James Cameron

James Cameron: Shoot Climate 'Deniers,' Glenn Beck a 'F------ A--hole'
By Lachlan Markay | March 24, 2010 | 6:45 PM EDT
"Avatar" director James Cameron had some nasty words for Glenn Beck and global warming "deniers" yesterday.

Cameron said at a news conference that he would like to shoot "those boneheads," referring to skeptics of anthropogenic global warming. "Anybody that is a global warming denier at this point in time has got their head so deeply up their a** I'm not sure they could hear me," Cameron added.

As for Beck, "he's a f****** a**hole," the 2010 Oscar nominee so eloquently put it. He backtracked a bit, but still maintained that the FNC host is "dangerous because his ideas are poisonous," echoing a statement by NPR's Cokie Roberts yesterday. "Of course he wound up on Fox News, which is where he belongs, I guess."
Vieira Aids James Cameron in Whitewashing Anti-Military 'Avatar'
By Geoffrey Dickens | February 17, 2010 | 1:44 PM EST

Director/producer James Cameron was invited on the Today show Wednesday, for a second time, to promote his movie Avatar (as if the top grossing movie of all-time really needed it). Co-host Meredith Vieira allowed Cameron to brag about screening his anti-military sci-fi flick to servicemen and women on an aircraft carrier but never brought up the criticism, coming from the enlisted, that his movie portrays them as villains.

Using the booking hook that Cameron is a Canadian, Vieira, hosting the show from the Olympics site in Vancouver, first prompted him to talk about the pro-environmental theme of Avatar, to which Cameron absurdly claimed: "Trying to find money to make an environmental movie, you can't do it, either as a documentary or as a feature. So I thought, alright, fine I'll do this big action adventure on another planet but there will be this theme woven through it." [audio available here]

Then Vieira, completely ignoring all the charges his film stirs up anti-U.S. military sentiments, allowed Cameron to slap himself on the back for bringing the blockbuster to the carrier:

Dowd Wishes Homeland Security Could Be More Like 'Avatar'
By Lachlan Markay | January 7, 2010 | 4:27 PM EST
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd really wants a national security system that looks really nice and has lots of fancy bells and whistles, but is, beneath the shiny exterior, quite mediocre and extremely expensive.

Dowd implied as much when she asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in a New Years Eve interview, "Why is it so hard for those charged with keeping us safe to be as imaginative and innovative as filmmakers like James Cameron?"

Yes, Cameron is so imaginative that he managed to spend $400 million on what amounts to a visually dazzling remake of Disney's Pocahontas (see plot summary below the fold - h/t Big Hollywood).
Anti-Capitalist Movie Avatar Partners With McDonalds for Corporate Marketing Push
By Mitchell Blatt | December 29, 2009 | 8:30 PM EST
While James Cameron's Avatar contains many anti-capitalism messages in its global warming alarmist push, the film has made some big corporate partnership deals with companies like McDonalds.

McDonalds has been running ads co-branding with Avatar, has created Avatar “digital experiences”, and has featured Avatar toys in Happy Meals.

Cameron said on the Today Show “[Greed] tends to destroy the environment.”

McDonalds is allegedly very destructive to the environment, so Cameron isn’t really upholding the lessons of his own film.
Is 'Avatar' A Multi-Million Dollar Ad For Global Warming?
By Noel Sheppard | December 17, 2009 | 1:24 PM EST

With the imminent release of the science fiction blockbuster "Avatar," some have characterized it as a multi-million dollar public service announcment for global warming.

Popular Science reported Tuesday:

Unlike [George] Lucas’ more playful science fiction epic ["Star Wars"], [James] Cameron reaches for a heavy environmental message. Avatar is every militant global warming supporter’s dream come true as the invading, technology-worshiping, environment-ravaging humans are set upon by an angry planet and its noble inhabitants.

In an interview with "The Hollywood Reporter," Cameron refuted this sentiment...or did he? (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

On Today: James Cameron Reveals Liberal Propaganda in Avatar
By Geoffrey Dickens | December 14, 2009 | 1:04 PM EST

Prompted by NBC's Meredith Vieira, on Monday's Today show, Avatar director James Cameron revealed the liberal undertones in his new blockbuster as he told the Today co-anchor the plot centers on how greed and imperialism "tends to destroy the environment..." and how the human characters in the sci-fi flick "are doing the same thing on another pristine planet that we've done on earth." [audio available here]

Big Hollywood's John Nolte reports, in his review of the film, "Avatar is a thinly disguised, heavy-handed and simplistic sci-fi fantasy/allegory critical of America from our founding straight through to the Iraq War," in which the human characters want to "strip mine" the alien planet for its resources.

Vieira first broached the politics of Avatar with Cameron by noting, "There's a message about, you know, greed and when people want a lot of things, imperialism. All of that," to which Cameron espoused, "And how that tends to destroy the environment and so on."

The following is the relevant exchange as it was aired on the December 14 Today show: