Avatar

Look, I'm getting a lot of pressure to go see Avatar. People at the office, people on Facebook, Manohla Dargis --- they all keep saying how great it is and how it's the best movie ever, but when I ask why, with the exception of Manohla, the responses are less that satisfying.

"It's awesome." "It was so good." And my favorite, when questioning the film's ham-fisted message: "Maybe I don't want to think all the time. When I go to a movie sometimes I just want to be entertained." To me that's like excusing heroin addiction or alcoholism -- I just want to block out everything for a while and not have to think about things. Watch Intervention and tell me if I'm wrong. And, yes, I realize that I had said that about Bollywood spectacle cinema, but I don't tell anyone else that they have to see it in order to justify my guilty pleasure in watching it. It's good at what it does, but it's not for everyone, and, above all, I noted that Bollywood spectacle doesn't preach. Not so with James Cameron. You're being fed his take on social inequality (and the "boo-yah! love conquers all with rocket fire" solution) whether you realize it or not.

Now, I generally like Manohla's New York Times reviews, and I trust her 90% of the time. Her review of Avatar touts the visuals ("eye-popping detail," "slender hips, a miniature-apple rear"), but it doesn't give me any hope that the rest of the movie backs up the eye candy: "on occasion losing you with some of the comically broad dialogue. He's a masterly storyteller if a rather less than nimble prose writer." I'm not going to argue against the visual aspects of the movie, which appear to be really impressive, expensive and gorgeous to look at. But what I can't get passed is the Sociology for Dummies aspect of the story, which is "less than nimble."

The same can be said for Titanic, yet another James Cameron film that everyone told me to go see and, in that case, I listened. Yes, the ship breaking apart in Titanic was fantastic, and the visuals were stunning, but sitting through DiCaprio saying "I reckon" to show he's American and watching Billy Zane hit Kate Winslet to show he's bad was torture. It's everything that's right and wrong with cinema: using technology to paint a picture and dumbing everything else down to the level of a 3-year-old's mentality to make sure we all get the message. I'm not a complete idiot and I hate being treated like one, especially by someone who appears to be a bigger idiot than I am.

I can't tell from the reviews, word of mouth or the trailer that Avatar is any different in essence from Titanic, and the idea of handing that jerk $8 of my money on top of having to see him jump around on stage at the Oscars again after stealing 3 hours of my life ... dude ... it's more than I can bear.

So quit buggin' me.