Now that's show business!

Awards season is here again, and the annual furore over which movie won the Golden Globe has really kicked off this year. The reaction to Avatar's win was truly shocking. I've never seen such bile spewed forth, and I've been on the Net for 20-odd years.

Putting aside all the juvenile and ill-informed vitriol, why do people take these awards so seriously? Quick test. Here's a short list of films. What do they have in common?

• Network
• Annie Hall
• Coming Home
• Kramer vs Kramer
• Ordinary People
• Unforgiven
• Terms of Endearment
• Million Dollar Baby

They all won at least three of the big six Oscars (Film, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor & Actress), and they're all, as far as I'm concerned, eminently forgettable. In fact, of the dozen or so movies that have achieved this feat in the last 35 or so years, only two of them have really stood the test of time: Gandhi and Rain Man. There are other good films in this select group, like Amadeus and Silence of the Lambs, but they're not what I'd call great films. So, frankly, why do we care? The award only means that this group of people, at this time, liked that movie better than the others. It's not an enduring mark of greatness.

So what does make a great movie? Well, there's one simple measure of any form of entertainment. How many people went to see it? Box office may not be a measure of great artistic merit, but it does certainly tell you that this film appeals to a lot of people. And that, if you're in show business, is what pays the bills. Come on, making money ain't necessarily a bad thing. Films wouldn't get made if they weren't commercially successful. And that arty flick you like probably wouldn't have got funded if the studio hadn't made a ton of moolah off one of its blockbusters. It's been that way for a long, long time.

"We don't make films to make money. We make money so we can make more films." - Walt Disney

There's a great list of highest grossing movies over on wikipedia. It's worth a look.

Honestly, how can you not respect a man who makes the highest grossing film of all time, and then spends ten years to make another one that's just as huge, even without a massively popular hit single to help sell it. (Currently, Avatar's running #2 with $1.6bn, behind Titanic's $1.8bn. Anyone seriously want to bet that Avatar won't take the top spot?) Yes, it's a derivative story. So what? Show me any film in that list that doesn't have a derivative story. Actually, show me any book, comic or anything else that doesn't have a derivative story. That's what makes Avatar work - it takes familiar elements and reworks them into a fantastic storytelling experience. Just like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Batman, Spiderman, Shrek, and so on. That's why we love them.

More interesting, though, compare what it cost to make the movie with what it made at box office, a bit further down the page. There's a fairly simple rule. To be one of these mega-blockbusters, you need to be one of the biggest budget movies of the year, and you'll make back 3 to 10 times what you invested.

Except, now look at Rocky. Cost, $1.1m. Box office, $225m. Holy crap, Batman. That film made back 200 times what it cost, which is truly phenomenal, and that doesn't even cover the video & DVD sales or the TV money, let alone the merchandising. Now that, my friends, is the kind of box office returns movie producers dream about. How many other films got made by UA because of the money they made from Rocky? It may not be the best movie ever, but it shows that someone really knew exactly what the public wanted and gave it to them. That's where the business comes into the show.

I therefore nominate Rocky as the most successful movie ever made. And you know what, I've never even seen it.

My favourite movie of the year

2009 has been a pretty good year for me and movies. I've seen more films in the cinema than I have for ages, largely because the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse and the Enzian Theater are such fantastic places to go to. I've begun to watch a wider range of movies at home than normal as well, thanks to Netflix streaming. (They should be paying me, the amount I go on about them.)

Anyway, here's my top three.

#3 Red Cliff

I've loved the Dynasty Warriors games since I first saw a PS2. John Woo's Red Cliff is an epic film based on one of the historical battles depicted in that game, so I was fascinated to see what it would be like. I wasn't disappointed. I was stunned to see how close it was to the game, in terms of both the story and the visual design of the characters and the places. They're both drawing on the same sources, and they're both treating it remarkably faithfully. As you'd expect from John Woo, it's a full-on spectacular action film, and the set-piece sequences are jaw-droppingly good. Costumes, sets, and cinematography are all fabulous, in the way that top-notch Chinese movies seem to have mastered these days. I still haven't seen the full 280-minute Asian release, only the 148-minute Western release, but I certainly intend to.

#2 Avatar

It's a tough call, but I'm going to have to put Avatar in second place. In the last three weeks we've seen the popular response go from "it can't live up to the hype" to "wow!" and then to "yeah, but the story's lame, what's the big deal?" The big deal is this. It's breathtaking. It uses 3D like no movie before it. The animation is incredible. The visual design is astounding. When you see it on a big IMAX 3D screen you become totally immersed in this beautiful, fantastic, magical world and in the film, and you want to reach out and touch it. You get vertigo while sitting in your seat. As for the story, personally, I loved it. It weaves together things from so many sources I've enjoyed over the years: Ferngully, yes, but also Deathworld, Starship Troopers, Aliens, Dragonriders of Pern, Emerald Forest, Dances With Wolves, and a host of classic SF stories. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, but I was absolutely entranced throughout. It's without a doubt the best thing Sigourney Weaver has done in years. It's taken Cameron 10 years and $300m to create Avatar, and he's exceeded all my expectations. It's a true landmark film.

#1 Moon

At completely the opposite end of the spectrum to Avatar, this low-budget sci-fi movie from Duncan Jones is my top pick of 2009. It's the best hardcore sci-fi I've seen in, well, as long as I can remember. It's an engrossing psychological thriller, with just one actor (more or less) and a robotic voice. I'm not going to say anything at all about the plot: I knew nothing about it when I saw it, and was absolutely hooked. It's only 97 minutes long, but you have no sense of time in this eerie world, and you feel completely sucked in. It's even more incredible when you know that it was made for just $5m, and it's Jones's debut movie. The special effects shots are superb, and I was amazed to learn that they're nearly all model shots, not digital, because it was cheaper that way. There's a lesson in there for movie-makers.

There are some good-looking movies coming up in 2010, and I still haven't seen Sherlock Holmes or Me And Orson Welles. I'm really looking forward to Alice in Wonderland, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Clash of the Titans, Legion, The Lightning Thief, Dante's Inferno, Prince of Persia, and Eagle of the Ninth - and those are just the big movies I know about. Who knows what the indie movie scene or the Florida Film Festival will reveal?

Happy New Year, everyone. Whether you're making or watching movies, have fun!