Avatar

My grandson Zach and I moseyed on down to Movies 14 late this afternoon to see James Cameron’s latest theatrical release…Avatar.

I snagged the following from the trailer:

In Theatres Worldwide December 18 - AVATAR takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on an epic adventure, ultimately fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of Titanic, first conceived the film 15 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not exist yet. Now, after four years of production, AVATAR, a live action film with a new generation of special effects, delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.

And Markie’s review?

I’ve seen plenty of 3-D movies, and I always came away wondering what all the fuss was about. The effects weren’t all that amazing. And wearing the glasses was always kind of annoying. But this flick, this latest 3-D wizardry is truly something to behold.

And the mix of cinematography, CGI, 3-D and whatever technology Cameron purportedly invented and perfected all mixed together were at times visually breathtaking, if not downright stunning. Mind-blowing, it was.

There were a couple of scenes in which the frame is looking downward from dizzying altitudes when I felt this Vertigo sensation coming over me. And all too often, the scenes from within the jungles had me lifting my arm as if to shoo away insects that seemed to be fluttering right before my eyes. And in one scene I lurched just as an automatic weapon appeared to be too close to impaling me. Crazy stuff and well worth the price of admission.

And how about a movie that causes you to root for the alien life forms, and against the human race? That's different. That hasn’t happened for me since I was in junior high and cuddled up with a hand-me-down Arthur C. Clarke paperback.

It’s been reported that Cameron spent over $300 million on the production of this movie, a figure that had 20th Century Fox worried about whether or not it would get a handsome return on it’s record-breaking investment. The way I see it, they ought to relax, if not, start celebrating. This is a must-see movie. And in hindsight, it will be considered groundbreaking in it‘s cutting edge technological innovation.



Markie sez…8 thumbs up. Er, something like that.

Do it now.

Later

(Sue...Jimmy told me about the backpack. I searched under the bridge and along the railroad tracks, but no bag. Sorry. My guess is that the Ipod shows up at the Trading Post pawn shop.)