$230 million worth of pretty emptiness; or empty prettiness
written by Jack Kentala
I, like many others, already had an opinion about Avatar before I stepped into an IMAX theater and put on 3D glasses. I had an opinion about how I could spend $230 million. That, as a nonplussed, nonfan of Titantic, nor Aliens, nor the Terminator movies, I could make a hell of a better movie with $230 million than James Cameron. That as an independent filmmaker going broke making a film with an out-of-pocket budget of $15,000, I don’t have the risk of having so much money and marketing out of a product (as Avatar is certainly more product than film) and, thus, can actually tell a story where the morality isn’t black and white; where one set of people are eulogized while dying and the others are mercilessly slaughtered; where one feels a growing sense of fatigue at every shiny, pretty thing.
