AVATAR (3D IMAX)

Avatar -- the 3D IMAX version -- is one of the most important, and greatest films ever made. It is a stunning directorial achievement, and a transporting experience to watch.

It would be crazy for any other film to win "Best Picture" or anyone other than James Cameron to win "Best Director."

Cameron enables new technology to extend the world of the film image into the third dimension better than it has ever been done. The world of the film has a feeling of magic on the one hand, and realism on the other.

It points the way to a whole new legion of 3D films that become qualitatively different when extended into the third dimension.

Visually, Cameron's planet is literally a new place, creative in its concept, beautiful and complex in its design and rendering.

His story is sparse and archtypal, and the theme -- paradoxically -- is the priority of nature over technology.

AVATAR is a film that must be seen by anyone interested in the nature/future of film, and it must be seen in 3D IMAX. Anything else is another film.