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The Real Avatar: Story of a Sacred Mountain (Video)

Avatar Release To Kick Off Million Tree Planting Initiative

Source: Ecorazzi - While we’re not sure if anything about the DVD itself will be green, we’re happy to announce that Twentieth Century Fox isn’t just using Earth Day as it’s marketing bitch for Avatar. At a press conference today, the studio and its billion-dollar director James Cameron announced a partnership with the Earth Day Network to plant one million trees in honor of the film by the end of 2010.

“I am pleased to have the opportunity to share the environmental messages from AVATAR through the efforts during the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day and with Earth Day Network,” said James Cameron. “Earth Day Network’s commitment and actions to promote a healthy, sustainable planet go hand-in-hand with the themes of AVATAR.”

The non-profit, which is committed to caring for and nurturing the trees to maturity, will plant native species in more than 15 different countries. Natural disasters such as fires and landslides will also be considered during the planting process.

“AVATAR sends a universal message about the danger of exploiting our natural resources and brings to the forefront of the global consciousness the need to protect our planet and humanity, said Kathleen Rogers, President, Earth Day Network. “We hope this commitment from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment to plant one million trees, will inspire others to stand up against climate change for Earth Day.”

The Religion of Avatar - It Was Born in Piedmont, Italy?

Ok, so Avatar didn't sweep the Oscars, well I thought I could share one more interesting article on one of the most powerful films in history.

Source: Damanhur by Massimo Introvigne - A Turin based sociologist, director and one of the founder of the Center for the Study of New Religions. CESNUR also studies contemporary communal and spiritual movements, and their impact on social life.

This article has been published on two major Italian newspapers on January 30th and 31st, and is also avalible on the CESNUR website.

James Cameron's film Avatar combines an incredible technology, that can be only appreciated in 3D on the big screen and that can truly bring back to the cinema all those who feed only on Internet and tv, with an all-in-all very simple plot and a debatable ideology. The Na'vi, the peaceful inhabitants of the planet Pandora attacked by earthly mercenaries hired by a multinational, are in fact an obvious metaphor for all of those who are 'different': and the message is that those who are 'different' are always and in any case better than us. If it were only of a criticism of  what Giulio Tremonti calls the 'turbo-capitalism' of multinationals - including its scarce respect for cultures and the environment - there would be nothing to object. But the fact is - as many Christian critics in the United States have noticed - that the moral superiority of the Na'vi is derived from their religion, which the spectator is brought to admire and share.

The film teaches that this religion is superior to those of the earthlings, because it unites rather than dividing, because it is monistic rather than dualistic. It does not distinguish between Creator and creatures, and it venerates Eywa, the Mother or the All, a sort of collective mind of the universe that reveals it to be an extremely dense network of interconnections. Everything is connected with everything else, and the Na'vi shamans perform miracles, including healings, because they are able to penetrate these lines of connection and enter into attunement with Eywa. The classic name for this religion - not used in Cameron's film - is pantheism: but this is a pantheism revisited with an  ecological and New Age flavour. The reference to New Age is obvious, and it is more convincing than the hypothesis that the Na'vi's religion is a slightly modified variation of Hinduism - a comment that made the front pages of Indian daily newspapers. The expression "New Age," nevertheless, indicates a genre and not a species. There are very many  New Age groups, and there is quite a lot of diversity among them.

Those who are familiar with this world, when confronted by Avatar can't help but notice that the New Age group that comes closest to the Na'vi’s way of thinking is not in the United States, but in Italy, in the province of Turin. It's Damanhur, the "Aquarian" center founded in 1976 in Valchiusella by Oberto Airaudi, a place that is famous for its great underground temple. Despite how much its 'citizens' - as they prefer to call themselves - dislike this label, Damanhur represents the largest New Age community in the world. The hypothesis that Cameron could have been inspired by Damanhur is not so far-fetched. Books and videos about Damanhur in English are very common in the American New Age circuit, and the story of the underground temple that the community, quite incredibly, succeeded in keeping secret until 1992 has fascinated even large newspapers. The similarities are astonishing. Like the underground temple of Damanhur, the center of power and spirituality of the Na'vi is hidden: inside an enormous tree.

Like the Damanhurians, the Na'vi have their sacred language, and the use of it, both in Cameron's film and at Damanhur in Valchiusella, helps to indicate the difference with those who are not part of the community. Both the Na'vi and the Damanhurian citizens emphasize the value of being part of a 'people', a belonging that is not only ethnic but initiatic, and - as the protagonist of the film himself demonstrates - voluntary. The Damanhurians greet each other, recognizing the deep communion that exists between them, with the words, "Con te” (With you), not with the usual "buongiorno”.The Na'vi do the same by saying "I see you." At Damanhur, every member of the community establishes a special - bilateral - connection with an animal, taking on its name. Amongst the Na'vi, every warrior becomes one by choosing a winged animal to ride, and by being chosen by it at the same time.

The Damanhurian citizen, writes the founder Airaudi, becomes "a drop that is conscious of oneself and of all the other drops forming the sea of Being." The Na'vi would agree. Both the Na'vi and the Damanhurians believe pantheistically in a great All, where each manifestation of nature and life is in connection with all the rest. Like the Na'vi, the Damanhurians attempt to interact with these connections – also by using special symbols – obtaining results, or so they say, even therapeutic ones. One can understand - in the United States and elsewhere - the diffidence of the Church and the Christian community, for which pantheism and the negation of the ontological difference between the Creator and the creation are centuries-old enemies, now returning with the New Age. But until now, there haven’t been very many people who have seen the origin of this new Hollywood religion very close to us, in Valchiusella.

'Alice in Wonderland' Tops the Opening of 'Avatar'

Source: LA Times - The Tim Burton film takes in $210.3 million worldwide, the biggest Winter premiere of all-time. Much of the take comes from showings in 3-D.

Disney ended up picking just the right moment to jump down the 3-D rabbit hole.

