Avatar

Avatar: n., means “Good visuals but bad movie”
I don’t go to movies. I have been in Knoxville for 24 years and have been dragged into the theatre to see Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Saving Private Ryan. I guess once every decade is about right for me. The reason is that I won’t buy what Hollywood is selling. Why give my money to support people with whose philosophy I disagree with, whose values I deplore and whose message is against my fundamental beliefs? Have you seen a movie trailer on TV that made you want to see the movie? I haven’t. All the trailers either have someone running around shooting people or some poor soul screaming. I told my students “it must be awful being in a generation where the main attribute to be an actor is the ability to scream.” On my trip to Africa, after listening to the ipod and working the NY Times Sunday puzzle (the only reason for that newspaper’s existence), I watched Avatar. It’s a terrible movie. Although it is an action movie there is virtually no blood or guts. Only Sigourney Weaver’s foul mouth keeps it from being acceptable for young kids. I know people have raved about its visuals but has anyone you know actually talked about the movie itself? The plot is infantile obviously written by some Birkenstock shod greenie weenie who hates capitalism and wants to return to nature. It is the typical Hollywood tripe about the evil corporation trying to rip out the hearts of an idyllic bucolic one-with-nature lovely blue very tall humanoids with long tails by stealing some precious metal underneath the mother tree. I kid you not. From the first scene you know its going to be hero meets girl goes nature abandons evil kin fights own kind to help the otherwise helpless souls defeat technology gets the girl and lives happily ever after in the mother tree. There were absolutely no surprises in the plot line. Why does every Hollywood story when it features a corporation, must feature an evil one? Do you know of an evil corporation? Yeah, I know: Walmart – if you are a hippie- back- to- the- family- store- with- high- prices -and -lousy –selection-where everyone makes subsistence wages type. Well that is apparently the only type of corporation that Hollywood knows because I looked at the info on the other movies on the plane and there were five others featuring evil corporations. How about a movie on the evil propaganda machine that lies to the people so it can manipulate opinions and turn gullible children into mind numbed robots? How about a Hollywood movie about Hollywood?