BF2S Forums Avatar on Blu Ray

Uzique wrote:

lol at the notion that film-award ceremonies are a measure of art

populist self-congratulatory fellatio contests.

it's like saying that the winners of the Booker Prize are the greatest novelists of our generation.

no. i forward you to kant: fine art rules above agreeable art rules over craft-art

avatar is in the middle catergory, unless you didnt guess

Uzique wrote:

i don't think im an expert.

i think avatar is simply a film that invests all of its efforts in a visual/aural spectacle. it's exactly like a suspense/thriller film/novel. a cheap trick, basically. you're enraptured and entertained for the duration, led along by the hand as the director/author shows off everything they have, but then the effect soon wears off afterwards and diminishes dramatically with repeat watches/re-reads. i don't get the sense that im watching a particularly deep or meaningful film with avatar - instead it comes across as a contrived attempt; a script-writer's lazy effort to add some depth and paradigmatic content to a largely linear and superficial narrative. i felt like i was more being led from one show-off demonstration of 3D technology to another in avatar; i very quickly became self-aware of the fact that i wasn't entertained by the plot or the acting. the marvel and the entertainment lay in the visuals- the surface representation. to me, that is not great cinema. i refer you back to my analogy of a suspense/thriller. it can have awful writing and the bare-minimum of the 'required' power to convince and pass mimetically, and you are then 'entertained' by a fundamentally non-artistic aspect, i.e. the sense of suspense, the special-effects, the new sensations associated with the 3D IMAX trip, etc.

i don't think im passing expert opinion or a critical review on avatar by saying it's a bad film. im just applying the artistic and philosophical notions that i possess as a viewer to what postures as a piece of 'art'. and it doesn't pass. i will make no secret of the fact that my structuralist, objective view of art largely comes from Hume and Kant; in other words, the understanding that some art is made to be artistic, transcendent and timeless, and the other half (the larger, more mass-produced industry) simply exists for entertainment. i have no doubt that avatar is entertaining. but, as i hope my post has adduced, i do not believe it is entertaining because it is a good 'film'. it is entertaining because it is a spectacle. a spectacle that will lose its ability to stun and impress with repeat watches. ergo: i will not be purchasing it on blu-ray, and i believe the people that do buy it are the lowest common denominator of art-consumers, i.e. the people that largely buy into the 'agreeable' art category, to use kant's terminology.

thank you, you've been a wonderful audience

Uzique Ebert, PhD, Shit State University.

Uzique wrote:

well, that's the division between us then: i look for something a little more than mere 'entertainment', especially when it comes to spending £'s on cinema-trips AND later blu-ray/dvd releases. it has to be more than 'just' entertaining to qualify for me - because, to be honest, a lot of things are just 'entertaining'. this film was heralded as the next coming of christ, and that it very much was fucking not. i even think, despite my skeptical view of 'The Academy', that the awards it was given are a joke, as well. the 'cinematography' category has basically been reduced down to a retard's definition of 'what makes us go wow'. there's no consideration of 'cinematography' as an artistic process. it's a shame.

venom6 wrote:

No! Avatar sux anyway ! I dont even saw it and im not going to.

lrishpride wrote:

I own it on Blu-ray, however I feel it will be shit without 3D.

belldawg wrote:

hired avatar on blu ray, was a treat to the eyes