James Cameron's "Avatar" has been making all kinds of money over the last couple of weeks. There has to be some quality behind all the buzz right? I mean, Cameron has been thinking about this movie for over 20 years, it has to have some depth; it should bring something huge to the table. So the real question is, is "Avatar" the Blue Man Group of cinema or is it just a case of cinematic blue balls?

When talking about this movie, it is impossible to not mention how pretty it actually is. For real, it is one of the most stunning pieces of cinematic art I have ever seen. What makes it so impressive is Cameron's use of 3D. Before this movie, I always found 3D to be very gimmicky and just about watching things feel like they are flying at my face. Cameron does something unique with 3D that no one has ever done before, he treats it like art. Instead of seeing in what ways 3D could be used to startle the audience, 3D for Cameron has depth, control, and subtlety. It's like all of the wonderful things about good cinematography are not being approached on a 3-dimensional level. It takes a new way of approaching cinema to understand how truly challenging this is.

One of the most impressive things about "Avatar" is how well thought out the world of Pandora is. My first interaction with "Avatar" was in the December edition of Wired magazine. In this issue, the feature article on "Avatar" described Cameron's journey to create this world. Everything is thought out completely. For example, he worked with a linguistic to develop not only an alien language, but a language with syntax and grammar. The language was so thought out that the linguist had to be on set to correct the actors when they mispronounced words, even though the language was not real. Cameron even worked with botanists to describe biologically how every plant on Pandora worked. To say that the world of Pandora is well thought out is the understatement of the year. That's what happens when you think about an idea for 20+ years.

Visuals and special effects are great, but what about the story? Surely a movie that has been this deep in thought has a plot that would blow us all away. The way that I've described it to friends is that "Avatar" is what would have have happened if Michael Bay made "Pocahontas." Michael Bay because there are all kinds of unnecessary explosions (but they sure look pretty) and "Pocahontas" because I seriously thought they were going to start singing "Colors of the Wind." But for real, the plot is pretty typical for the colonization genre (if that genre exists, think "Dances with Wolves") and not too surprising. The plot's not bad... but it's not good either.

But the reason this movie will be remembered is because of the implications of what it means to filmmakers. Filmmakers are going to have to start thinking about what exactly 3D means to their films and how it can even be incorporated into the story. It also means that the sky is the limit when it comes to the imagination. "Avatar" has shown us that computer technology is capable of creating anything that we can think of our in our minds.

"Avatar" is definitely worth a see, but not because of how the story will move you, but because of how much awe you will be in when watching this film. Plus, if you can see it in IMAX, you should just pay the couple of extra bucks. In order to appreciate what you are watching, the giant screen helps. 4 out of 5.

You've heard it said before here that one of the best ways to tell a story is through the use of metaphors and symbolism. This is what makes fiction so effective. It allows the audience to be impacted in artistic ways that are more likely to make the message stick. Today we are going to take a look at this from a mathematical perspective.

The first thing to consider is that the more you cloak your message in metaphors and symbolism means that less and less people will be likely to understand your message. It makes the messages less clear. This is the chance that you must be willing to take. The relationship is inversely linear.

But now we must take into account the fact that using metaphors and symbolism means that your message is more likely to have a lasting effect on the person. This is because it hits them at a very visceral level and requires some type of response. It is this response (whether physical or emotional) that makes it stay in the mind longer. The use of these storytelling devices may start small at first and the increase rapidly. There comes a point though where shrouding things in metaphors and symbolism can become so convoluted that the impact plateaus.

Now, for putting all together. Let's talk about impact. I'm defining impact as the combination of the effect on the person and the amount of people impacted. Since these are qualitative variables, normal mathematical processes will not work here, so instead you have my interpretation of what a combination of these two sets of data would provide. The amount of impact starts growing exponentially, but eventually the amount of people that do not understand the message starts to effect the overall value of the curve and there beings a steady decrease.

The goal of the storyteller then is to find that point right before the decrease of impact. What is the appropriate amount of metaphor and symbolism to use to tell your story before it begins to take away from your overall message? This is all theoretical of course with no hard data, but provides something to think about. Also, this assumes that the goal of telling a story is to convey your message. There are other factors to consider as well. However, I do use this to continue to support the notion that fiction can be one of the most powerful ways to convey a message out there.

I'll be the first to admit that I love my laptop. I use it for a large chunk of things in my life. It allows me to get access to so many things whenever I want. Whether it's connection to the internet, the ability to make art, or to interact with other people, my laptop can make it happen instantaneously. However all of this ease may be setting up new obstacles that directors of film may find themselves not knowing how to deal with.

I've been observing the behavior of people watching movies or TV shows in a non-public place. What I've noticed is that people have the tendency to access their laptop or phones when the pace dies down on screen. It might be easy to say that it is the fault of the filmmaker, but there is something to be said about subtlety as well. If the response to this lack of attention span is to say that film makers needs to make every scene action packed and exciting, the only movies that would exist are movies in the ilk of Transformers 2. There's nothing inherently wrong with a movie like this, but to make this the ideal is a travesty.

This is an interesting dilemma because it is usually during these "slower" scenes that major pieces of information are revealed to the audience. Because of our shortening attention spans, we are missing out on key elements of the plot. I've witnessed first hand friends miss something important to to the plot during one of these moments and then be confused later in the movie, even when it was explicitly explained earlier in the film.

To say that all of the fault on the audience is unfair as well. Communication is all about understanding your audience and if you aren't making your movies or TV shows in a way that audiences will understand, then you aren't communicating properly. This is the interesting landscape that film makers are stepping into. So this reiterates the question raised earlier, what are the implications of this to the filmmaker?

I think part of this means film makers must find new and creative ways to deal with dropping important pieces of information. Subtlety is something that should not be abandoned because it is a key ingredient of good art, but that doesn't mean film makers cannot innovate and find new ways to deal with this. But does this mean film makers need to have shorter scenes or dialogue focused on efficiency? I don't think this is necessarily the case either.

I don't have any of the answers, but I am interested to see what happens to the state of visual media as audiences become less tolerant of "slow moving scenes." But part of me is also excited because with every problem comes a new and innovative solution. What will be the innovation that will grab inattentive audiences from their seats?