Remember back in 1998 when we got all worked up over Steven Spielberg's "Oh, my God!" response to early footage from THE PHANTOM MENACE? Well, I think ComingSoon.net's Ed Douglas just got an equivalent response from Steven Soderbergh regarding James Cameron's AVATAR.
Basically, Soderbergh was asked why he believes recent movies aren't impacting the culture as significantly as, say, THE GODFATHER did in 1972. After expressing his disappointment with the absence of "benchmark" movies, he cautioned that AVATAR might be the exception. His exact quote:
"I've seen some stuff and holy shit. It's the craziest shit ever. That could negate everything I just said."
While these two have worked together in the past (Cameron produced Soderbergh's SOLARIS), Soderbergh doesn't strike me as the logrolling type, so I'm willing to believe that he was really and truly blown away by what Cameron showed him. What's honestly more surprising to me is Soderbergh bemoaning the paucity of culturally significant movies over the last thirty-seven years. Did he not see ANOTHER YOU?
I'll be very interested to read the entirety of Douglas's review, which should be posted to ... er, soon.