As "Avatar" comes to the end of a historic three-month run, Walt Disney Studios' "Alice in Wonderland" took most of the 3-D screens and opened to an eye-popping $210.3 million worldwide.

Much like director James Cameron's mega-hit, Tim Burton's adaptation of the classic tale, starring Johnny Depp, generated about 70% of its opening weekend business from theaters with 3-D screens. It easily beat the premiere of "Avatar" and set a record for the biggest winter opening, even accounting for ticket price inflation, selling a studio-estimated $116.3 million worth of tickets in the U.S. and Canada.

Overseas, it took in $94 million in 40 territories, also setting a record winter opening.

"After 'Avatar,' people were saying that they're ready for the next 3-D world and the first weekend in March was all of a sudden the right place to be to meet that desire," said Disney Studios Chairman Rich Ross.

"Alice" played at about 220 more 3-D theaters than "Avatar," since exhibitors have added more capacity recently. As returns came in, it became clear that audiences generally preferred to see Disney's movie with the advanced technology, despite higher ticket prices.

"In theaters with multiple formats, we saw that the Imax 3-D sold out first, then regular 3-D, and then 2-D," said Disney distribution President Chuck Viane.

Though young women were most interested in "Alice," the picture's strong showing and sellouts at all times of day indicated that it had broad appeal. At midnight shows Thursday night, Viane said, the movie made $4 million, mainly from young adults. It generated $41 million in the U.S. and Canada on Friday largely from families with daughters early in the evening and from couples on dates later in the night. On Saturday, "Alice" grossed $44.3 million domestically, in large part due to families attending matinees.

3-D has accounted for an increasingly large percentage of ticket sales over the last three months for "Avatar" as it has marched past $2.6 billion. That will be very difficult for "Alice," however, because most 3-D screens will switch to DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon" on March 26, a sign of the increasingly crowded marketplace for 3-D movies.

Word of mouth should be strong for "Alice," however, as audiences gave it an average grade of A-minus, according to market research firm CinemaScore, though reviews of the film were decidedly mixed. And with American students starting spring break next week, Disney will benefit from higher-than-average family attendance on weekdays.

The film's European opening was almost derailed when the studio, in an initiative championed by Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger, announced that "Alice" would be released on DVD just 12 weeks after it hit the big screen. Several theater chains, including two of the three biggest in Britain, threatened not to show the movie because of concerns the short window would hurt ticket sales. That led to a tense standoff that was resolved at the last minute.

Ultimately, "Alice" collected $16.8 million in Britain, by far the highest opening for a movie in March in the country. It also performed very well in Italy, Russia, Mexico and Australia.

"I'm just glad we had enough seats for everybody," said Viane.

Disney estimated that the countries where "Alice" opened last week would account for 60% of its international gross. The film has yet to premiere in several key territories including France, China, Japan and Brazil.

As often happens amid executive shake-ups in Hollywood, "Alice in Wonderland" is a gift of sorts left by former Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook, who was ousted in September. Though the team led by his replacement Ross handled the successful marketing push for the picture -- including an aggressive campaign on Facebook and a controversial ad covering the front of Friday's L.A. Times -- it was Cook and former production president Oren Aviv who approved the risky $200-million production.

"The Disney team has developed a lot of terrific movies, including my predecessors who developed and produced this movie," Ross said.

Onstage Drama and Backstage Delight at the Academy Awards

Source: USA Today - The best seat at the Oscars is backstage. USA TODAY was in the wings of the Kodak Theatre Sunday night, capturing off-the-cuff moments that followed the staged events.

One of the most emotional moments backstage came after screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher won for his adapted screenplay of Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire and Mo'Nique won supporting actress for playing the film's malevolent mother.

Known for her brassy and blunt comedy, Mo'Nique humbled the audience by thanking the academy for showing that the awards "can be about the performance, not the politics." And she thanked Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar, for playing Mammy in 1939's Gone With the Wind. "I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so I would not have to."

Mo'Nique had been criticized by some Oscar pundits for not aggressively campaigning throughout awards season. It didn't seem to hurt her; she won almost every major prize before also taking home the Academy Award.

Waiting just behind her in the shadows was Fletcher, his Oscar demurely held at his side. Onstage, Fletcher said, "This is for everybody who works on a dream every day. Precious boys and girls everywhere."

One of the ABC pages came by and said, "Does anyone know where Geoffrey Fletcher is?" while looking directly at him. "Do you have eyes on Geoffrey Fletcher?"

Fletcher raised his Oscar into view and with a stunned look asked, "Me? Do you mean me?" But before he would let the page take him to the pressroom in the hotel next door, he wanted his moment with Mo'Nique. A long hug ensued. But it wasn't silent.

"Oh, baby! Oh, baby," Mo'Nique repeated again and again, as they clutched their Oscars at the other's back. "Look what we did!" As they pulled apart, they raised their Oscars and clinked their heads like Champagne glasses. "To you," Mo'Nique said. "To you, my baby."

As they walked down the corridor to the elevator that would take them to the pressroom, Robin Williams jumped in front of them to lighten the mood, making "swish, swish, swish" noises as he swept an invisible broom in front of her slow walk.

"It's curling, curling!" Williams said, finally getting Mo'Nique to laugh out loud.

A bridge for Bridges

Kate Winslet was a bulldozer for Oscar winner Jeff Bridges. The actress, a winner last year for The Reader, presented Bridges with his Crazy Heart trophy and pulled him backstage, waving aside stagehands and declaring Bridges needed the place "to say other stuff, to thank the people he didn't thank out there."

She was referring to the academy's thank-you cam, an Internet-only camera that records winners' voluminous lists of names of people who need to be mentioned but were left out onstage. It's meant to encourage winners to give more heartfelt speeches rather than read a litany of managers, agents, lawyers, friends and family.

"And here," Winslet said, thrusting the open envelope with his name into his hands, "don't lose this!"

