China Mieville had this fun piece on the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog that pokes holes in the digital effects of the new crop of big-budget SF flicks (Avatar among them). I gotta agree when he praises Ray Harryhausen’s groundbreaking stop-motion creatures (“Seventh Voyage of Sinbad,” “Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” et al.) as the high-water mark for special effects that really seem to live and breathe. I’ll take the skeleton swordfight from “Jason and the Argonauts” over any Hollywood CGI I saw last year.