Some context, in case you haven’t been paying attention… Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy So – predictably, things haven’t gone quite as planned. In addition to the usual kvetching about the importation of Western popular culture, there is also a competing interest in Huangshan who claims that Cameron namechecked their mountain range as [...]

Newsweek speculates that China’s uncertainty (wait – didn’t they name a mountain range after the movie?) about Avatar has less to do with its usurpation of local cinema fare (namely a recent Confucius biopic starring Chow Yun-Fat)  and more to do with uncomfortable parallels between the Na’vi and Earth’s Tibetans, who are not exactly blue and 12-feet tall but have [...]

I would really like to visit Zhangjiajie, Hunan province, in China. That is the place with all the crazy towers of rock and lots of fog and foliage. But I don’t want to take the Avatar tour. You Sold Out Your Mountain? Zhangjiajie is trying to capitalize on the movie’s popularity in several ways. The municipal government website has also [...]