Clearly, her take-charge attitude came from being a veteran.

Though he's had a long career, Bridges didn't seem to know what she was talking about. As he wandered about, clutching his trophy, he passed the thank-you cam and its team. He laughed and said, "I don't even know what a thank-you cam is."

Soon he was swarmed. Tim Robbins first, then Michelle Pfeiffer, his co-star from 1989's The Fabulous Baker Boys, who introduced him onstage, and whatever focus he had left was gone. But eventually he made his way back to the camera, and he had a lot on his mind. He even pulled up a chair and sat down for the long haul.

Sandra at sea

Sandra Bullock, after winning best actress for The Blind Side, came backstage clutching Sean Penn's arm. "Sean, what do I do now?" Penn, last year's best-actor winner for Milk, shrugged and said, "I don't know."

She could have used some of Winslet's mother-hen-like expertise. "Well, I don't know either," Bullock said.

Just then, the best-director category came up on the monitors, and they watched as the action unfolded live right behind them.

Well, Bullock watched. Penn made a quick exit, leaving the baffled actress unsure what came next. To her rescue came Forest Whitaker, the best-actor winner for The Last King of Scotland three years ago. He asked her what she wanted to do, the options being go back to her seat, go to the pressroom or just stay put.

Bullock's response: "I want a cheeseburger and french fries and a milkshake." Whitaker nodded. "Ahhh, a little In-N-Out tonight," he said, with an expression of someone who knows good, post-Oscar burger dining.

As Kathryn Bigelow accepted best director for The Hurt Locker, Bullock took a moment to peek into the envelope Penn had given her. "Oh, I better double-check the name," she joked. "Oh, good, it does say mine."

No sooner was Bigelow headed in their direction than Tom Hanks announced The Hurt Locker as best-picture winner.

"Ahhh! She's gotta go back," Whitaker said, laughing and clapping. Bigelow, the first woman to win the best-director award, is known for her tough, no-nonsense films. But after winning two of the top prizes for her movie about an bomb defuser in Iraq, she looked like her own mind had just detonated.

"I'm in such shock!" she said, walking off the stage with an Oscar in each hand. Passing her was Hanks, who summed up the feeling of the night.

"What a moment," he said with a laugh.

And with that, the 82nd Academy Awards came to an end.

But before the show...

Hollywood's biggest night got rolling with the same nervous hustle as a high school play, albeit cast with the most famous faces on the planet.

An hour before showtime, Oscar winner Javier Bardem (2007's No Country for Old Men) was the first celebrity floating around the empty corridors behind the elaborate Kodak Theatre stage.

But one by one, the stars made their escape from the red carpet, and soon Bardem was hanging out on the loading dock smoking corner alongside girlfriend and Oscar winner Penelope Cruz and The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner.

Just inside, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were secluded inside their dressing rooms, but one guest brought them out, Baldwin still in his street clothes and Martin with his tuxedo shirt untucked and unbuttoned.

That would be Williams, who at first lingered in the hallway, unsure whether to knock. "Is it all right to say a quick hello? I don't want to bother them," Williams said, sounding a little hoarse. He recently had heart surgery, and though his manic energy was more subdued than usual, he rallied for the two co-hosts of this year's Academy Awards.

When Baldwin, all smiles, greeted him, Williams said, "Let's do one of these," chest-bumping the much taller Baldwin. "Whoa!" Williams said, getting a faceful of Baldwin's burly chest.

Outside, with rain coming down in drizzles, foodie celeb Wolfgang Puck lifted spirits by handing out little chocolate Oscars to the crowd of fans.

Ripped from the hemlines

Backstage, there's always a last-second wardrobe emergency, and this year, Amanda Seyfried and Jennifer Lopez, each wearing Armani gowns of shimmering silk with the strength and density of bubble wrap, needed pit stops for hurried repairs to torn material.

The trouble: fragile fabric and long trains, in a tight space, with lots of people not looking where they're walking. Marc Anthony put a hand on Robert Downey Jr.'s shoulder to stop him from snagging Lopez's gown. "I need to be following along with orange traffic cones on the back," Anthony told the Iron Man.

Close encounters

Helen Mirren, Oscar winner for 2006's The Queen, was surprisingly hanging around with teen starlet Miley Cyrus. And when Cyrus stopped for a touch-up at the makeup table corner, the older actress pointed to the greenroom and yelled, "Miley, we are forging ahead in here!" And the Hannah Montanastar quickly followed after her.

Earlier, Mirren was having fun on the red carpet with The Last Station co-star Christopher Plummer. Both were nominated for their roles as Leo Tolstoy and his wife, Sofya. Of her companion, Mirren said, "It's fun to have a friend on the red carpet."

When asked who made his suit, Plummer said: "I did. I stayed up all night."

She chimed in, "I hemmed the trousers for him."

At this point backstage, the already cramped entryways started to fill up significantly, and even the biggest stars were being nudged and pushed along.

Ryan Reynolds, extending his hand to Steve Carell, got to say, "I'm a big ..." before they were pulled apart. He caught up to The Office actor and added: "Hey, let me finish the sentence. I'm a big fan, not just a big." Carell said he understood.

Before the curtain rises

The clock continued to tick until just a few moments before show time.

The main acting nominees began pouring out onto the stage for the opening introductions, a presentation of them all onstage as the curtain went up that was unique to this year.

In the midst of the March of the Nominees, Crazy Heart's Bridges caused another gown accident, planting his foot on the train of An Education star Carey Mulligan and yanking her to a halt. Luckily, no damage.

"Awww! Oh, no," Bridges said, putting his hand on his bearded cheeks in embarrassment. "Just when I thought I had perfected my ability to walk."

Directly behind him was Up in the Air's George Clooney, his rival for best actor.

Clooney put his hands on Bridges' shoulders as they walked and said, "All I know, Jeff, is if you lose tonight, you're in such (expletive)."

