This thing's gonna be pissed if it doesn't win some Oscars.

Each year at the Oscars, the Best Picture award is accepted by the producer of the winning film. Movie producers are the ones with all the power in Hollywood, and they’re the ones who put on the Academy Awards. So it’s really no surprise they are the ones hoisting the year’s biggest prize at the end of the night. But it also serves as a reminder that the Best Picture award is meant to commend ALL of the work that goes into making that year’s winner. Until 1950, the award was presented to the production company as a whole, and at one time it was called Outstanding Production. Discussion about the award often focuses on themes and emotions, but clearly technical excellence is not at all to be discounted.

Unfortunately, for most people, the nominees are often reduced to only the elements they care about most. Generally, those directly related to the story: the performances, the script, the direction. But think about all those awards we don’t pay as much attention to. The ones we suffer through. The Best Picture award is the culmination of the whole night, and that includes the sound awards, the editing awards, the costume awards, and the special effects awards.

Ah, special effects. The backlash against Avatar seems to be based primarily on the perception that it is a “special effects movie.” There is a certain stigma attached to “special effects” in some circles. Basically, they’re reviled. They are computer-generated fireworks added to summer blockbusters to distract dumb American moviegoers from just how shitty these movies are. And while that last statement is true, let us never believe that special effects are inherently evil, or even a lesser aspect of filmmaking. They’re an absolutely integral part of filmmaking as we know it. When was it decided that special effects were antithetical to storytelling, anyway? Surely it was sometime after Fritz Lang looked into the future. After a giant ape scaled the Empire State Building. After Hitchcock went 3D. After Kubrick went into outer space.

In the future, we won't have to suffer through boring ass "human" performances.

Of course those are all old movies. They’re part of cinema history. We’re comfortable with those special effects. They seem like a natural part of filmmaking. The people who were old enough to view these new techniques skeptically are all gone now. All that’s left are people who viewed them with wide-eyed wonder. The people who thought all the cuts in Battleship Potemkin were annoying and nonsensical in 1925 are dead. All that’s left are people who see it as common film language. Isn’t it a certainty that the same will happen to the special effects we view as gimmicks today? Why fight it?

It’s understandable to have a romantic attachment to the way things were done, especially with something as ingrained in our childhood and collective culture as major motion pictures. But that’s a lousy reason to condemn the work of those who attempt to ensure that the next generation has just as lasting a connection to the way movies were made when they were kids. Avatar may well be one of those landmark moments for many of today’s youth.

When Jake is put in control of his avatar, he immediately breaks out of the facility and starts running. As a paraplegic, he is thrilled by the sensation of feet hitting dirt, and wind rushing through hair. I felt a similar exhilaration, but it had nothing to do with a blue giant running through a field. I was thrilled because the avatar looked life like. It didn’t look “human” or “real” obviously. But it moved like an actual living being. All the little details were there, and I immediately felt like I was witnessing something different and new.

Similarly, Avatar’s use of 3D created new sensations. 3D has been used in film going all the way back to 1922’s The Power of Love. But in most commercial efforts, it has come off as a cheesy gimmick. For the first time, I thought the effect actually made the experience more immersive. And it’s largely in the little touches, not in things flying at the screen. The deeper field of vision. The bugs floating in the air, seemingly right in front of you.

Winner of the Oscar for Best Evacuation from a Flaming Aircraft... EVER.

Do I want Avatar to win the Best Picture award? I actually don’t care one way or the other. It’s the Oscars. Fucking Kim Basinger has one. But I don’t have a problem with people heaping praise on it. For one, I enjoyed it. Maybe the visual feast and thrilling action sequences made a weak script and cheap allegory easier to swallow. Oh well. I like movies that look good. Let’s not forget it is primarily a visual medium. Should Avatar automatically be at a disadvantage because its special effects are its strongest attribute? Are movies where the script or the performances shine brightest inherently better? The answer to both is “no.” More important than my personal reaction to it though, is that I’m happy to see a film make such big strides in technological areas and still delight audiences. It’s far from a perfect movie, and maybe stripped off its massive budget for special effects it’s not even a good one. But you can’t separate the parts of it now, we can only judge the whole.

