Selling Out
By Tom Macy
February 4, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Luckily, all throughout 2009 I have been cataloguing my movie going habits and musings – both here on BOP and on the blog I kept in the former half of 2009 before I started writing for BOP (Click here to read it. If you think my jokes aren't funny now, just wait). This archive has provided me with a unique opportunity to scroll back thru the year and see exactly where my head was as Avatar approached and how I came to find myself in the Pandora-induced daze that led to these events. It's quite an illuminating experience.
We begin back in March of 2009. I wrote a piece about 3D and its potential to jump start the box office the way Hollywood hoped it would. I had this to say:
"Personally, I find whole thing rather silly. I don't have a hatred for 3D movies, but I've never had an experience with one that was greatly enhanced by the extra dimension." I capped off the article with the unqualified zinger "Worry about the what's in the package, not how it's wrapped." I think I was waiting for a slow clap. I did, however ,acknowledge the impending Avatar, then nine months away, as a potential game-changer. However, I referred to its director as "James I'm-the-king-of the-world-for-making-a-movie-that-made teenagers-cry-and-no-one-likes-anymore Cameron." I think skeptical is an understatement.
Despite this, Cameron resurfaced in my writing again barely six weeks later in a post I wrote about the eclectic pleasures Sunday TV. I did a similar column for Selling Out in August. I had stumbled across Aliens, Terminator 2 (two of my favorite action films of all-time) and True Lies (another great ride) all in the same afternoon. Faced with three Cameron films I unabashedly loved, I was forced to acknowledge that the man knew what he was doing. But still I couldn't help getting this in:
"I love to rip on Cameron and won't stop. When you stand on a stage and say to a billion people, ‘I'm the king of the world!' after winning an award for directing Titanic, you deserve what's coming to you."
Again with the Titanic reference! A little later in the post I posed this query:
"I don't what's going on with [Cameron] lately. He hasn't directed a narrative film since Titanic. Instead he's been making underwater IMAX movies with titles that contain titles of his previous films, Ghosts of the Abyss and Aliens of the Deep. I wonder if Secrets of the Piranha 2: The Spawning is next. See, now I'm ripping on him again. James Cameron's sense of entitlement is so unlikeable even when being praised he gets made fun of. Perhaps Avatar, his 3D extravaganza coming out this December, will ‘right the ship.'"
Remember what I said about the jokes? So, even though I admitted to not just enjoying but unabashedly loving three of his films, I still wouldn't show James Cameron respect as a filmmaker, ripping on him every time his name is mentioned like he's George Lucas. The only real bone I had to pick was Titanic, which is VERY ironic considering what happened several months later.
On October 15th, now writing Selling Out, I wrote a column again inspired by a film I randomly came across while flipping channels on a Sunday. Honestly, how much is Cameron paying the programmers of TNT anyway? Turns out the ship truly is unsinkable after all. Perhaps you remember this estrogen-stuffed article. If not, here's the most telling part:
"Horner cues the slow electric percussion as his theme swells. She runs into Jack's arms sobbing as he asks, ‘Why did you do that, Rose? You're so stupid!' She replies, ‘You jump, I jump, right?' My eyes instantly welled. What was happening? I actually said out loud, alone in my apartment, ‘What the hell?' "
Actually, my language was a little more colorful than that. So where did this come from? My position on Titanic, the only apparent cause for my disdain towards James Cameron, is completely reversed. True, I may have been in an emotional place at the time, but regardless, I can't ignore the fact that in a span of seven months I, unprompted, praised four of Cameron's films. So why was I still reluctant to greet James Cameron's first film in over a decade with any kind of real excitement?
The week before Avatar, Monday Morning Quarterback asked what our thoughts were on the films impending release:
"The odds seem to be stacked against him. The buzz isn't exactly deafening and the response to trailers seems to have been fairly tepid, considering the hype." At least I gave him this much credit: "But this is the same place we were back in December 1997, so doubters beware." But then I still had to add, "Of course, I don't expect a Titanic-like outcome. I don't think blue-humanoid-sea monkeys are as mesmerizing to 14-year-old girls as a 22-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio. I just found out the girl I'm seeing now saw Titanic seven times when it came out. Good lord." I am such a damn hypocrite, especially considering she was the girl I wrote that article for.