Winners overwhelmed

Christoph Waltz, supporting-actor winner for Inglourious Basterds, couldn't have been surprised by his victory since it had been predicted ever since the movie premiered last May at the Cannes Film Festival.

But when he came off stage after a characteristically modest speech, the Austrian actor, who before was little known outside of Germany, had an uncertain look on his face.

Carrying his Oscar, he walked with presenter Cruz, who won last year for Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Both of their wins have parallels. Cruz's film also premiered at Cannes, but she was far more used to the role of "celebrity."

As she walked him backstage, Bardem came over to meet them, and Cruz said to the new Oscar winner, "Are you nervous?"

Waltz pursed his lips, thinking for a moment before answering. "Yes," he declared finally.

For another winner, it's also been a whirlwind few years.

Ryan Bingham, who won an Oscar — with T Bone Burnett— for The Weary Kind, the theme from Crazy Heart, said backstage, "Me and my band were living out of our Suburban four years ago." Director Scott Cooper "gave me a copy of the script and said, 'If you're inspired to write anything, let me know.'

"And here we are."

Why 'Avatar' lost: 5 theories

Source: The Week - [Finding humor in the 'analysis' of the 'politics' of academy voting, lol] Is Avatar too anti-American? Too computer-generated? Inside the biggest Oscars' upset in years Best Opinion:  LA Times, Hollywood Reporter, Telegraph, Gawker, SF Chronicle

This was the year the Academy expanded the number of Best Picture contenders to 10, largely to give more popular films a chance. Yet James Cameron's Avatar, history's biggest box-office performer, lost the top prize to The Hurt Locker, the lowest-grossing movie to win Best Picture in recent times. Here's five theories on why Avatar got left in the dust:

1. Actors hate computer graphics
Actors constitute the Academy's largest voting bloc, says Patrick Goldstein in the Los Angeles Times, and they're particularly "queasy about rewarding a special-effects driven film [like Avatar] that...did little to honor the actors' craft." The Academy, in general, still rejects "films largely created and sculpted in the computer," even "game-changing" blockbusters like Avatar.

2. Science fiction never wins Best Picture
Avatar is just the latest hit "doomed because it's sci-fi, a genre that has rarely been rewarded by Oscar," says Alex Ben Block in The Hollywood Reporter. Remember: Star Wars lost to Woody Allen's Annie Hall, and E.T. lost to Gandhi. Though The Hurt Locker managed to avoid Oscar's "Iraq War curse," Avatar couldn't "sidestep the science-fiction label."

3. Patriotism beat out anti-Americanism
Even though Hollywood is "overwhelmingly left-wing," it rejected the "overtly anti-American and anti-military" Avatar, says Nile Gardiner in The Daily Telegraph — uncharacteristically backing The Hurt Locker. This suggests that voters really considered it the better film. Hopefully Cameron will focus on a compelling storyline next time.

4. Hollywood is elitist and navel-gazing
Avatar would clearly have won a national popular vote, says Brian Moylan in Gawker. But "the Oscars are not about America, they are about Hollywood," and shoring up its ego. Like Sunday's Oscars telecast, Hollywood is a "complete self-referential mess."

5. The Hurt Locker is brilliant in ways Avatar is not
"The bottom line is that it's easier to make a movie with great special effects," says Zennie Abraham in the San Francisco Chronicle, "than a timely film with a good story." The Best Picture Oscar is supposed to go to the story that makes you think about the world around you, and The Hurt Locker, "in so many ways, was that movie." Avatar was not.

Hungry for Oscars

Source: Daily News (BEVERLY HILLS) - With the Academy Awards show less than three weeks away, new nominees as luminous as Sandra Bullock and as little-known as Anna Wydra whetted their appetites for Oscar hoopla at the annual nominees' luncheon Monday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

If any first-timers felt out of place, they could take comfort in knowing that even fifth-time nominee Jeff Bridges sounded as if he's making his Oscar debut.

"When they said there was a nominee lunch, I thought it was going to be a small table with the guys," Bridges, a best-actor nominee for his role in "Crazy Heart," said with a self-deprecating laugh. "You'd think as long as I've been doing it, I'd be more prepared for this. But everytime I walk down that red carpet and see those lights, it seems to get more crazy."

The luncheon drew 121 of the nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony March 7 at the Kodak Theatre. The focus was on actors and directors seeking their first Oscars. Everybody wanted to know how they feel.

"I have no idea how I feel," joked Colin Firth, up for best actor for "A Single Man," explaining that he has been too caught up in the pre-Oscar swirl to take stock of his emotions. "I'm sure I'm ecstatic. I'll probably have a flashback in about six weeks time, and I'll hope to answer that question then."

At no time since the Feb. 2 nominations announcement has the celebrity swirl been a distraction for contenders in some of the lower-profile categories.

Wydra, whose "Rabbit a la Berlin" is nominated for best documentary short, said she had just flown in from Poland to mingle with Oscar fixtures like best-actor nominees George Clooney ("Up in the Air") and Morgan Freeman ("Invictus"), best-actress hopefuls Helen Mirren ("The Last Station") and Meryl Streep ("Julie & Julia"), and directors James Cameron ("Avatar") and Quentin Tarantino ("Inglorious Basterds").

Another nominee in one of the many lesser-known categories was overheard to crack that he was staying in a Motel 6 during his time in Los Angeles.

For one day, as at an Olympics opening ceremony, everybody was a winner Monday, gathering for a lunch of marinated chicken and poached pear gorgonzola salad, with table assignments encouraging conversation across Oscar categories and industry rankings.

Only when the whole group posed for a 2010 nominees' class photo did the stars clearly gravitate to one another.

Carey Mulligan, a best-actress nominee for "An Education," said she's been following around Kathryn Bigelow, best-director nominee for "The Hurt Locker," hoping to land a future role.

Bullock said although she feels her nomination is deserved, she's "amazed and thankful to be here."

