Really, you wanted more sideboob from Neytiri?

So yesterday, while I only got to play a few minutes of God of War II, I managed to stuff in two more episodes of Mad Men - "Marriage of Figaro" and "New Amsterdam".

Much like my experience with True Blood, the show is appearing to start slow and gradually open itself up. While I doubt it will end up being nearly as awesome and addictive as Blood, it is getting fairly interesting. The third episode (Figaro) was fairly boring and actually put me to sleep, despite showing off how much of a ladies man Don Draper is, but the fourth episode (Amsterdam) was a definite improvement, and a step in the right direction. I think its because they brought Pete back to the forefront, making him the villain and the bane of Draper's existence. The guy who plays him, Vincent Kartheiser, seems to be a really good job with him, showing some great range in how conflicted this guy seems to be about wanting to rise up the ranks because no one seems to want to give him a break. Continuing to love Jon Hamm's work too, even if his character seems to be a lot of things that he is not.

And I also took in a long awaited second viewing of Avatar. The first time I saw it in IMAX 3D and was simply blown away by the effects and the scope of the film. The second time I just saw it in regular 3D, and rather surprisingly, it felt like I was watching it again for the first time. It is just such an impressive feat of film-making on the part of James Cameron, and just about everything in the film still held up. There just seems to be a sense of wonder within the film that manages to make it feel new for a second time viewer. I loved just looking at the effects in action, especially ones featuring water or mud, and the depth of realism the effects go into. Simply stunning. I only hope I feel the same way when the Special Edition Blu-ray comes out in November.

If there's anything I hold against the film, it is the fact that despite knowing where all the beats are, it still feels like a bad train wreck when Cameron hits the breaks after the destruction of a certain important object in the film (while I know just about everyone has seen the movie now, I still do not like spoiling it). The film practically whips by up until that point, and then totally loses momentum until the start of the epic final battle scene. Clearly the exposition is needed, and there is a bad ass scene featuring Quaritch that I love to death that comes after, but it just seems like Cameron could have done a much better job preserving the film's speed. The man is clearly not one for brevity, so if he really feels the movie deserves to be almost 3 hours long, he could at least make sure that it does not feel that long. The "I see you" bits were a little much the second time, but the script still manages to not feel as bad as people put it down for being.

As for Oscars, well, I think it has the shot for Best Picture again, but I really think The Hurt Locker will take it. Just handing it to the audience pleasing film a year after fucking over The Dark Knight seems to be a bit much. More on them in the coming days though...