Great Movie (NaBloPoMo, Day #4)

(Actually, I already posted today, but this is the post I had intended for NaBloPoMo, so here it is.)

Is it Day #4 already? Boy, does time fly. At least, it certainly did in the three-hour film D.H.* and I saw last night. We saw Avatar, and it was everything our son (Mister Arnold Mayergi) said it was (he had just seen it in Tel-Aviv when we spoke to him yesterday). The three hours only felt like one. We saw it in 3-D, which enhanced it even more (is the future...3 dimensional, motion holograms, as in Star Wars?). The special effects / CG technology were superb. It also had a vertiginous feel to it, with mountains suspended in "air" in their non-earth-atmospheric world.

The plot by itself was formula, though: a technologically superior people (humans) tries to subdue an 'inferior' race to exploit the latter's world's geological resources for their (the hi-tech people's) own benefit: profit over ethical behavior. In the process there is a love story of course, between a human come down to learn the native's ways (for nefarious purposes) in his 'avatar' body, and a native Na'vi princess (no relation to the Jewish Navi, or prophet). But the native population is really a good, spiritual one, which values life and the balance of nature; and the would-be conquering race is crass and profit-hungry and evil. So of course, the ending is--wait a minute, this is not a spoiler. I hope.

It is a combination of 'Dances with Wolves' and the concept of 'The Noble Savage.'

But as in every cliche and embellishment, there is some truth, and there was a truth in this movie. Go see it, and you figure it out. In short, I liked it. And the language, created by Professor Paul Frommer is much cooler than Klingon. I predict that there will eventually be a Na'vi cult and following, with a language institute of its own. So I'll end by saying,

Eywa ngahu int*. (Look it up.)


*D.H.: future term for 'dear hubby.'

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Great Debate: Is it Itsy Bitsy, or Inky Dinky, of Spider Fame?

Image
For the better part of a year, I've had an on-again, off-again debate with my D.H. as to the "correct" adjective in the children's finger-play nursery rhyme, "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" (now you know which one I favor). My D. H. insists that the correct descriptive is "inky dinky," whereas I demur.  I vaguely recollect from my own childhood, either hearing " itsy-bitsy spider ," or even more familiar to me, the description "eency-weency," referring to said spider's miniscule size, yet plucky persistance, and how he (she?) braved the violent rainstorm which "washed it out" after the arduous climb up the water spout, yet doggedly climbed the spout again, after the sun came out and 'dried up all the rain.' Many, if not most of our American nursery rhymes originated on the other side of the pond, in England, for obvious reasons: the American colonists were British in origin, and brought with them the culture an...
Read more

The End. Is there a Beginning...?

This is my first post back on Tikkun Olam since April 23rd, 2015. It does not feel real. Why is it that we never think we will ever have a JOLT in our lives that will change the entire life course we have been traveling? We continue on, day by day, complacent, even in the face of serious illness--believing that what we are living is the only reality; that it is immutable, that it is PHYSICAL: you can touch it, feel it, and it will continue to be there for you tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow... But it isn't. And it won't.  Because the unthinkable can, and does, happen, in time. To everybody. As it happened to me, almost a year ago, on August 10, 2015, when my DH - Dear Husband, of 46 years, died. I am living in an Alternate Universe. Because the universe in which I was living all my life until now, is gone. I still want to slap myself in the face and wake myself up. It's a dream. A terrible nightmare.  It's a horror movie with a frightening ending, but I will...
Read more

Hijab for Jewish Women?

Image
Someone used this phrase in a comment on a post about the hijab wearing Jewish women in Ramat Bet Shemesh Alef: "modern Hareidi community;" this is an oxymoron. Just for the record, I rarely agree with a Hareidi interpretation of anything. This mode of dress is just a bad interpretation of a good concept ( tzniyut ) taken to extremes. Personally, I cover my hair because I feel it increases my humility by remembering that there is a G-d above me ( not because of the reason of less attraction to men). I chose many years ago to do so; but I have come to believe a woman can be Orthodox without covering her hair all the time; just while in shul, and where it shows respect for the Torah, such as at shiurim, or where it is the preferred mode of dress, such as at yeshiva dinners and the like. But to go to the grocery? Not necessarily . I think the whole message of tzniyut is lost in those hijab cases: where will they go next? Hiding in the home and not going out? Sitting behind a cur...
Read more