So then I saw Avatar – for the first time. Here's when the madness really begins. I will now turn the floor over to this email I wrote the next day to imax@info.com:
"I'd be surprised if this reaches anyone who will give it a second glance but I think writing it is the only way to exorcise my current frustration. I saw Avatar on IMAX 3D at the AMC Loews in Lincoln Square - the only true IMAX screen in NYC. Having bought the tickets way in advance I arrived at the theatre a few hours before the start of my 1:20 a.m. showing to ensure the best possible seats.
Flash forward to 4:30 a.m. and me leaving the theatre feeling like I had been robbed. True, my disappointment could have been aided by the fact that I had a beer before I watched a nearly three-hour movie starting at 1:20 a.m. and was struggling to stay awake or perhaps because James Cameron's skill as a screenwriter is akin to Nicholas Cage's ability to say "pass", but that's none of your concern. However, what does concern you, and me, is that I am positive that the print of Avatar I saw was not IMAX sized. The image projected on the screen was visibly smaller than usual. I know that Avatar's aspect ratio is 1:78 and that IMAX is 4:3; hence, the image doesn't fit the entire screen. But this image didn't reach any of the screen's borders. Not even close.
I paid almost $20 and put in a lot of planning and effort to get what I hoped would be a truly unique and immersive film going experience. I do believe the aforementioned conditions in which I saw the film hindered that, but I also believe that if I got the size of the screen I paid for, with the image filling all my peripheral vision, the gorgeous bells and whistles Cameron employed may have had more of an effect and things might have been different.
And so I feel cheated, not just financially, but - dare I say - personally. I know I'm whining. Clearly, I'm a big, spoiled film nerd. But I'm one of those nerds you guys rely on, the nerd who buys his ticket almost three weeks early and waits in line for two and a half hours before the show. Maybe this is a case of some random mix up or the theater having issues - I couldn't find an email address for them - but I'm wholly unsatisfied. And now that I've reached the end of it, it turns out writing this email brought me no satisfaction. Hopefully my column this week for Box Office Prophets will provide some catharsis. That's not meant as a threat. I'm sure all seven members of my readership will have seen the film by the time it's posted. I just hope they, unlike me, got what they paid for."
Sheesh, maybe I was having my period or something. I'm as confused as you are, guys. Why was I so pissed off? Considering what I had written about James Cameron and Avatar earlier in the year, you'd never think I'd react this way to a dissatisfying movie-going experience. As I said, my anticipation – and subsequent disappointment – for films like Watchmen and Terminator Salvation were much greater. But I didn't write Zack Snyder or McG any emails, though they probably deserved them. Not to mention the fact that I referenced getting to the theater hours before hand. That's not the behavior of someone who is mildly interested in a film. So what was going on? Why was I in such denial?
I think the reasons are twofold. One, deep down I was really hoping to be blown away by Avatar. Cameron, whose films I have clearly always liked if not loved, had spent four years making this one, and quite a bit longer thinking about it. I think I believed there really was the possibility of "a truly unique and immersive film going experience." But following my "expectations ruin movies" mantra, I did my best to quell them by understating my excitement. The other reason was that I didn't want to acknowledge that Mr.-King-of-the world directing a movie actually got me excited. It's not unlike Sean Penn before he did Milk. I knew he was great but I still didn't like him. Basically, I was so deep in the James Cameron fan closet, I didn't even know I was in there.
As the positive word-of-mouth started to circulate, I released my grip on the negative response I had been clinging to since my first partial viewing - it really was partial, I totally dozed off for 15-20 minutes - deciding I hadn't given the movie a fair shake. After all, James Cameron waited over a decade for technology to catch up to his imagination. I owe that kind of dedication the benefit of the doubt. So, I saw the film a second time the very next day, having my expectations substantially lowered. I saw it on a normal-sized screen in 2D and, in a word, loved it. Leaving the theatre, which had just housed a seriously keyed up crowd, my opinion was something like:
"Similar to his previous action/adventure successes, Avatar's by-the-numbers plot and what I can best describe as a temp-script - you would assume lines like "Oh yeah, who's bad?" were just put in place until they could replace them with something not ridiculous during rewrites, but you'd be wrong – were all outshined by Cameron's virtuosic visual display and exemplary cinematic storytelling. "
But I wasn't satisfied. No, as this response in that week's Monday Morning Quarterback clearly shows:
Ultimately, how do you think Avatar will be remembered?