"I know I work really hard," Bullock said. "But just because I work really hard doesn't mean the elements will come together to make a good film. When all those elements do come together, I'm always amazed."

In the interview room Monday, some nominees talked seriously about issues their movies address.

Gabourey Sidibe, up for best actress for "Precious," said people tell her about their own experiences with the child abuse and neglect suffered by the title character.

"A lot of them told me the first person they ever told was me," Sidibe said. "It's a little strange. But I guess because of seeing the film they feel a connection to Precious."

Woody Harrelson, a supporting-actor hopeful for "The Messenger," said meeting Army personnel in filming changed his thinking about the armed services.

"The former administration of this country would have you associate the warriors with the war and want you to lump it all in together," Harrelson said. "When they say `Support our troops,' they mean `Support the war.' I think I always kind of lumped it all together. (Now I realize) how amazing these people are. I have a high regard and great respect for the people I've met.

"But as much as I love the warrior, I still loathe the war."

Live or Memorex? 'Avatar' Raises Oscar question

Source: Yahoo - "Lord of the Rings" fans once lamented the twisted little fiend Gollum - created by a blend of human performance and digital effects - didn't get his due during Hollywood's awards season.

Years later, the combination of live-action performance overlaid with computer animation has hit a new peak with "Avatar" — an awards favorite this season, even though the performers beneath all that digital wizardry have gone overlooked for acting honors.

"Avatar" is tied for the lead at the Academy Awards with nine nominations, among them best picture, director for James Cameron, musical score and most of the technical categories.

The science-fiction sensation's stars — Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver — drew solid praise, though not necessarily the sort of raves that would have hurled them into the thick of the Oscar acting race.

Yet the technology raises an is-it-live-or-is-it-Memorex question: Does the performance come from the actors or the animators?

Nothing in the Oscar-voting rules prohibits these "performance-capture" roles — or even voice work — from earning acting nominations. Yet as lifelike as digitally-assisted characters might look, there remains a sense in Hollywood they are more a result of technical innovation than acting talent.

Cameron and others suggest it might be a matter of enlightening the industry as to what's really involved in performance-capture roles — where actors perform on bare soundstages, with digital cameras and sensors capturing their body language and visual-effects artists later filling in costumes, features and other details.

"There's nothing to say that they would have been nominated had it been an even playing field and had there been performances photographed instead of captured," Cameron said. "But I do think that there is an issue here where the acting community needs to be educated about what it is performance-capture really is, especially the way we did it on 'Avatar,' where we preserved every nuance of the performance.

"And hopefully, if we could overcome that learning curve over the next couple years, then next time a performance-capture film comes along, that it will be an even playing field."

Worthington and Weaver appear in much of "Avatar" as their human selves, their performance-capture alter-egos coming in portions where the characters take on the form of the 10-foot-tall Na'vi, the dominant species on the distant moon Pandora.

Saldana plays a native Na'vi, her entire role delivered through performance-capture.

For Worthington, the work he did in his performance-capture scenes — wearing a skintight suit covered with sensor dots read by the digital cameras — was as much an acting job as his live-action sequences.

"It is a performance. It hasn't been animated on top of that. That to me was a big thing, that they don't enhance my performance in any way," Worthington said. "Whatever we did does translate exactly 100 percent. Maybe my nose is animated and my tail. That's because I don't have a tail. And the ears are a bit different, but those are about the only things they've changed."

Cameron even strapped tails and big ears on the actors playing the Na'vi so their performances would reflect the body language of creatures with those appendages, Worthington said.

Convincing more conventional actors such as Anthony Mackie of the worthiness of performance-capture could be a Na'vi-sized challenge, indeed.

"'Avatar' was good, but it wasn't a movie, it was a spectacle," said Mackie, who has a supporting role in "The Hurt Locker," "Avatar's" stiffest competition in this year's Oscar race. "I'm excited to see exactly how they reward the work we do."

Some feel Hollywood's lack of recognition for performance-capture is a matter of inexperience.

"I really do think there is a prejudice among certainly many actors against these kind of performances — particularly from actors who have never done it before," said Entertainment Weekly film reporter Dave Karger, who covers Hollywood and the Oscars.

"Until people are educated about what goes into a performance-capture film, I don't think anyone will ever have a chance to get nominated from one."

The debate over what might constitute an awards-worthy performance is not new. In 1992, Robin Williams earned Oscar buzz for his effervescent voice role in the animated adventure "Aladdin," though the chatter did not result in a nomination.

Andy Serkis won high praise for his work as Gollum in the last two "Lord of the Rings" films, his character created through motion-capture filming that was a precursor to the more-immersive technology Cameron used on "Avatar."

"Really, it's terrible that Gollum didn't win an award. He was brilliant. He's the main thing in the movie," said "Avatar" co-star Weaver, who earned a best-actress nomination for Cameron's "Aliens."

So far, there have been only a handful of films featuring substantive performances created this way, including Robert Zemeckis' "The Polar Express," "Beowulf" and "A Christmas Carol."

Zemeckis plans to keep working in performance-capture, and the runaway success of Cameron's "Avatar" makes sequels likely and may inspire other directors to try out the technology.

Sooner or later, the technology may produce an undeniably great performance that forces awards voters to consider it alongside searing live-action roles such as those delivered this season by Oscar front-runners Jeff Bridges in "Crazy Heart" or Mo'Nique in "Precious."

"A Christmas Carol" producers Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke borrow a line from Ray Winstone, who played the title role in their and Zemeckis' "Beowulf."

"What Ray Winstone said is the difference between this and live action is that in live action, you go into hair and makeup, you go into wardrobe, and then you act," Starkey said. "In this, you act, and then they put on your hair and makeup. There is no difference. You're acting in both, and I say it should be considered as a real performance."

