January 6, 2010
Well, not everybody likes James Cameron's billion dollar baby. I mentioned to the Top Secret Writer that Avatar is so much a Western it's not even funny, and perhaps we could learn a thing or two from it. Got this scathing review back:

Avatar Villain Turns On College Professor
"BBB: Now let us not use Avatar as a model of work ethic. Cameron is a billionaire--he has no day job (or two). He has not made a film since 1997. His movie, which I found a weird merger of the cartoon Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves (and not as good a film as either), is a marvelous spectacle of computer-generated genius but a total bust as story (much like an old wooden DeMille epic--spectacle ten, story two). The writing was ham-fisted and the characters one-dimensional. The idiotic use of modern political terms (shock and awe--we must fight terror with terror) was obtrusive and jarring, taking the viewer out of the make-believe world. My favorite character was Lang's Colonel--at least he believed in something! This film has nothing to teach anyone about writing a story. To think I took all the kids (plus boyfriends--10 humans at $11.50 each) to this 3-D mess and thus contributed to Cameron's cavier - hate America and all Western civilization while growing fat off it - lifestyle is infuriating."
—Paul Andrew Hutton

Leave it to Hutton to admire and relate to the villain of the piece. Ha.

"Has anyone seen Avatar? They made another $300 million this weekend. Oh wait, that's Tiger Woods' wife."
—David Letterman