The most expensive movie of all time is going to suck.

Today, the most expensive movie of all time is hitting theatres. James Cameron's "Avatar".

The movie is reputed to have cost $500 million to make. That's half a billion dollars. That amount of money can buy two whole African countries.

And what will we get for this money? We will get 2 hours of amazing, unbelievable, impressive visual CGI effects. These effects will be awesome for about 5 minutes. Then the boredom will set in.

That's sort of the way it is with fireworks. You're interested for a few minutes, then the mindless explosions get boring.

A good movie needs a good story, with good characters and strong writing. Look at Star Wars. The original Star Wars had lame special effects but an amazing story. The new Star Wars had great effects, but a lame story.

Which were better? Not one person will tell you the new Star Wars movies are superior. Not one.

I'm skeptical that a half billion dollar movie will be any good. Why? Because they spent all the money on special effects. They didn't put any resources into characters or scripts.

Why did they spend half a billion on special effects? Because the script was so bad they needed dazzling effects to make the movie work.

Either way, the movie is going to suck.

Post script:

(By the way, I'm not saying Avatar won't make profit. I think that's almost a forgone conclusion because we'll be hit over the head with the hype and people will go see it. I'm saying the movie won't be very good. It can't be.)

(Let's look at a couple examples. 1) Pirates of the Caribbean. Made a ton of money - but the movies were mediocre at best. The last 2 were downright boring. 2) Spiderman - made a ton of money. But the movies got worse and worse.

Finally, let's look at a counter-example. Lord of the Rings. Great special effects and great movies. So it is possible that Avatar could pull it off, just not very likely.)

Modern Warfare vs. Twilight New Moon

Modern Warfare is a first-person shooter video game. Twilight New Moon is a fantasy-romance movie based on the novel by author Stephenie Meyer.

Both were released at the same time (mid-November). Every news story was about how Twilight New Moon was so popular and it was breaking records and was a cultural phenomenon. Every magazine cover featured Bella and Edward.

I heard a couple news stories about Modern Warfare.

Here's a comparison:

Modern Warfare 2
- first day sales $310 million
- first 5 days sales $550 million

Twilight New Moon
- first day sales $26.3 million
- first week $296 million

The lesson here is that whenever the media tells you that something is a cultural phenomenon, it's not telling you that there is something else a whole lot bigger.

In this case, it's a video game. No one wants to hear that. People who play video games are viewed as losers and geeks by the media. They're viewed as a tiny, insignificant subculture.

Who's your daddy New Moon!!!!

Changeling is the most depressing movie I've ever seen.

Recently watched Clint Eastwood's Changeling starring Angelina Jolie. Oh man, what a depressing flick. I simply can no longer watch movies in which children are harmed or killed or brutally die. As a parent, it just hurts too much.

The movie is a parent's nightmare. If any of the stuff happened to a real parent they'd simply go insane. And in fact, there's a scene in which they're about to shock Angelina's brain into mush inside an insane asylum.

The movie is one horrible, depressing scene after another. No parent should watch it. In fact, there should be a new parent-rating criteria sort of like the R-rated and PG-rated etc. It should be something like "NP - No parent may watch this movie unless accompanied by a non-parent adult."

American Gangster is the longest movie I've ever seen.

We rented American Gangster, with Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, last weekend. Man, that was a long movie. It took us 3 viewing sessions and 2 full days to watch the thing. I returned the movie with 15 minutes to spare.

Here's what happened:

8pm - 10pm
[turn on the blu-ray and it asks if we want to watch the extended version.]

Me: Should we watch the extended version?
C: Yeah, maybe we should.
Me: Might be kind of long. Let's just watch the regular version.
C: Ok.

[Later]
Me: I'm tired do you want to go to bed?
C: Not yet.

[Later]
Me: I'm very tired now. Let's go to bed.
C: Ok.

Day 2, 2pm - 4pm

Me: Jake's napping. Do you want to finish the movie?
C: Yes.

[Later]
Me: Jake's up. We'll have to watch the rest tonight. I don't even think it's close to ending. The two main character's haven't met yet.

Day 2, 8pm-10pm
C: This is pretty slow paced.
Me: I hope I can return the movie on time.