27 Avatar Questions, Answered By The Movie's Designers

After seeing Avatar for the second or third time, I'm sure that you've got as many questions as I do. Check out the entired article for some interesting tidbits reaching into the depths of Pandora and her natives. 

Source: io9 - The Na'Vi are warriors and stuff. So do the different Na'Vi tribes go to war against each other pretty often?

Greer considered this question in depth, in the process of creating Na'Vi warpaint and war gear. He decided that the Na'Vi don't have wars any more. But they "do put a lot of effort into numerous annual gatherings where they "compete" for their specific tribe's honor and pride in various skills based competitions. I saw these kind of gatherings as the pivotal interaction, on a worldwide basis, between the various tribes." And they are pretty good at killing each other, when the need arises. (But this was something Greer developed internally at Weta, so it's not gospel.)

So why are Pandora's trees green like Earth trees, when everything else is so weirdly colored?

As we mentioned in our previous design feature, there was a huge push among some of the designers to make the foliage of Pandora cyan-colored instead of green. This turned out to be a problem because of creating depth perception, but also Stromberg opposed it — it would have made the "atmospheric haze" harder see because it was also cyan. But also it would have been too much. "We had to have something that the average person could grab onto as a comfort level, so we could capture them, and slowly introduce these things and not hit them over the head with the clown hammer."

What was the inspiration for those weird trumpet-like flowers, that collapse when Jake touches them?

Craig Shoji says those were based on "Christmas-tree worms," that you find attached to a reef underwater. They behave like that, and it's incredibly cool if you ever get to touch one.

The Na'Vi look like a lot of different native peoples on Earth, with their warpaint and their weapons and so on. Were they actually based on Earth tribes?

Designer Craig Shoji says he and other designers used a lot of different real-life items: Inspiration came from many sources, but a lot involved looking at current indigenous people of the world including those inhabiting the rain forest like the Penan tribe, and the Kayapo and Yanomami indians. Also the different tribes in Africa like the Himba, Masai, and Samburu. As well as all the different forms of face and body painting that took place in all the different tribal settings. There were thousands upon thousands upon hundreds upon millions upon mucho reference pictures that we were collecting and looking at. It became sort of an obsession for Seth and myself to constantly have our 'Na'vi-esque' radar on so whenever we saw something we'd automatically buy it, save-as, or take a picture to add to the collection. It varied from those woven toy finger traps found in Chinatown, to images of Lee Bontecou's amazing sculptural work. We'd then analyze it to try and break down what was working and what we liked. Was it aesthetic? The material? The simple, yet sophisticated mechanism in how it worked? And then we'd riff on those concepts to create designs that would live in the Na'vi world.

Read all 27 Avatar Questions here

Is the 'Avatar' Concept Really Possible?

Source: (CNN) - Now the highest-grossing film ever, "Avatar," has captivated millions of viewers with its picturesque scenery, extraterrestrial battles, and nature-loving, blue-skinned aliens.

The premise of the film is that humans can enter the world of these 10-foot aliens, called the Na'vi, by way of half-human, half-Na'vi hybrids. A high-tech interfacing mechanism allows a human to remain inert while controlling one of these avatar hybrids just by thinking.

Not only does the human manipulate the avatar's movements and speech, but he or she also experiences life -- every sensation, feeling and emotion -- through the eyes of the hybrid, as if consciousness were transferred.

Scientists say we are many decades, even centuries, away from making this kind of sophisticated interaction possible, if it can be done at all. But the fundamentals of components required to create this complicated system of mind-controlled avatars are already in the works, and have useful applications in medicine.

"We're starting to understand the basic building blocks, but the biggest challenges will be emotion and thought -- how to make another organism think what you think, to feel what you feel -- because those networks are much more difficult to sort out," said Dr. Brian Litt, associate professor of neurology and bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

Although nothing as complex as manipulating a creature through thought has been done, scientists working on allowing handicapped people to move prosthetic limbs with their minds are making headway. This idea actually played a role in the movie: Protagonist Jake Sully was in a wheelchair in his human body, but could walk, run and jump as his avatar.

One demonstration has been shown by Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University, who is working on robotic leg braces. In 2008, his group got a monkey in North Carolina to mentally control the walking patterns of a robot in Japan.

This was done by implanting electrodes in the brains of two rhesus monkeys. The electrodes recorded how cells in the brain's motor and sensory cortex responded to walking on the treadmill at various speeds. The monkeys' legs also had sensors to record walking patterns.

Researchers used all this information to predict the exact speed of movement and stride length of the legs, and uploaded that information to a robot in Japan, getting the robot to move in synch with a monkey thousands of miles away in real time. Even when the treadmill was turned off, a monkey continued making the robot walk just by thinking for a few minutes.

Another arena is one of virtual reality: controlling an avatar in a video game with your mind. Jaime Pineda, cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, is working with a brain-computer interface that allows participants to move a car around a racetrack, fly a plane and do other virtual tasks on a screen, simply by thinking. The mental training for this takes about four to six hours, he said.

"It is based on the motor parts of your brain. That's what we're recording from, and so if you think about moving, it's actually as if you are actually moving," he said.

Apart from the entertainment value, Pineda sees this as a future therapy for autistic children. The theory is that because people with autism have less conductivity between various parts of the brain, participating in mind-controlled video games may normalize those circuits. Results from his lab show improvement in social interaction and other behaviors after 10 or 20 weeks of playing the game in the lab.

Uploading information

For an "Avatar"-style brain-computer interface, an enormous amount of data would have to be transferred from the person to the avatar extremely quickly, Litt said.

Here's what's possible now: Scientists such as Gerwin Schalk at the New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center have harnessed the brain's electrical impulses to have people mentally type their thoughts using electrodes on the surface of the head. The rate is typically seven words per minute. In one epileptic patient who had electrodes already on the brain for clinical purposes, the record was 20 words per minute.

This kind of technology is useful for people who are paralyzed and cannot communicate, Schalk said. His research group also works on using electrodes to extract specific information from the brain such as people's actual actions, imagined actions and intended actions -- even how they move individual fingers.

