Do, to some extent, believe the hype.
By Rob Stevens
19th January 2010

So, Avatar has won the Golden Globe for best drama picture (and best director). Not that it really matters – the Globes are a sort of rubbish karaoke version of the Oscars – but it presents an interesting situation. While Avatar is demolishing the box-office, both here in the UK and in the US, it isn’t really that popular among certain critics – notably here at the Cult. You might recall that I’m sort of the Avatar defender here – my review is easily the most positive, and I’m seemingly the only one who actually enjoyed the film. I’m not denying that it is flawed – it is badly flawed. Cameron has the trouble that he forgets that the audience is nearly always ahead of the film, and feels the need to explain absolutely everything in the most ridiculous detail, and he can’t really do dialogue.

The problem is the hype and the backlash that comes with any big movie. In the case of Avatar, it was critically quite liked. It holds 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert (for example) gave it a very positive review, and even the usually sniffy Mark Kermode and Peter Bradshaw respectively gave it positive reviews. So inevitably, there is a bit of a backlash, which will only be heightened by the seeming vindication of a Golden Globe. The fanboy screaming will be slightly hysterical, and the eye-rolling from some of the Cult members will echo loudly. So theoretically, my position should be as its defender – after all, there is no denying that I enjoyed the experience of the film - despite its flaws. So the hype might effect how I respond to the film to some degree. I might find myself defending it in conversation, while another film, that perhaps I might prefer, I might end up criticising for fear it itself is becoming overvalued.

And I don’t really want to be Avatar’s great defender, because I don’t think its worthy of the big awards. It’s a good film, but it isn’t as good as some of the other films in the running for the Best Picture Oscar (it’s better than some of the others, admittedly). I also don’t want Hollywood to self-congratulate itself for selling us on 3D, because I truly am becoming deeply fed-up with the 3D phenomena. If Avatar was to take Big Picture at the Academy Awards, I would roll my eyes because Hollywood would keep pushing the third dimension on us forever and ever.

So suddenly, I might start being more critical of Avatar than I first was and remember the (obvious) flaws over the good stuff. Because I would be disappointed to some degree if it won Best Picture (I don’t think it will be incidentally). I’m just as much buying into the hype but in the other way. So of course the only answer is to tune all the other stuff out and just not pay any attention to the hype. But I can’t, I’m hopeless. I’ll have to stay up and watch the Oscars from now until the end of time. I have to read the blogs, the opinion columns, the fan-boy backlash, all the other reviews. It’s all part of what I love about films.

To me, cinema is a social thing. That might sound weird about a medium where you have to sit in the dark for two hours silently, but it’s all the other stuff – the excited expectation on the way to the cinema, the demented arguing afterwards. Nowadays, that demented arguing extends to the online, which is wonderful. A place where people can discover new films and talk to each other and argue endlessly about the qualities of films. Even if it does completely confuse the issue of how much I like a film, or otherwise.