Since I reviewed “Avatar” a couple months ago, James Cameron has gone on the defensive with the film’s multitudinous critics. The Right thinks the film is anti-business, anti-military, anti-human, anti-Western, and anti-American. One charge he actually LIKES is John Nolte’s remark that it is a “Death Wish” for leftists. Cameron claims, “Nature gets to fight back. It’s ‘Death Wish’ for environmentalists. When did nature ever get to fight back in a movie?” (Perhaps James missed “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.”) Meanwhile, Cameron seems to have ignored right-wing critics like myself who claim the film is stupid.

That’s what I want to see Cameron address. I could care less whether the film is a slam against corporations, makes America the villain, or if it treats the military as a bunch of hate-mongering thugs, None of this is new to Hollywood.  They’ve been making movies like that for at least the past fifty years.

I think if he really had to defend the intelligence of the film he wouldn’t be able to do it.  Cameron is ignoring critics who found the film as dumb as a Supermodel, because it is also the one charge that might sink his Oscar hopes. Academy members wouldn’t vote for a stupid picture, and unfortunately many aren’t smart enough to know that it was. (more…)

So James Cameron was just on “The View” Wednesday morning, and he was disarmingly frank about the premise and purpose of his film, “Avatar.” He plainly explained it was anti-corporate, and that his goal was to take that “subversive” message, and wrap it up in an entertaining vehicle in a way that America, or the world, would swallow it whole.

Check it out here:

I admire the guy for admitting that. But I just don’t see the subversion he’s talking about. I can’t remember the last time I saw a “pro-corporate” movie, which to me would be truly subversive. I mean, can you imagine a director making a film about a drug company that works tirelessly to come up with medications that saves millions of lives? That’s happened in real life – more than a couple of times. Still, no movie. However, Hollywood craps out a pro-environmental, anti-big business flick faster than I can say “Pass the Charmin.”

And I can say that pretty fast. (more…)

Yahoo: A Demonstrator dressed as a figure of the movie ‘Avatar’, shouts slogans against Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah, Friday, Feb. 12, 2010. More here.

Associated Press:

JERUSALEM (AP) – Palestinian protesters have added a colorful twist to demonstrations against Israel’s separation barrier, painting themselves blue and posing as characters from the hit film “Avatar.”

The demonstrators also donned long hair and loincloths Friday for the weekly protest against the barrier near the village of Bilin.

They equated their struggle to the intergalactic one portrayed in the film. (more…)

Let me see if I’ve got this straight.

Under the aegis of Rupert Murdoch’s Twentieth Century-Fox, a zillion dollar corporation with over a billion in annual box office, James Cameron makes a movie, Avatar, about an average, avaricious, American corporation backed-up by a Marine garrison which is out to exploit or destroy a forest full of “fly-bittin’ savages” who listen to voices from trees for precious “Unobtanium!”

Reality check: if you wish to assay the true value of “Unobtanium,” try getting a return call from James Cameron or a movie deal with 20th Century Fox!

Gee whiz! I grew up believing that Earth would be taken over by a Blob, or an “Invasion of Bodysnatchers,” or a “Brother from Another Planet!” Now, according to Cameron we, you and I, are the space menace! We’re the Romulans! Since when did the United States of America become a member of the Sci-Fi Axis of Evil? Where are Captian Kirk, Spock, and Bones? (more…)

Jonah Goldberg in The Los Angeles Times:

In short, “Avatar” tells the tale of a disabled Marine, Jake Sully, who — through the wonders of movie magic — occupies the body of a 10-foot-tall alien so he can live among the mystical forest denizens of the moon world Pandora. Sully is sent in mufti, like a futuristic Lawrence of Arabia, to further the schemes of the evil corporate nature-rapists desperate to obtain the precious mineral “unobtainium” (no, really). Jake inevitably goes native, embraces the eco-faith of Pandora’s Na’Vi inhabitants and their tree goddess, the “all mother,” and rallies the Pandoran aborigines (not to mention the Pandoran ecosystem itself) against the evil forces of a thinly veiled 22nd century combine of Blackwater and Halliburton.

The film has been subjected to a sustained assault from many on the right, most notably by Ross Douthat in the New York Times, as an “apologia for pantheism.” Douthat’s criticisms hit the mark, but the most relevant point was raised by John Podhoretz in the Weekly Standard. Cameron wrote “Avatar,” says Podhoretz, “not to be controversial, but quite the opposite: He was making something he thought would be most pleasing to the greatest number of people.”

What would have been controversial is if — somehow — Cameron had made a movie in which the good guys accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts. (more…)