The research "has changed that widespread assumption that it's not really impossible to acquire detailed information from the brain in humans," Schalk said.

Understanding brain networks

In order to construct a high-tech interface that would allow two-way communication between an avatar and a person, there must be a better understanding of the brain itself, Litt said.

Litt's group studies the brain's networks involved in epilepsy. The researchers are looking at the abnormal circuits to figure out the basic units of the brain that generate seizures. They have licensed intellectual property for a device that can improve epilepsy by stimulating specific brain regions, potentially eliminating the need for surgery.

"I see tremendous possibilities for more and more ability to unlock these networks," he said.

Transferal of sensations and emotions

The area of this "avatar science" that will be most difficult to sort out is being able to feel and think as the avatar, Litt said.

Today there are auditory prostheses called cochlear implants that encode signals that allow people to hear who could not otherwise, as well as rudimentary visual aids. It is also possible to stick a pin in a particular part of someone's brain and induce sensations of various temperatures, pressures and even pain levels, just by stimulating certain neural circuits.

"But there's a far cry from doing that to being able to make somebody feel an emotion or see something," Litt said.

The technical hurdles, including transferring huge amounts of information extremely rapidly and building devices to both extract signals from the brain and inject signals into the brain, are significant, he said.

Clearly, people aren't going to be able to climb into personal pods and use their brains to remotely control 10-foot-tall creatures any time soon. Andrew Schwartz, neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh, added in an e-mail that it is not even clear what "consciousness" is. There's no rigorous definition, and how it looks in the brain is unknown.

"It's a wonderful movie, but it shouldn't be taken as anything but fantasy," he said.

Why 'Avatar' is Actually the 26th Biggest Movie

Source: THR Feed - Boxoffice is arguably more straightforward to report than TV ratings. You have this weekly Top 10 list of returns, you compare each movie to the other movies. TV ratings are a murky swamp where one network's hit is another network's flop and context is not just a factor, but often the entire story.

Han fucking soloYet one respect in which boxoffice reporting is pretty odd -- emphasizing ticket grosses yet rarely mentioning ticket sales. That would be like always reporting how many ad dollars sold off "Lost" and not mentioning the number of viewers  that actually watched the show. With everybody reporting how "Avatar" is The Biggest Movie of All Time based on grosses ($1.859 billion and counting), it's important to remember how rising ticket prices skew the returns.

Here's the Top 20 movies of all time ... by number of tickets sold:

1 "Gone With the Wind" (1939) 202,044,600
2 "Star Wars" (1977) 178,119,600
3 "The Sound of Music" (1965) 142,415,400
4 "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) 141,854,300
5 "The Ten Commandments" (1956) 131,000,000
6 "Titanic" (1997) 128,345,900
7 "Jaws" (1975) 128,078,800
8 "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) 124,135,500
9 "The Exorcist" (1973) 110,568,700
10 "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) 109,000,000
11 "101 Dalmatians" (1961) 99,917,300
12 "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) 98,180,600
13 "Ben-Hur" (1959) 98,000,000
14 "Return of the Jedi" (1983) 94,059,400
15 "The Sting" (1973) 89,142,900
16 "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) 88,141,900
17 "Jurassic Park" (1993) 86,205,800
18 "The Graduate" (1967) 85,571,400
19 "Star Wars: Episode I" (1999) 84,825,800
20 "Fantasia" (1941) 83,043,500

"Avatar," despite topping the worldwide gross list, by and by, is only No. 26 on the ticket sales list with 76,421,000 sold ... at least, so far...

Chinese City Renames Mountain After 'Avatar'

Source: BEIJING (AFP) – A city in central China has renamed a mountain after the US blockbuster movie "Avatar," which set a Chinese box office record until its run in the country was cut short.

The majestic peak in Hunan province previously known as "Heaven and Earth Pillar" or "South Sky Pillar" has been officially renamed "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain," the Zhangjiajie city government said in a statement.

The statement, posted Monday on the government's website, said the peak was believed to have inspired a floating mountain, one of the most dramatic images in the movie, set on fictional Pandora.

Juxtaposing photos of the mountain with stills from the film, a report in the local Xiaoxiang Morning News said a Hollywood photographer came to the area on a four-day trip in December 2008 and shot a number of photos that were used by the film's artists.

The futuristic adventure was released in both 2-D and 3-D versions January 4 and has become China's all-time box-office champion, topping 80 million dollars in sales, state media said last week.

However, its 2-D run in China ended on Friday amid reports it was pulled ahead of schedule by the government to make way for the patriotic biopic "Confucius," about the ancient Chinese philosopher. It is still running in 3-D.

The Xiaoxiang Morning News said officials expect the mountain's similarity to the film version to trigger a tourism boom during the week-long Spring Festival holiday starting on February 14.

The mountain is in the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, which is famed for its soaring sandstone pillars and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.

'Avatar' Nears 'Titanic's' Overseas Boxoffice

Source: Hollywood Reporter -  Vying to overtake "Titanic" this week as the biggest-grossing title in motion picture history, "Avatar" earned another $166.3 million on the weekend, with foreign boxoffice accounting for $125 million of the total derived from 14,640 offshore screens in 112 markets.

Overseas cume for director James Cameron's mega-budget 3D adventure stands at $1.115 billion, just $127 million shy of the $1.242 billion record foreign gross set 13 years ago by Cameron's "Titanic."

Since "Avatar" is grossing an average of at least $20 million overseas daily, it should surpass "Titanic's" foreign record by the end of this week.

"Avatar's" gross worldwide is $1.607 billion, $236 million behind "Titanic's" global record of $1.843 billion.

In its fifth round overseas, "Avatar" remained dominant just about everywhere, dropping a relatively benign 17% from the prior weekend's foreign tally. A record Italy opening generated $14.5 million from 925 locations. China weighed in with an $18.9 million weekend from 2,509 screens for an industry record market cume of $76.6 million rolled up in just 13 days.

