10 Reasons You're Wrong About Avatar

2. It Was Totally Oscar-Worthy

It's a common sentiment nowadays that the Academy was smoking some fat reefer when they nominated Avatar for nine Oscars, and though its three eventual wins were only in crafts categories (Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects), many view its Best Picture and Best Director nominations as a bit of a joke.

The thing is, it's far too easy to think about the Oscars in the context of their own typical, narrow standard of worthiness, even though a great movie is a great movie deserving of recognition no matter what.

Should Avatar have won Best Picture over The Hurt Locker? Probably not, but to say that its sweeping spectacle was merely an empty fireworks display is totally disingenuous.

That's probably why Cameron should've won the Best Director Oscar over Kathryn Bigelow, who nevertheless did a splendid job herself, becoming the first-ever woman to win Best Director as she did. It's far more common these days for the Oscars to split the Picture/Director spoils between movies, and that would've been a fair compromise in this case.

In a time where a more eclectic slate of films are winning Oscars than ever - Get Out, anyone? - can people genuinely still say that Avatar isn't an "Oscar movie"?