Avatar wasn't necessarily my favorite movie of 2009, but of those nominated and taking into account everything that it takes to make a good movie, I think it was deserving of the award.

I saw all of the movies you mentioned, and they were all quite good. I'm not certain I would have given the Oscar to Titanic either, but I do feel strongly about Avatar versus the others it was up against.

Offtopic - my favourite movie of the year was definitely District 9. It did have to compete with Watchmen and Avatar though.

I always loved the Watchmen story - and the film was awesome, but not quite there.

Avatar was pretty close though - it was just the Hollywood plot that sucked, but for me the 3D was awesomely real. The best bits were in the jungle with dust, seed floaters etc - the depth of field really worked.

Offtopic again - I hate flicker from almost everything. Cinemas are the worst for me, but any CRT below 72Hz really hurts my head, and all old fluorescents are bad. Worst in peripheral vision, obviously, but also pretty close to straight ahead.

How I love 96Hz refresh rates and LCD screens!

Damn, Watchmen was a year ago this month. So early it almost seemed like a 2008 release. Which is very unfortunate when it comes to Academy awards, because stuff from the first half of the year seems to often get ignored.

BTW, the LCD on your computer is probably 60Hz.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Bruno is right about that, but it works differently. 60Hz on an LCD is not 60Hz on a CRT. But we've argued about that already...

And yeah, if a movie has any hopes of an Oscar, they dare not release before September or they're forgotten. Not that I would expect Watchmen to win or even get nominated in any category, though. Not a chance.

I'm curious, though. Given the actual release date, I wonder if they tried to get Shutter Island released before the end of '09. It's odd that a movie of that caliber would be released in the very beginning of the year. Had it not been, I would think it would be a shoe-in for a nomination for Best Director. That film is like a master class in film directing.

Maybe they plan to re-release it at the end of the year? (Shutter). At the end of the day, there's only a fixed amount of slots to release a movie. Stuff gets bumped around all the time by months or years at a time. MOstly to get favorable weekends rather than awards consideration I believe. Happened to Fast and Furious and the last Harry Potter (which was supposed to be released during the preceding November).

*click*