The Last Airbender: My Thoughts

SPOILER WARNING. Maybe. I'm actually not certain that I'm going to give a lot of the plot details away in this post. It's mostly an overview, which many of you probably know anyway if you've seen the previews. But if you're really paranoid about spoilers, then I would suggest not reading this post until after you've seen the movie. I don't want anyone to be upset with me.

You've been warned. Dun dun dun.

Now, as for the actual movie experience: Todd and I went to the 11:00pm showing of this movie on July 4th. We saw it in 3-D. I'm not sure if balancing the 3-D movie glasses on my own glasses for 2 hours was worth the 3-D experience of this movie. Doing it for Avatar? Yes, probably. But the 3-D effects in this movie almost seemed like an afterthought. There weren't many impressive 3-D effects and for much of the time, if my head hadn't been tilted and my glasses holding up the weight of the 3-D glasses, I wouldn't have even realized it was a 3-D movie. So that was a little disappointing.

The other disappointing thing about this movie...The acting. By the time the first 4 lines of the film were said, I was cringing. It's wasn't overtly terrible (or maybe that is just me trying to be nice). It just wasn't believable in the context of the film. That was the case throughout the movie. The timing, expressions, and tone of the actors just seemed...off. It really detracted from my movie-going experience.

And the acting wasn't the only thing that felt off throughout the film. The whole pacing of the movie seemed off. It was easy to tell that they were trying to speed things along to fit the movie timeline. I understand that it's difficult to encompass the multitude of nuances inherent in a story into a film. But the movie seemed so quickly paced that it was almost nauseating in its predictability.

Example (HERE'S THE SPOILER/PLOT): Find boy. Boy is Avatar. Boy is taken and escapes from confused Fire Lord's son. Boy travels with Girl and Brother and creates multiple rebellion in Earth Realm. Group goes to Water City, Battle, Boy Finds Power, End. Oh, and in the process of that the random Brother from the small villages falls in love with the Princess of the Water City (who, of course, must be sacrificed in order to revive the Moon Spirit).

It honestly has all the trappings of a classic fantasy voyage and I think that they could have made it work well with the correct pacing. As it was...the movie crushed it all together so that it seemed as ridiculous as my previous paragraph.

I think that maybe all of these combined to make a kind of disappointing experience precisely because I was looking forward to this film. I like the idea for the story (classic fantasy genre stuff). I really feel that, if properly done, the movie could have been epic. As it stands, I doubt we'll see any sequels in the theater. It's probably worth a Redbox $1 to me to see them, but not a lot more than that.

I'm sorry if my review upsets anyone. Like I said, I honestly wanted to really like this movie. But it just wasn't meant to be.

4th of July - The Grand Finale

So, this year after fixing a quick dinner of steak, potatoes, and corn, Todd mentioned that he wanted to watch fireworks. It was 8:30pm. The fireworks started at 9:00pm. We finished dinner quickly and rushed to find a place where we could see some fireworks. We arrived just in time to stand about a mile away from where they were launching the fireworks. It wasn't the best seat in the house but it was good enough for us this year (although we both mentioned that when we have children we would have to go to the festivities all day so that we had a really good spot for firework watching at night).

We ended up standing next to an....interesting family. It was the kind of family that talks pretty loud about all the problems that other families don't talk about in public. And then there was the child. I will call him "The Child" because "The Annoyingly Loud Child That Spoke Constantly and Had a Slight Lisp" is a bit long for a name. This is what I heard, the entire night:

"Ith it the grand finale yet? Ith's the grand finale! Ith's the grand finale! Ith it the grand finale yet? Ith that it? Ith's the grand finale! Ith's the grand finale! Ith it the grand finale yet? I think tha'th the grand finale! Ith it? Ith it the grand finale yet? Ith's the grand finale! Ith's the grand finale! Ith it the grand finale yet? Ith that it? Ith's the grand finale! Ith's the grand finale! Ith it the grand finale yet? I think tha'th the grand finale! Ith it?"

And repeat. Again. And again. The fireworks show lasted an hour.

On another note, it was an absolutely beautiful show! Afterwards, in order to avoid traffic, Todd and I stopped off by Coldstone Creamery for some delicious ice cream. And then we went to see "The Last Airbender" in 3-D. I might become a movie critic in my next post and discuss the movie, but we'll have to see how it works out.

Where did my sunshine go?

Sheridan had some lovely thunderstorms today, with some hail and a couple of funnel clouds and flash flood warnings. I'm blogging in the Hoffmann's basement, a blanket over my legs. Silly Ashlee didn't think to pack a lot of warm clothes! In fact, I think my thought process while packing went something like this:

"Going home, yay! What do I need for home? Oh, the shoes for my mom's wedding! And after the wedding...VEGAS! What do I need for Vegas? I need THIS and THAT and THIS and THOSE SHOES and THIS TOP....where did all my room go? Oh well, I'm set!"

I sort of forgot those five days that I would be spending in Sheridan. So I have a lot of shorts, skirts, and cute outfits...but not warm ones! Oh well. You live and you learn. And I've learned that next time I just might fork over that extra cash so that I can have a bigger suitcase on the plane instead of packing only carry-ons!

On the very bright side of things, it was so nice to see everyone again. I got to spend the day with my absolutely lovely and adorable neice. I'll be posting some pictures later. My goodness does she have a personality!

Unfortunately, I need to finish up some of the homework for my summer classes, so I should probably stop blogging for tonight and either 1) get some sleep since we had to wake up at 3:30am to get our flight this morning or 2) work on my homework so that I don't have to do it when everyone else is hanging out.

Oh, and here's to hoping that Titus is enjoying the warmth of our house!

Airport Gates

Well, here we are.

Going Home

It's like the night before Christmas...except over 90 degrees. Instead of sleeping in bed with sweet dreams, we're finishing the final touches to our luggage and making sure our cat has enough food.

I'm so excited to see everyone again!

More Mobile Testing

I just want to get this working. You have my apologies for the posting spam!

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

Mobile blog test incoming. Can Ashlee handle this?