Come on, Jim. Can't wait for more Avatar.
Haters gonna hate.

And goddamn, less than a month until Prometheus from Ridley!
Glad to see the masters at work.

Now that is something I want to see! <3

No, Avengers was very good, a nearly flawless blockbuster. It was funny, touching, character-driven, and had absolutely stunning visuals.

The type of movie James Cameron hasn't made since Aliens, a movie whose character templates he has used at least two more times in The Abyss and Avatar.

James Cameron has made some good movies. Arguably, the only great ones he has made are Aliens and Titanic. Not a bad resume but like George Lucas, he has spent the past ten plus years going to the same well with diminishing results. Avatar, at best, is a mediocre movie. I will argue that it was flat-out bad. It was predictable, trite, derivative, and poorly executed. Remove the stunning visuals and it's not much more than a Michael Bay movie.

I have not seen (nor do I have any desire to see) Avatar.

However, I do postulate that much of its success had to do with (a) it being visually different than anything out there and (b) it being done well in 3D.

The first point is lost since the movie is not new.
The second point is lost since everyone is into 3D today.

Finally, there is an old saying "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." This might work -- or James Cameron could find things quite scrambled. I would bet more on the latter.

Mike from Morgantown

I am terrified that Prometheus is going to suck. I don't have good feelings about the film after the last trailer. It looked like Alien Redux. I hope I'm wrong but Scott hasn't done much since Black Hawk Down.

Justin Beiber.

I thought American Ganster was decent. Didn't find Black Hawk Down entertaining at all.

His best film is either Gladiator or Alien in my opinion.

While Avatar's success did ride on the back of it being the first big 3D movie with spectacular effects, I think you're over looking the fact that releasing even a shoddy, low-bugdet sequel to a movie with the popularity and recognition of Avatar would probably make money.

I have almost no doubt that even if the movie is substantially worse than the first, with the success of the first film behind it and the absolutley massive marketing clout James Cameron can swing behind his movies, a sequel would still make money. Certainly not the record breaking profits of the first, but a lot of money.

Ten years from now, nobody is going to be praising Avatar. Just two or three years after its release, people already dismiss the film. It will never attain a spot in history like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, or Alien/Aliens. Hell, ten years from now, more people will still be watching Nolan's Batman trilogy and even the Avengers set of movies (Iron Man, Thor, Cap, Avengers) will probably have more audience traction than Avatar (unless the sequels are amazing, an unlikely scenario). Avatar, like a Zack Snyder film, is more show than go. It doesn't mean they're all bad (Watchmen was decent) and I'll defer to someone thinking Avatar is an okay movie (but I still think it's pretty bad) but it's never going to reach the kind of cult status I listed at the beginning of the paragraph.

People like all sorts of bad things. Children are not unique in that arena. I don't care what you say, the Transformers movies are bad. Terrible, actually. No character development, unfunny attempts at humor, plot holes the size of Alaska, and incomprehensible action scenes. They are completely disposable movies in almost every way a movie can be disposable. Yet those Transformers movies make money hand over fist. People have shitty taste in lots of things. After all, the novel The DaVinci Code was the best selling book for how long? It's a terrible fucking book that panders to the lowest common denominator, which also helps explain some of its popularity. Terrible musicians shoot to the top of the charts almost every month. What makes you think movies are any different?

As I said earlier, popular opinion does not equal meritocracy.

Blade Runner says hi. Personally, I'd put Alien at the top of the list. It's a nearly perfect sci-fi/horror blend that is far and away the best of the franchise, though Aliens is a lot of fun in an entirely different way.

I didn't see American Gangster. I keep meaning to check it out but haven't gotten around to it.