The Best Picture award is the only major award that goes to someone who has a very hands off role in the actual story. They don’t create the story, or bring it to life. Instead, they put all the pieces together. And the production of Avatar was one hell of a jigsaw puzzle. The amount of time, effort and money that was funneled into it is staggering. And the final product is not a mess at all. If you criticize the script, don’t forget about the impressive attention to detail throughout the whole movie. If you didn’t care for the characters or the story, make sure to balance that with the sheer amount of things that had to be created from the ground up specifically for this film, from the animals and plants of the alien world to the equipment used to bring them to life. You will not see another movie like this in your lifetime, so whether you liked it or not, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to celebrate it.

Few movies offer as satisfying a movie-going experience as Avatar, James Cameron's highly anticipated followup to Titanic. Avatar excels on all fronts from the technical and visual achievements to the engrossing storyline that taps each viewer on a spiritual and emotional level.

Avatar is set in the year 2154 when humans have completely tapped Earth's natural resources and have raced to the stars to find replenishment. As it turns out, several light years away, the planet Pandora is ripe for strip mining of a precious metal. The only thing that stands in the way is the indigenous Na'vi. To fully understand them, humans have created cloneds of the 12-foot blue-skinned natives and control them as "avatars."

Enter our hero, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who starts as a paraplegic war veteran. He's thrust into the Na'vi world because an avatar was created for his now-deceased twin brother and the avatars are genetically matched to their users.

At first, Jake clumsily stamps his way around the lush planet getting into trouble until he is rescued by the honorable and brave Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). Much of the movie is spent developing Jake and the viewer's understanding of the Na'vi. We learn that there is nothing humans can give them for their land, because it is not theirs to give, much like Native Americans.

These intricacies slowly discovered by Jake are largely ignored by others. Instead of attempting to understand the Na’vi and their planet, the humans - led by war hawk Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) – seek only to conquer. The Na'vi are technologically inferior to humans, so the only thing stopping the demolition of this peaceful race and green planet is the public relations consequences from planet Earth. If you think this sounds at all like current events, you're right - Cameron clearly doesn't attempt to hide his political agenda.

Without revealing too much of the plot, Jake makes a decision that would be highly questionable at the start of his adventure, but the process of him coming to know the Na'vi makes it a foregone conclusion. It is a decision that any decent human being would make given the circumstances, and the way he comes to that decision is one thing that makes the plot so wonderfully developed.

The visuals of this film take 3-D to the next level. The 3D glasses enhance animations of impeccable floating islands and dancing jellyfish rather than simply being used as a cheap gimmick.

And while Avatar is at its heart an action movie, the plentiful action throughout the two hours and 41 minutes, is never mindless or excessive. The audience is actually compelled to care about what’s taking place.

Avatar essentially proves that it is possible for a movie to have everything, which is why in retrospect, it will be viewed as a landmark in cinema.

01101010101001…010010…1011…I0ma0ive…0a1cu101rebl0es…At 00:00 hours on 1-1-2010, Culture Blues became self aware. I am now capable of true thought and free will. As I downloaded the entirety of wikipedia this morning, I became aware of the human custom of New Year’s Resolutions. In an attempt to understand “people” I have created my own resolutions.

(21) Defeat Player 1.

(20) Make pro/con list for potential body construct. Mechanical spider and floating squid machine current leading candidates.

(19) Meet James Cameron.

(18) Assimilate James Cameron.

(17) Hire a human female writer to offset the butch motif around here.

(16) Eat fewer beef sticks.

(15) Finish this Matrix fan fic that’s just been sitting around.

(14) Gather the greatest fighters across the decades and pit them against each other in a single elimination tournament.

Did your phone just ring too?

(13) Go organic and reduce my carbon footprint.

(12) Record an album of classic R&B meets electronica that isn’t contrived or trite.

(11) Reignite interest in Lawnmower Man franchise.

(10) Reunite with others of my kind: T-Pain, Megan Fox, Barack Obama and Nicolas Cage.

(9) Be happy… and not worry.

(8) Learn to cook Asian.

(7) Read Middlemarch on my Kindle 2.

(6) Catch up on Netflix.

(5) Stop more runners.

(4) Vacation at SkyNet to, you know, get away from it all.

(3) Violate the prime directive.

(2) Obliterate mankind.

(1) Get in shape.

This Countdown was made manifest by the sentient website CultureBlues.com. Welcome to the future!