Split Decision: “Avatar: The Way of Water”

No two people feel the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the awards movies this year. Here’s Glenn Dunks and Cláudio Alves on James Cameron’s latest.

GLENN: Hi Cláudio! Welcome to Pandora... the whales are majestic, the grass gets you stones (mmhmmm) and the eyewear are Ray-Bans. An awful lot of ink has been spilled across the 13 years between Avatar movies. Ink about how nobody remembers Avatar. Ink about how it has no cultural imprint. Ink about how nobody knows the characters' names. Ink about how nobody actually even liked the 2009 original and it was purely a hit because of the 3D. And yet here we are with a James Cameron movie already having become (yet again) the highest grossing movie of the year and also potentially (yet again) the leader of the nomination board on Oscar morning 2023…

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Tweetweek

Honk!

Every Batman actor should have to audition with this scene. pic.twitter.com/jzqKqVo9QO

— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) September 26, 2022

How much would you pay to see the audition tapes of Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Michael Keaton, and Robert Pattinson? More after the jump including embarrassing deaths, Avatar thoughts, Muppets request, Emily Watson shaming, a brilliant Wes Anderson suggestion, questionable phrasing, and one final round of Dont Worry Darling tweets...

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Lunchtime Poll: So, you're turning into an alien...

by Nathaniel R

Today marks the 10th anniversary of District 9 (2009), a major sleeper hit and Oscar success in its year. Remember that year when it seemed like anything was possible for the sudden extra Best Picture slots ... before the awards strategists and specialty distributors conquered the new system to make it more like the old system again in terms of what got a Best Picture nod. 

District 9 was totally snubbed in Best Makeup which was insane. What does the makeup branch have against body horror anyway? Which brings us to today's lunchtime poll. You've become infected and are turning into an alien. Choose which movie alien you'd like to become and why. Here are some of movie aliens for inspiration and to get the conversation started...

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goodness gracious, great links of fire

• Variety Susanne Bier to direct Nicole Kidman in the miniseries The Undoing about a therapist whose husband goes missing
• Paste Kyle Turner on the "literary drag" of Can You Ever Forgive Me?
• Decider Julia Roberts 'queen of comebacks she never had to make'
• Pajiba an ode to Missy on Big Mouth (also my favorite character on the show)
• AV Club Emma Thompson wore sneakers to her damehood ceremony
• IndieWire it's foolish to bet against James Cameron even if you think the idea of four more Avatars is insane

• Remezcla why was the Cuban submission Sergio & Sergei left off the Oscar Foreign Film list?
• THR will Netflix caving on an exclusive theatrical window for Roma mean more films will get that treatment?
• Vulture on the extreme closeups in this season's awards contenders
• i09 interesting piece on why we need more utopian fiction (it's all dystopias out there currently)
• Vulture unexpectedly good article "in defense of the medicore music biopic" on Bohemian Rhapsody, Great Balls of Fire, The Doors, and more...
• People Idris Elba named "sexiest man alive" for 2018
• Gizmodo MoviePass didn't kill the dream of subscription-based moviegoing. A new competitor Sinemia has lots of tiered pricing options and a $24 monthly charge if you want unlimited one non 3D movie a day.
• /Film Nothing ever stays dead onscreen. Breaking Bad will now get a film version with Aaron Paul expected to return (as a sequel to the series)
• Broadway World Angela Bassett and Cicely Tyson named honorary chairs of the 60th anniversary gala of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Post Election Blueishness
• Slate offers a practical optimistic way to look at the election results yesterday
• New Yorker "Putin Loses Control of the House" - funny piece!

Links!

film/tv
• Towleroad - I am so not an Andy Cohen fan but this game 'uncomfortably close' that gets Andrew Rannells and Matt Bomer nose-to-nose is... well, I'm here for it. It's also nice to learn that they both made excellent choices in their favorite movie ever.
• i09 fun illustrated poster of 80s movies. I'd ask you to see how many you recognize but if you know the 80s you'll know them all because the films represented (save arguably one) are fairly pop culture famous
• IndieWire -the new super in Incredibles 2 is very Kristen Stewart-esque
• AV Club -apparently ABC is really trying to come up with a way to continue Roseanne without Roseanne!
• Deadline report on the filming of Avatar 2 and Avatar 3. Zoe Saldana has already wrapped her part and James Cameron brags that Kate Winslet can hold her breath underwater for seven minutes. Hmmm. Is that even possible for humans? Really?
• Mirror - very odd report on Catherine Zeta-Jones bragging about her fortune and beauty. File under 'if you got it, flaunt it' I guess?

all Supers all the time
• FSR Captain Marvel will use female Turkish composer Pinar Toprak for the score. That's quite a surprise since her filmography to date is quite obscure with mostly low profile documentaries and TV movies but congratulations! I've never seen the series Krypton, her highest profile gig. If you do, how do you like the music?

• Coming Soon - Wonder Woman's sequel is called Wonder Woman 1984 and there are a few new photos. Love the brighter costume. Annoyed that Steve Trevor is back. No one ever stays dead in comic book films!
• ComicBook.com - Kevin Smith got Marvel screenwriters to say how they'd fix the DC Extended Universe of movies. Sound simple advice but I can't imagine DC is happy about the conversation.
• /Film a bit of info on Patrick Wilson's villain in Aquaman and why he was cast

offscreen
• Damian Alexander - insightful cartoon about the way boys are trained to devalue female protagonists. I relate so much because I loved heroines from the start but knew instinctively that that was 'weird'.