all the world is green

so, avatar has won 'best drama' at the golden globes, thus completely destroying them as a valid award ceremony.
this could've happened back when ricky gervais won the awards for extras (the show where gervais demonstrated to us that he knew a lot of famous people). actually, it should've happened last time james cameron won best drama, for his titanic waste of 3 hours of my life.

avatar was okay. i'm not going to knock it too much as a film. it did the job it was meant to do, which was: have impressive CGI, cost a lot of money, look like it wasn't a pointless ten years of jim cameron's life. admittedly it was an impressive sight, largely helped by watching it from premier seats at the iMax (biggest screen in europe). and the CGI stuff did blow me away as much as CGI can manage; y'know, CGI doesn't really get you in the soul or make your heart beat faster. who cares when a cartoon is in peril? who is impressed when a drawing jumps from the back of a dragon onto a helicopter?

the scenery was good too. again CGI, but a very pretty picture that someone did.

stunning production design throughout the film. yes, the scenery, but also the sets and creatures and vehicles and costumes and such. they were also all done on MS Paint, but some one had to design them in the first place and probably used a pencil and some paper.

not wishing to harp on too much about CGI. it's a controlled disgruntle. it's the world i have to live in, so i'll just have to get past it. at some point.

the acting was average, but not terrible. it was probably pretty hard work for any of the actors - having to perform in a big green room and trying to engage with someone wrapped in a strange body-suit covered by ping-pong balls.

the film had a sufficient grasp of technology too. i happened to see it in 3D and there were bits that looked cool. i mean, 3D did constantly make me feel nauseous, display a weird rainbow haze around anything fast moving and make me wonder why it is suddenly considered better that a character's 10 metre high face can be projected out to a couple of millimetres from your face... but there were some bits that made you gasp. like big wide shots of enormous landscapes and... umm. oh, that's it.

i think i've been fair. i'm not doing one of those reactionary rants that entirely seeks to discredit something by destroying every aspect. agreed, i don't like CGI very much, at all, as a rule, but that's not specific to Dances With Smurfs. it was impressive, over all.

but

Best Drama?!... holy crap. i thought it was widely regarded that the story/script region of the whole production was the weakest aspect. i'd even written off any expectation that it was going to be any good, because it wasn't an important part of this film. i'd forgiven this before i even walked into the auditorium.

Best Drama?!...there was no drama. impressive action sequences, clever (CGI) camera work, fast moving things, actors talking and walking at the same time... yes! drama? no. for drama to exist, you need internal battles and personal conflicts. you need surprise and fear and worry and heartache; and it all needs to be unpredictable and take you on an emotional journey that you can't control. you'd get more drama from an episode of hollyoaks. the nearest i got to 'unexpected' was when i saw a blue cartoon's nipple and got a bit of an erection.

Best Drama?!... don't be so fucking stupid.