"67th Golden Globes" A Guest Article by Bryan Peterson

First off, let me get this out the way, I'm fucking angry, I'm don't know the specifics of what I'm angry about, but I feel it and I'm going to run with it. Maybe I haven't been paying attention, but have the Golden Globes always been for sale? We all know there are purchased awards of all varieties, but they usually slip by unnoticed. The Golden Globes tonight were more awkward than the christmas dinner where your cousin announced she's eloping with your uncle, but they stayed for turkey first. Ricky Gervias pretty much held his title as "the worlds biggest guy who just doesn't give a fuck", and it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It's like if Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa with human feces and had a chuckle to himself when people 'ooed' and 'awwed' at it. Truly a masterful and perfectly executed act of douche baggery. He said fuck you to the people who needed to hear it most, and those who got it, got it, and those who didn't can fuck themselves.

I have gotten a little off track. What I really wanted to talk about was a brief off hand comment Gervais made right in the beginning, a comment about buying the Golden Globes. People laughed and it was no big deal, but as the night went on it was almost like there was an odd fog in the room. It was a knot in the pit of everyone's stomach, that you couldn't shake. There were a few awards that went by and you thought "Huh! didn't  see that coming" but they could have slithered by, no real discrepancies. The big "saaayy whhaaat!" moments of the evening happened around the end. When you look at the the movies that came out this year, there are some good ones, but for some reason the movie "The Proposal" ended up in the gripping compelling story pile. It didn't win, but its weird it was even nominated. It's a real "one of these things is not like the others" situation, that statement is purely opinion, but I think you know what I mean. When Sandra Bullock took the best actress award that's when people in the crowd started looking around the room with an odd feeling, it was like they were looking for a smell of undetermined origin. She even asked "who bought me this award?" What she was talking about was beating out "Precious" star Gabourey Sidibe. Actors don't buy their own awards (that is, if they're bought) actors have a lot to gain from an award, but there are people with a lot more to gain from the actor in their movie getting an award. 


By far the most clearly uncomfortable moment of the night was "Avatar" taking best picture. There once again was a list of compelling possible canidates for best picture, but "Avatar" took it. When the camera panned around the room, no one was smilling, few people were clapping, everyone had this off putting disoriented look on their face like they were not sure what happened, and as James Cameron spilled his heart to the audience about how honored he was, they were not listening. There was a loud chatter amongst the crowd that could not be drowned out. It was like "Avatar" winning that award to the actors was like telling a bunch of kids there is no Santa. It was like saying none of this matters, the awards are nothing but a sticker they can stick on a DVD to sell more. 

"Avatar" Review

So here's what I want you to do. Take every film about Europeans and their negative interactions with Native Americans. Do you have it? Good. Now take that and place it in a blender. Mix it up until it’s a thick pulpy mush. Throw said pulpy mush on a distant planet in the future and let sit for three hours. And...Voila, now you have James Cameron's highly anticipated and critically acclaimed film "Avatar".

I'm being entirely too harsh here, believe me I’m aware. "Avatar" centers around Jake Sully as he flies off to a wild and untamed alien world called “Pandora” where he will mentally link with a hybrid composed of the native alien species and human DNA. All of this is done in hopes that they can communicate with the native species and convince them to move so they can mine for a substance called “unobtainium”, a name that caused me to physically shudder from its transparency.

Overall the film is good, I don’t regret having paid $14.50 to see it in 3D. The 3D is where the film really shines. I honestly believe that it’s the closest I’ll ever get to physically inhabiting another world. The technical aspects are out of this world. Cameron should be proud of his technical prowess and the world that he crafted and designed into near perfection. But that’s where the perfection ends. Cameron spends so much time developing and establishing the Universe itself as legitimate that the actual character development takes a back seat. Every character is one dimensional and singular in their motivations. The bad guys are the bad guys and the good guys are perfect beings with little room for other thoughts on the characters. No real information is given about the characters backgrounds or why exactly they want the things they want. We just have to understand that they do.

“Avatar” tries to make a case against capitalism and military force, but the message becomes convoluted when they sum up the bad guys motivation in one sentence and then we are barred from interacting with those characters. When we see the flip side and watch Jake Sully as he takes in the new environment and culture we barely get time to embrace Sully or any of the other alien personas that we encounter. No the focus is all put on the environment itself and the odd and colorful creatures and landscapes that are found on the alien planet Pandora. We invest ourselves so much in the customs and practices of the culture that we find out little about who these people are.

Given all of the hype surrounding this film I had expected more, even going against my gut instinct that the film wouldn’t be that great based on the fact that every trailer released for “Avatar” tells you very little about the plot of the film and instead focuses on all of the action. Then the reviews came in and they were all overwhelmingly positive, and everyone had nothing but high praise for the film. I think something bigger is happening here though. Keep in mind that this is one of the most expensive films in history and the studio needs to make their money back.

It is by no means a bad movie, but it isn’t a great one either. I’ll probably forget all about it by this time tomorrow, but I will remember the lush cinematography and the incredible use of the 3D medium that transports you to another time and place.