getting hits for his site by constantly posting stories about it. What a pathetic, fat, cunt.....

Gotta go with Devin. The movie didn't do it for me - it's spectacle at it's best, but shiny is boring. I've seen shiny. And I suppose shiny will always be there to see. And then I watch Mad Men and there's more in a TV show than a bazillion dollar budgeted flick. Not that Avatar is bad, it's fine - not great.

It's amusing how emotional some get over the fact that someone simply doesn't share their taste in one particular movie. It's just one flick and not a particularly good one at that.

I think I get and kind of agree with Devin's point about it being Mad Lib. I've come to think that there was enough newness--namely extensive use of CGI and 3D--to the storytelling behind Avatar that there had to be familiar ground for the audience to compensate. If it was any more spacey then I think it wouldn't have worked commercially, kind of the fate of Watchmen (which I liked the Director's Cut of it, and never saw the full theatrical). That could be a point in Avatar's favor, strangely enough: taking a totally baffling and new approach to storytelling by selling it in just the right kind of story that "works" with audiences. I'm not saying I'm necessarily FOR that kind of film-making, but I have to respect shrewdness like that. I was entertained but wasn't satisfied, while I was both after watching Sherlock Holmes.

Watchmen isn't very good. Sorry!

Roland Z isn't very smart.

So if you're back in the loop are you undead?

Why don't you think there will be a sequel? This has made all the money in the world and James Cameron has said he has plans for a second one. You are just so against the GRAIN Devin!

Hey you guys, let's type impotent and anonymous insults at a dude who writes about the movies. It will make us feel like winners. Good job you guys.

I wanted to like Avatar. It was terrible. I can't honestly recommend it to my friends beyond, "Hey, if you want to shroom and/or smoke a lot and go see this in 3D, it'll probably be pretty cool looking. Otherwise, you're in for a rehash of Dune, Princess Mononoke, Dances With Wolves, and Fern Gully, and knock yourselves out." The story made me feel a little bit dumber for having experienced it. I've seen better in video games.

Humm... If by "Mad Lib" you mean empathy, then I agree. I believe a spectator's empathy to the characters is key to his appreciation of a film. In fact, I've always considered it an unwritten cardinal rule of film-making. Take Kubrick. I've always felt his only failure was Barry Lindon because the character was a void of morality AND humanity. Basically, I didn't give a trifle about the ponderous proceedings, amazing lighting be damned, because all of the inhabitants of that film were loathsome. In contrast, Alex DeLarge's lack of morality never made him seem inhuman but inhumane (quite so). It's not that I sympathize with Alex, even if he keeps referring to me as his "friend" throughout the voice-over, but I can understand his "issues" and I'm fond of Ludwig Von myself (though more Pastorale than Ninth). Basically, playing with the alienation of an audience is akin to walking a tightrope. When you're on the brink of falling, it can create a masterpiece like Clockwork or Fight Club or Taxi Driver (incidentally, they all have first-person voice-overs). Once you've fallen, there's no coming back, as in Barry Lindon, Benjamin Button or Spider (incidentally, don't they all have a third-person voice-over? Only saw them once, except for Barry). A film with which I've agreed with you in the past, Dark Knight, barely passed the test thanks to Harvey Dent and Gordon. Otherwise, I found it clever but heartless. I agree audience empathy is a fickle thing but I find Cameron's ability to make us care for oversized, azure-skinned aliens all the more remarkable. Apparently, Jake Sully is your Barry Lindon.

It's a movie perfectly engineered for an audience who can't follow a plot for more than five minutes at a time. @#2: And yet here you are...again. @#8: See #10.

Mad Libs movie? Sure, I'll go along with that, your right there. But I can name at least a dozen movies that came out in the last year that can fit the bill of a "Mad Libs" movie. At what point does movie ideas stop being terribly original? At what point do we stop watching a movie and running through our roledex mind comparing it to a thousand other movies we may have seen? By this standard, you can find plot elements and characters alike in almost every movie you watch in the same genre. To me the movie wasn't about the plot (which yes I liked, even though it's been done before), it was the amalgamation of everything supporting it, the design, the science, the detail, how everything in the movie supported the plot, it wasn't just a backdrop. I felt the same way about this movie as I did Titanic. Get rid of the plot and give me a few hours of exploring everything else. Let me view it all from the outside.

OMG... FINALLY CHUD HAS AN ARTICLE, BY DEVIN, ABOUT AVATAR!!!!!!!! About fucking time, I was starting to think that Devin didn't have an opinion on this movie!!!

#13, I love you.... #22, If we can't trust the opinion of a drug addled broke down dead beat internet poster, who can we trust? I guess I'll just go drop some acid, smoke up and do some shrooms so I can be cool too... Wait, no I'll continue enjoying my films without psychoactive drugs.

David Poland is an old fuck. It's sad that he looks young and acts so damn old, but he's an old fuck. So this is an old fuck that got excited for a movie with technology in it, that he's never really gotten before. Avatar is a movie for old people that finally realize how awesome 3-D is at the moment. Fortunately for us, we have a Vampire Horrour Movie coming out this Friday, and that will be that for fucking Avatar. It's an alright movie, but it's nothing special. It's nothing special at all.

"I'm talking about DINOSAURS, dammit!!" lolz

A chemistry professor couldn't resist interjecting a little philosophy into a class lecture. He interrupted his discussion on balancing chemical equations, saying, "Remember, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate!"

"it´s filthy overseas, let´s be honest"? What a douche, he better be talking about England.

my favorite part of avatar is when ribisi is explaining to weaver unobtanium and what it is worth etc etc. thats funny. you would think she might have known all that already seeing as she is up there with them working with them and has been for years. he couldn't possibly be doing that for us the audience could he? lame ass exposition. the film is fucking dreadful.

#32 - i totally agree with you. the expository dialogue was dreadful. however, avatar seems to have gotten conservative america all in a tizzy. the la times reports that conservative bloggers have been shitting themselves over its "wrong-headed" politics. so because it may make people in the heartland cheer the oppressed and jeer the colonizers, even though it was a tired sermon to my choir, god bless jim cameron and avatar.

You have a point about that scene. I mean, you could view it as a corporate douchebag boss being condescending to the tree-hugging scientist, but that could have been handled better. Maybe if someone laid that shit down on Sully. Didn't ruin the movie for me, though.

Seriously, Devin. The Cameron hate has become a little extreme at this point. Did Cameron do something unspeakable to you when you visited the True Lies set in '93?