Every year, when the Oscar noms come out, how many of the big 5 or so do you manage to see before the ceremony? At least 3 of them aren’t yet released in the U.K. so you’d do well to think about your answer, because it could possibly unveil you to be the Knock-Off-Nigel, car-stealing charlatan you clearly are. I have to aim to collect them gradually over the next year or more. So now that Avatar, nominated for 9, and winner of 3 golden humanoid statues, has been released on DVD for just £9.99, it’s an easy sell to find out what everyone’s raving about.

2½ hours later, and I’m still waiting for an answer. Seriously, can anyone explain to me what’s so special about these blue humanoid statues? Let’s see, the winning Oscars were for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effects. All that’s saying is that it looked nice. Yes, OK. It looked quite nice, bright orange flowers, and light emitting dreadlocks of purple trees. I did like how a square foot of jungle lights up when pressured. But it wasn’t that nice. What did it beat to the awards?

Cinematography

Harry Potter and the Blood Prince

Inglourious Basterds

The Hurt Locker

Das Weisse Band – Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte

I haven’t seen the (presumably) German flick, but the rest... were these really the best of the 2009-2010 season? In which case, what the fuck is happening to Cinematography as an artistic medium?!

Art Direction

Nine

Sherlock Holmes

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Young Victoria

Of these admittedly I’ve only seen Sherlock Holmes but if that’s the standard, then I’d advise the Art Director’s unions raise their collective socks!

Visual Effects

District 9

Star Trek

The imagined world of Pandora presented in Avatar is all very creative and everything. Floating mountains, huge trees, banshees, it’s a dream world. Which is all sci-fi alien inhabited planets can be (seeing as no one knows what any real ones look like). But is this really the technological peak of what today’s scientific advances can muster? It looks like a series of cut scenes from a late 90s computer game. I keep wondering when Solid Snake will poke his nose around a leaf, or imagining a Chocobo running after Jake.

After the perceived greatness, and the looks of the thing, I have other gripes. The main one, why is it so frigging long? 162 minutes! Anyone forced to sit through the cinema screening deserved a medal (and cushion) afterwards. Yet despite James Cameron having nearly 3 hours to tell the story, it still doesn’t seem long enough for him. He’s riddled it with long-shot montages of nothing. When describing the plot of a film so complicated, the only way to film it is with a 3-hour montage, you’d think it’d take me a 10-page document to get across all the intricacies. But I’m feeling ambitious; maybe I’ll give it a go.

Paraplegic Marine Jake is sent to the Alien planet Pandora to join a war against the incumbent race. Jake learns the ways of the alien tribe, and is seduced to join them in defeating the real enemy, his own people.

Oh, that was pretty easy. Two sentences. How long did that take to read? 10? 11 seconds? If you’ve not seen the film, why not just leave it at that. You’re not missing anything else, believe me.