The top-grossing film in movie history is No. 1 again. The James Cameron epic Avatar, which has earned more than $2.7 billion in theaters worldwide since its Dec. 18 release — nearly 50% more than the previous record holder, Cameron’s Titanic — went into video stores yesterday and sold about 4 million copies. That established new standards for sales of both DVDs (topping Twilight as the year’s top seller) and Blu-ray discs (smash ... Jump to full article >>

While Some Are Enflamed Over On-Screen Cigarettes, David Edelstein Says Smoking Should Warrant an “R” – With Some Wiggle Room In “Avatar,” scientist Sigourney Weaver climbs out of a suspended-animation pod and demands a cigarette – which has enflamed an anti-tobacco faction led by Stan Glantz of the UC San Francisco School of Medicine. Their problem is the film is rated PG-13, and kids are buying tickets by th ... Jump to full article >>

Sigourney Weaver and Bill Hader attempt to make light of the NBC late-night situation in the promos for this week’s Saturday Night Live. I’m surprised the Avatar star (and serious actress from Ghostbusters) is not smoking a cig and wearing a Stanford University crop top here. Well, not really. Maybe there’s a skit for that? source: popwatch.ew.com ... Jump to full article >>

Some of those who oppose smoking in movies have just seen the future, and they are not happy about it. Having caught up with James Cameron’s 3-D science fiction thriller, “Avatar,” over the holidays, Stanton A. Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, said his Smoke Free Movies initiative would soon come out swinging with an informational campaign aimed at wha ... Jump to full article >>

Avatar, James Cameron’s 3D spectacular, had its world premiere in London. Stand by for the official verdict from the Guardian, but the shock of the night is that everyone else seems to have loved it A fortnight ago it all looked so different. An early review of selected footage from James Cameron’s space opera, posted anonymously on Gawker, comprehensively panned what had been hailed as a game-changingly ambitious and successful fora ... Jump to full article >>