2707 Avatar; Housewarming

Saturday, December 19, 2009

When Jesus said to love your enemies,
he probably meant don’t kill them.

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Avatar (last night) was terrific! I do recommend that everyone see it, BUT you must see it in 3-D.

The first few minutes are story setup, then we get to see the planet. The middle of the movie is exploring the planet, the forests, the floating mountains, the animals, the people. It's all incredibly beautiful. Phosphorescent. The seeds from the sacred tree look like a cross between dandelion seeds and jellyfish, and act like butterflies. The "horses" look like a dream of what a horse should look like, without looking like a horse at all.

The last third of the movie is ruined by the army, but I guess that's to appease the males in the audience. Very destructive. Makes one angry.

This is not a spoiler, just something I noticed: The science lady made a big deal about how the trees' roots are "neurally" connected, and communicate, and how everything is interconnected. So when the bulldozers and flamethrowers start, I fully expected that the trees would fight back. I expected to see the trees reach up and bat the helicopters out of the sky, and was disappointed when something different happened. I mentioned that to the group at dinner after the movie, and everybody blinked twice and said yeah, now that I've mentioned it, yeah....

Battling trees would have been so much neater - it would say to the invaders, "the entire planet is against you, it will do you no good to come back, you cannot win." As it is, they've left it open for a re-invasion sequel, so I wouldn't be surprised if trees weren't the perfect first plan, but it got changed when someone said, "hey, we may have a franchise here".

Of all the movies I've seen in the past year, this is the only one I want to see again, because of the beauty of the luminous forest. See it if you have the chance, but it MUST be in 3-D. Otherwise, flat, it's just an ok story.

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This afternoon was a housewarming for Roman. Some people (particularly the ones coming from Massachusetts, western NY, and Albany) canceled because of the predicted snow, but we had 16 people, so it was pretty good. Roman's new townhouse is beautiful. His master bath is amazing, with both a 2-person jacuzzi and a huge shower.

I am exhausted. I made BLT soup this morning. I figured it would take me an hour to dice, shred, and grate the bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, green onions, pepper, and nutmeg for a double batch and get it all mixed together. Instead, it took almost three hours. Then when I got to Roman's, FW was making wassail, and she apparently didn't know how to whip egg whites (6 eggs) to stiff peaks, so I did that, with a fork. Yeouch. And I washed dishes as they were used in preparations. And then I washed dishes at cleanup, so people could take their things home. My hands are so dry they itch.

But, it's been a satisfying two days. And I'll be joining two of the Albany guys for bar trivia some Tuesday soon.

Something I noticed - it's better to have too few chairs than too many. Roman had a huge sectional sofa, some side chairs, and the chairs from his kitchen set in the living room, and so everyone SAT, in a big circle! (This is a Mensa bunch - I suppose if they all couldn't sit, they'd complain.) But that meant very little circulation, little opportunity for one-on-one. One of the Albany guys and I sort of flirted a little across the room, but so little it wasn't worth the attention that actually getting up and talking to each other would have drawn.

Especially if a certain gossip had intimated that Roman and I used to date. Awkward?
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