The fact that James Cameron's Avatar made $16 million on Tuesday, which is what it made the day prior and moves its to-date cume to $109 million in 5 days, is just the icing on the cake that this is a beast of a movie and undoubtedly your #1 Oscar contender as of this moment.
The $77 million opening (Friday-Sunday) is nice, but pulling in that kind of dough the following week and showing no signs of slowing down heading into the holiday break signals money for 20th Century Fox and trouble for the competitors. Don't think the Warner Bros. guys aren't shaking in their boots - Sherlock Holmes has some stiff competition on its hands this weekend.
Of course, I still don't get it. Avatar is a technical marvel and a soothing visual CG-bath, but it doens't register anywhere else, and in fact, is elementary and fatally faulty in many aspects, starting with Cameron's age-old screenplay. Get ready for it, though. Avatar is no Titanic (let's hope not anyway), but it's a runaway freight train heading for the promiseland.
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I just got back from avatar, will have my review of it up tomorrow. You have to remember 1) you said it yourself it's a technical marvel, something people will roll out to see by the truckload. and 2) while I see what you say about the narrative, there's a difference between age old narrative done badly and age old narrative doing well. Here I think it was done rather well, not perfect, but certainly entertaining.
ReplyDeleteI think because of the narrative it won't win Best Picture. I think Precious and Up in the Air are still the front runners, though it will definitely garner a nomination (especially after the lack of Dark Knight public backlash last year).
Okay, I'm interested to read your review. I'm still really iffy on it, even though it improved on second viewing, but I just don't think there is anything there outside of its beautiful 3D visuals.
ReplyDeleteIt's brawny corporate military vs. cute, flowery indigenous species, love the earth, keep your land to yourself, down with industrialization, etc. I don't know what else to say, it didn't work for me. I really wish I could get behind it, but I can't.