Last night’s 60 Minutes piece on James Cameron and Avatar was a wafer-thin blow job. Not a sentence or phrase, even, in the entire thing about fan reactions to the trailer, to Avatar Day, etc. Not the slightest hint of Captain-Planet-with-Cats skepticism. Not the faintest suggestion that transcendent stories and themes are what connect with audiences, and not cutting-edge technology.
If a movie has genuine soul and emotionalism it exudes a palpable moisture, and generally speaking audiences like to get soaked, or at least pretty damp.
The key Avatar question of the moment is whether or not the whole two hour and 30 minute feature (as opposed to 16- or 24-minute product reels that have been shown so far) will run a blitzkreig over the Delgo or Ferngully: The Last Rainforest impressions that were planted last summer. Which…you know, is certainly possible. I’d feel a lot better about this thing if it weren’t for those awful cougar noses on the Na’vi.
That’s 150 minutes without credits, by the way.
