Things I Learned Watching Avatar

1) James Cameron has a diabolical gift that makes the audience love his movies, overlooking dozens of plot holes, conveniences, predictability, cheesy cliches, and even a deux ex machina. All because he manages to bring out our inner child and/or romantic, the one who can't help root for the star-crossed lovers (though the love scene was a bit too much for me. I can't help it that I'm not intuned to the sexiness of blue-cat-people making out), and for the heroes. And I was totally engrossed even though I knew exactly was going to happen, like Grace getting shot, or Wes Studi's character dying, etc. Though "Take....my.....bow" did try my patience. 

2) My friend can be an unbelievable pain in the ass, when she sees imaginary clothes on naked people. She's an academic sort, hasn't watched that many movies, and today told me, in an impressive sort of manner, that she could see why Cameron spent ten years on such a complex and original script as Avatar, on the basis of his immensely sophisticated "energy flow" theme, and the hundreds of cultures he supposedly drew the rest of the themes from. 

3) Movies - storytelling, to be exact - come in different forms. I can enjoy the tightly wound, claustrophobic feel of 12 Angry Men, and I can enjoy the magical, flying-alongside-the-characters feel of Avatar at the same time. One's not necessarily better than the other. This might seem obvious, but I just wanted to reply to the rigid movie purists who claim that the lack of great dialogue/plot originality automatically disqualifies it from being a "great" movie. Cameron can't write dialogue for shit, but he doesn't need to because he's a genius at visual storytelling. I connected more with the characters during that single taming of the banshees scene, than I would with most angsty characters in a 3 hour drama.  

4) It's probably in my top five of the year. Shit, I totally sound like an IMDB'er now. 

5) People who get post-Avatar depression should probably go throw themselves off the earth and return that waste of a living organism to the earth. Flow of energy, right? 

You really don't deserve to live if you think Pandora is somehow worth appreciating and loving more than this: