Legal Commentary

In the alterna-world of Facebook, I have ragged on Avatar.  Not so much because it's not a fantastic visceral experience, full of awe and wonder, but because it is also godawful.  I am not recommending that people not see it.  It's fantastic.  It's just that it is simultaneously terrible.  The phrase "written and directed by James Cameron" is a little like a proud mother proclaiming in the same sentence that she has just given birth to and horribly mutilated a lovely newborn child.  The movie blows your mind at the same time that it deals a mortal insult to your intelligence.  

Well, Jeff Lipshaw has responded to those criticisms, and presumably others of like kind, in fine fashion.  Here's his post, and my title pretty well says it all.  It's a nice diversion.  Needless to say, however, I'm sticking by my guns.  (An apt metaphor in this case.  Cameron's respect for the oneness of nature, the sacredness of all life, and blah blah blah is roughly one inch thick and easily overmatched by his love of sweet bloody revenge.)  An action or sci-fi movie should be judged on its own merits and by its own standards, but it does not have to be high art to have at least a serviceable plot, dialogue, characterization, music, and acting, does it?  Just think of Tarkovsky's Solaris, or the shootout scene in My Dinner With Andre (which, I believe, is only available as a deleted scene on DVD, alas).