"That's tough. I think financially and critically it will be remembered as a success and usually that's all a film can hope for and more. But from the beginning, Avatar was being touted as the movie that was going to change the medium forever, and on the front it came up a little short. It is definitely on a scale unlike anything we've ever seen and motion capture will probably be utilized more now after the stunning results Cameron turned out. But ultimately, I think Avatar will be remembered as a sturdy stepping stone in the evolution of films, but not the all out game changer some were - perhaps unfairly - hoping for."
Allow me to explain. Discovering that Avatar was in fact a good film made me only more eager to have another viewing in 3D - with a clear head this time – to see if I could truly get that revolutionary movie-going experience I felt I had been cheated out of the first go round. So I did go again, over Christmas, seeing it 3D but not on IMAX. This time I enjoyed the film on an even deeper level with the added dimension. There were moments, particularly in the final sequence where I felt completely immersed in the added dimension.
But still I was frustrated. I wasn't transformed. You would think seeing a movie three times would be enough to decide what my opinion of it is. Yeah, you'd think. For some reason, I still couldn't shake the fact that there was an experience that Avatar was providing audiences that I just hadn't had yet.
While I was wrestling with my inner comprehension on this subject, Avatar was causing a Box Office inferno and all were swept up by its logic-defying display. I was certainly no different:
From Monday Morning Quarterback January 4th:
"GOOD GOD!!! I can't wait to see how the rest of you attempt to put this into words. In a few days, James Cameron will have directed the two biggest films of all-time. My mouth is still agape at the sight of its third weekend. Now that he is behind the two films to perform the most abnormally in the face of current box office trends in the last 20 years, Cameron has to be included with the likes of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas when discussing the most commercially successful filmmakers in history. I haven't been this riveted by a films success in a decade. Huzzah!"
I was obsessed with both its stunning behavior at the Box Office and my perceived potential in it to deliver something truly revolutionary. I was driven to see it a fourth time. The only other film I saw four times in the theatre was Return of the King, which is perfectly explainable since The Lord of the Rings trilogy had already defined my early 20s before the final installment was released. My head was spinning, I was hell bent on Avatar changing my movie-going life and before I knew it was naming Avatar my #2 movie of 2009, after the insurmountable Up.
That was when I took a step back and question things. Did I really love Avatar that much? More than Inglourious Basterds? An Education? There's certainly no film I thought about more last year. But when thinking about movies I had enjoyed the most, I realized my reaction to Avatar wasn't a response to the film itself, so much as it was an idea what it could possibility be. I loved what I wanted it to be.
I did see the film a fourth and final (for now) time. I returned to the scene of the original crime, the Lincoln Square IMAX theatre. I went with the girl for whom I wrote the Titanic article and eventually made fun of for seeing Titanic seven times. It all came full circle indeed.
So what's my opinion now that I've seen this film four times – well, really three and a half - in all its various forms? Great, totally great, unlike anything we've ever seen. But in the end, I can't say it changed my life.
My several in-theater experiences with Avatar were memorable, satisfying (yes) and often spectacular. This is a movie that will be talked about for a long time and when it is I will have very little bad to say about it. But overall, what I'll remember most is how I was swept up in the fever with the rest of the nation, hungry for a theater-going experience that changed our understanding of the medium. This is an unfair expectation. How could I think anything would ever top Jurassic Park when I was nine?
My Avatar obsession was like a whirlwind romance that was driven more by what I wanted it to be rather than what it actually was. This is in opposition to how I feel about a film like Titanic - yes, Titanic, with which, though it's had its ups and downs, my relationship is much more established and long lasting. It hasn't been in the forefront of my mind all these years, but it has certainly stood the test of time.
But let this be said, as I close the book once and for all on Avatar and get back to seeing other movies, I will never again doubt James Cameron. Sure, his overconfident sensibility – whether or not he can back it up – rubs me the wrong way. But I refuse to let that lead to me dismissing him again; he has worked his magic on me too many times. I can't undergo another two months of insanity the next time he releases a film.
So here's to you James, Avatar is unequivocally the biggest movie of all-time and well on its way to conquering the Oscars - which you know it will, 73 people saw The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air collapsed like a flan in the cupboard – and earning $700 million. It's gonna happen. Some may still give the biggest movie title to Gone With the Wind with its adjusted $1,485,028,000. Personally, I don't think you can judge the success of a film released in the TV-less movie going climate of 1939 against the Netflix-flatscreen-on demand-torrent-twitter tornado of a media circus we live in today. But to each his own. For me, I'm really to get down on my knees and pay homage to the king of the box office, and the world.
There, James Cameron, I said it. Now can I please get on with my life?