James Cameron‘s Avatar “is the most beautiful film I’ve seen in years,” says New Yorker critic David Denby in the 1.4.10 issue. “Amid the hoopla over the new power of 3-D as a narrative form, and the excitement about the complicated mix of digital animation and live action that made the movie possible, no one should ignore how lovely Avatar looks, how luscious yet freewheeling, bounteous yet strange.

“As Cameron surges through the picture plane, brushing past tree branches, coursing alongside foaming-mouthed creatures, we may be overcome by an uncanny sense of emerging, becoming, transcending — a sustained mood of elation produced by vaulting into space. Working with a crew of thousands, Cameron has reimagined nature: the movie is set on Pandora, a distant moon with thick forests, alpine chasms, and such fantastic oddities as wooded mountains hanging in the sky. The geographical center of the movie is a giant willow tree where a tribal clan, the Na’vi, worships the connections among all living things — a dubious-sounding mystical concept that the movie manages to make exciting.

“In Titanic, Cameron turned people blue as they died in icy waters, but this time blue is the color of vibrant health: the Na’vi are a translucent pale blue, with powerful, long-waisted bodies, flat noses, and wide-set eyes. In their easy command of nature, they are meant to evoke aboriginal people everywhere. They have spiritual powers and, despite their elementary weapons — bows and arrows — real powers, too.

“From each one’s head emerges a long braid ending in tendrils that are alive with nerves. When the Na’vi plug their braids into similar neural cords that hang from the heads of crested, horselike animals and giant birds, they achieve zahelu, which is not, apparently, as pleasurable as sex, but somewhat more useful — the Na’vi’s thoughts govern the animals’ behavior.

“Cameron believes in hooking up: this world is as much a vertical experience as a horizontal one, and the many parts of it cohere and flow together. The movie is a blissful fantasy of a completely organic life.”

“Group votes of any kind tend to cancel out radical options on either side in favor of the middle,” says Spoutblog‘s Karina Longworth in a 12.16 Vanity Fair.com piece.

“If you are not surprised that neither Ron Paul nor Ralph Nader has ever been elected president, you should be equally unimpressed by the fact that The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air have taken the bulk of this year’s pre-Oscar honors. Though the two films have their own unique virtues (and failings), neither is daring enough to truly piss anybody off. More often than not, consensus victories go not to the best or most innovative films, but to the films that pretty much everyone is pretty much okay with.”

The article is titled “Why Do All the Awards Honor the Same Movies?” I understand after reading Longworth’s piece why radical options will never be supported by majorities, but the question about why there’s such uniformity among critics groups has been explored and answered, I feel, by myself, while Longworth barely addresses it.

“I’m so jaded I even initially regarded James Cameron‘s mindblower as a perfect Forgotten Decade capstone — nothing more than one rich man’s $300 million intellectual exercise with some silly blue aliens. But then Avatar actually blew my mind. It’s in fact a turning point: Cameron took the decade off, let the technology catch up with him, and then usurped its power by making something hot and light and utterly permanent. The self-proclaimed King of the World reclaimed art from the kingmakers.” — from a 12.16 Esquire.com article by Movieline‘s Stu VanAirsdale, called “Why Avatar Really Can Change Movies Forver.”

I briefly spoke with Up In The Air director-writer Jason Reitman today at 21, where a Peggy Siegal luncheon was held to celebrate the film. I told him I’ve watched the Up In The Air four or five times, and that my favorite part is the last ten minutes. And yet some folks have told me the finale didn’t warm them up the way they wanted. Reitman smiled, shrugged and said, “That’s not my job!” Good for him. My sentiments exactly.

It took Jett and I four and a half hours to drive from Syracuse to Manhattan this morning, including a 25-minute breakfast. That’s too damn long. I don’t like driving way the hell up to that academic gulag, that Siberia in the snow. I do it, of course, because it’s Jett’s home for now but God, what an environment.

“The cancer that has often afflicted Academy Award thinking is the equation that a film deserving of being chosen Best Picture can’t, in fact, be chosen if it hasn’t made a pretty good amount of dough.” This is the portion of my quote for a story about The Hurt Locker‘s Best Picture chances that Boxoffice.com’s Phil Contrino didn’t use in his 12.15 story.

No criticism intended for Phil — I just like like the use of the words “cancer,” “dough” and “Academy Award” in the same sentence.

“The Hurt Locker has received an overwhelming amount of critical support over the last couple of days,” his story begins. “The high-tension flick has won Best Picture from the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. It also received Best Picture nominations from the Golden Globes and the Broadcast Film Critics Association.

“As a result, it looks as though The Hurt Locker‘s chances of winning the Best Picture Oscar have improved exponentially.

“Yet the most coveted prize in the movie business has never gone to a film that failed to achieve success at the box office. Unfortunately, The Hurt Locker grossed only $12.7 million during its domestic theatrical run.

“Crash is this decade’s lowest grossing Best Picture winner with $54.6 million. Technically, Annie Hall has the lowest domestic gross of any Best Picture winner since 1970 with $38.3 million in 1977, but that equals around $124 million when adjusted for inflation.

“Does this mean that The Hurt Locker can’t possibly win the big prize?”

There were two standouts among theAustin Film Critics choices — Inglorious Basterds‘ Melanie Laurent for Best Actress and Up In The Air‘s Anna Kendrick for Best Supporting Actress. Otherwise they voted for the usual usual — Hurt Locker, Bigelow, Firth, Waltz, etc. Waltz! Waltz!

The Avatar cost factor has essentially become a selling point, in the view of director James Cameron. “I don’ think it means jack shit,” he told the Hollywood Reporter‘s Carl DiOrio.

“To be perfectly honest, I think the studio has generated the myth about its costs to help in the selling of the movie. I have seen this happen with Terminator and True Lies and Titanic, and it helps [Avatar] become a must-see film. By the way, doesn’t that mean it’s a bargain to see such an expensive film for the same amount it costs to see any other film? It’s the deal of the century!”

With the public option and the Medicare buy-in both out the window, the Senate health care bill is so weakened and watered-down that it would be better to try to kill it than fight for its passage. Go instead to reconciliation and start the process all over again two years hence. And do whatever’s necessary to prevent the obstinate and obstructionist Sen. Joe Lieberman from being re-elected.

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” former presidential candidate Howard Dean said in a radio interview yesterday. “Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”