The biggest market cumes have been registered in France ($113.9 million), Russia ($88.4 million), Germany ($85.6 million) and the U.K. ($80.5 million). Boxoffice from 81 Imax screens was $4.6 million, pushing the foreign take from Imax locations, the company says, to $39.4 million.

Summit International released "The Book of Eli" in the U.K. (where it opened at No. 6 in the market), Russia and Greece for an estimated $4.5 million from a total of 896 situations. The post-apocalyptic drama starring Denzel Washington opened at No. 2 in the U.S. and Canada.

Warner Bros.' "Sherlock Holmes" maintained its second-place spot overall with a weekend tally of $26.3 million from 5,514 screens in 53 territories.

Overseas cume for director Guy Ritchie's adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic detective character, with Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson, totals $168.6 million. "Holmes" opened at No. 2 behind "Avatar" in Spain to $5.4 million from 436 screens.

Finishing at No.3 on the weekend was Fox's "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel," which generated $14.3 million from 5,275 screens in 58 markets. Overseas cume stands at $158.5 million.

Coming in fourth was "It's Complicated," writer-director Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy starring Meryl Streep, which lured $9 million from 2,100 sites in 24 territories, an increase of 16% from the prior weekend's tally, as per distributor Universal. International cume, with 40 overseas territories yet to play, stands at $36.4 million. "Complicated" finished third in its second U.K. weekend with $2.3 million from 440 screens.

No. 5 was the Clint Eastwood-directed drama from Warner Bros. "Invictus," which produced $7 million from 631 screens in seven markets. Early cume is $8.4 million. Almost all of the action came from France, where "Invictus" scored an outstanding $6.3 million from 469 screens, making the title No. 1 in Paris and environs. The opening was the biggest opening weekend ever for an Eastwood picture in France.

Holding well in German-speaking markets was Sony's "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" which grabbed $5.8 million on the weekend from 2,100 screens in 25 territories. International cume stands at $23.6 million.

The best territory for the romantic comedy co-starring Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker was Germany, where the second-weekend tally was $1.53 million from 502 spots -- a relatively benign drop of 23% from the prior round -- for a market cume of $4.2 million.

King Cameron Redux? `Avatar' Aims for Oscar Glory

Source: ABC News - Cameron, who borrowed Leonardo DiCaprio's line from "Titanic" and declared himself "king of the world" when that film sailed to Oscar glory 12 years ago — positioned himself for a repeat with his Golden Globe wins Sunday for the sci-fi blockbuster "Avatar."

The tale of big, blue aliens in conflict with rapacious humans on Pandora earned the Globes for best drama and director, prizes that also preceded the Oscar run of "Titanic."

"This is a trip," said Cameron, recalling that as "Titanic" was becoming a box-office and Oscar juggernaut, he had thought to himself, "enjoy this ride, it ain't never going to happen again."

Yet "Avatar" has soared to a worldwide box office of $1.6 billion, second only to "Titanic" at $1.8 billion, and could end up surpassing his 1997 smash about the doomed luxury liner.

A key difference for Cameron's success this awards season is that he's doing it with a space fantasy, the sort of far-out tale that usually goes overlooked except for visual effects and other technical honors during Hollywood's prestige period.

"Hopefully, this is part of a trend of the acceptance of science fiction as a legitimate dramatic form of cinema," said Cameron, whose films include the sci-fi tales "Aliens," "The Abyss" and the first two "Terminator" movies.

Globe acting winners also firmed up their Oscar prospects, including dramatic-performance recipients Sandra Bullock for the football tale "The Blind Side" and Jeff Bridges for the country-music story "Crazy Heart."

The musical or comedy acting prizes went to Robert Downey Jr. for the crime romp "Sherlock Holmes" and Meryl Streep for the Julia Child tale "Julie & Julia." Supporting honors were presented to Mo'Nique for the Harlem drama "Precious: Based on the Novel `Push' By Sapphire" and Christoph Waltz for the World War II saga "Inglourious Basterds."

The Avatar Blues

Source: ecorazzi - If you came out of the movie Avatar wishing that your next destination was some lush green forest instead of a busy city street, you may have what some are calling “the Avatar blues.”

No seriously — it’s become such a phenomenon that on a forum dedicated to the movie, more than 1,000 comments have been posted on the topic. “After I watched Avatar at the first time, I truly felt depressed as I ‘wake’ up in this world again,” wrote one user. “So after few days, I went to cinema and watched it again for the second time to relieve the depression and hopeless feeling. Now I listen to the soundtrack and share my views in this forum. It really helps.”

“Wow, I didn’t realize that other people actually felt this way,” said another commenter.”I felt so immersed in the movie that when it ended, it was like waking up from the perfect dream. It was somewhat depressing to return to reality, away from a world full of wondrous things. To me, that is why Avatar is my favorite film of all-time now. It made me feel what no film has made me feel before.”

CNN interviewed a psychiatrist that says Avatar represents a new step in virtual worlds that forces us to examine our own more closely. “It has taken the best of our technology to create this virtual world and real life will never be as utopian as it seems onscreen, said Dr. Stephan Quentzel. “It makes real life seem more imperfect.”

If there’s an upside to those feeling bummed out there’s no such thing as the planet Pandora, it’s that there are ways on planet Earth to capture that beauty — and experience it for real.

“I’ve pretty much already canceled a trip years in the making to go to a little island in the Caribbean with the money from my next tour overseas and am already planning a trip to a tropical rain forest, I’m in the research stages now,” said one forum member named Duke. “My own little way of coping, a little sad yes, but I simply don’t care, the world of Avatar has changed my mind to some things. I used to think beauty was laying on a beach watching girls in bikinis (although still pretty nice), now I want to see more of my world and the beauty within it. I consider it a blessing.”