ARCHIDISIAC

I spent most of today hungover in bed from too much tequila. I got up once to use the restroom, another time to eat a bowl of cereal, and another time to watch the last quarter of the Capitol One bowl game before crawling back to bed. I finally got out of bed for good around six and proceeded to spend the rest of the night watching the Law and Order SVU marathon on USA. All in all a pretty unproductive but necessary day.

I did want to write about the James Cameron film Avatar. I saw it last Tues and had mixed feelings. First of all, I paid $14 which is a little ridiculous considering I spent the first fifteen minutes adjusting to a headache the 3D glasses gave me. Avatar was the first film I saw in 3D and I have to say some of it is pretty impressive especially when the film transitions from focusing on the foreground to the background and vice versa. The effect falls short, however, in creating continuous depth throughout the film. Some scenes seemed only to have three layers of depth and that objects on each layer were flat, almost like paper cutouts. Most of the time it was fine, I only noticed the lack of volume a few times.

I don't have much praise for the story itself. Much of the plot and scenery reminded me of Ferngully, Disney's children's film about pixies and the destruction of the rainforest...in Avatar's case, it was on steroids. The depiction of the Na'avi was pretty horrendous and offensive. James Cameron basically hits his audience over the head repeatedly with corny and stereotypical primitive behavior and really shows a complete lack of sensitivity toward the subject matter. I did, however, love the aesthetics of the film. The overall color scheme and design of the creatures and environment were absolutely beautiful. I would love to work on a production team that does this sort of stuff. Coolest job ever.