James Cameron Meets His Match

By our guest blogger, Matt Popkin

If you want to talk about power players in Hollywood, a good place to start might be James Cameron. If you want to talk about power players in the world, a good place to start might be the Vatican.

Thus it seems Cameron might be making a good choice by staying silent after the official Vatican radio station and newspaper both criticized his new film, “Avatar.” Not that Cameron has much to worry about—his newest blockbuster is currently threatening to break every box-office record known to man. The Vatican, however, was not impressed, claiming that the film “gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to worship of nature.” They even called the film “bland,” despite going on to say the film had “extraordinary visual impact” and that “really never before have such surprising images been seen.”

Clearly, 10-foot-tall blue people with tails and floating islands just don’t do it for some people.

This criticism comes right before the movie’s opening in Italy on Friday and while Pope Benedict XVI has spoke before about the dangerous of worshipping nature as some sort of neo-paganism, this is the first time such a rhetoric has been applied to popular culture, film or otherwise. Consequently, Pope Benedict XVI has still not yet discussed the most dangerous pagan religion sweeping the world, which is, of course, “American Idol.” All hail Simon Cowell!

While there’s also been no comment yet on what the Vatican thinks about Cameron’s long-standing claim that he’s “the king of the world,” it’s important to remember that they do occasionally have good taste. One of the newspaper’s most recent positive reviews? “The Simpsons.”