Avatar

Giant, blue cat people flying around on dragons and chanting feverishly to a huge tree that resembles a sea anemone--in 3-D. 

That one sentence basically sums up Avatar, the movie that everybody has been talking about lately and that I finally went to go see. There was a plot, but it is unimportant, because the real meat of the thing is that the hero gets to become a cat thing and, I guess, mate with his chosen female cat thing and live happily ever after (maybe they had cat thing babies?). Let's face it, people: this is not a movie made for plot, but for the visual art involved. Lush CGI landscapes rushing at the viewer in 3-D are pretty damn stunning, and the use of color in this film is really beautiful.

Still, the predictability and simplicity of the dialogue is definitely a low point (although entirely expected). Example:

Good Guy: This is all over!

Bad Guy: This isn't over while I'm still alive!

GG: I hoped you'd say that!

Fight scene ensues.

These kind of cliché conversations were used throughout the film's (nearly) three hours, but at least their lack of complexity made understanding the German easy for me.

A couple of other minor issues I had:

1. The time. Two hours and forty minutes? The whole thing could have been done in an hour thirty. The theater kindly provided an intermission.

2. There was definitely a lot of borrowing from other movies. People who fight with bows and arrows and live together in a giant, magical tree, for example. Hmmmm...where have I seen that before? Oh, yeah.

Despite my quatsching, I actually did enjoy this movie quite a bit. James Cameron always keeps it fun--he just really, really likes to draw out his action scenes (the ends of Terminator I and Titanic, for example), which can make a person like myself a little impatient. For the beautiful animation and the 3-D experience, however, I feel I got my money's worth.*

*Ok, so maybe 10.50 Euro was a little steep.

An Interesting Food Discovery

This stuff is really good. Specifically in herbal tea, although I actually like it plain, as well. It is called "Fenchelhonig," or fennel honey. Basically, it's a honey/sugar syrup mixture infused with fennel. It tastes quite strongly of fennel, but the lovely honey notes come through as well. I wasn't thrilled that it has the sugar in it (pure honey is better for the body!), but it's so addictive in herbal teas that I don't really care that much. It's also supposedly good for the stomach because of the fennel (hence the rather pharmaceutical bottle).

An interesting thing I have noted about German culture is that it is so much less pharmaceutically dependent than that in America. It's strange to turn on the t.v. and see five minutes of ads that are all about things other than drugs (it's usually chocolate, frozen pizzas and cars). No Nasonex, Prozac or Tums. No constant suggestion of pills for every conceivable malady or ailment. What I find even more interesting, however, is that there are really not that many pharmaceutical drugs available. And before resorting to any of them, Germans will always try to use naturopathic cures such as various teas with different herbal properties, medicines made from the oils of different plants, herbal vapors, herbal cough drops, etc. I never thought of myself as buying into that American pharmaceutical culture, but as soon as I got here and got sick, I found myself thinking, "Where are the pills? Can I get some Tylenol Cold up in here?" The answer is, well, no.

I'm a little sick today, so I guess that's why I've been meditating on this topic. It's pretty boring, this sickness business, and hopefully I'll be up and running again by tomorrow. 

Me and You and Everyone We Know

I watched this movie last night. I'd heard it was good, read Miranda July's short stories and thought they were good, saw the Cannes emblem on the box and assumed that it was the kind of movie I would really enjoy--smart, quirky, interesting.

Instead, it was like being stuck inside a bad dream, and not being able to wake up from it. Yes, I could have stopped watching at any time, but it sucked me in, while at the same time completely freaking me out. I don't know if it had this effect on everyone who watched it--I think many people may have even found it weirdly, disjointedly sweet. But I only found it incredibly creepy, like somebody went inside my head and then made a movie of all the bad dreams I had in my childhood and wrote them into the script for an indie movie. I'm surprised it didn't give me nightmares. I truly don't think this was intended as a creepy movie--I'm fairly sure it was only supposed to mildly shock and confuse. But because of who I am, it was one of the most unsettling, scary things I have ever seen. I felt truly disturbed after watching it. I can't really even bear to recount its plot here in order to write a proper review. Suffice it to say that I am deeply, deeply creeped out.

Good job, Miranda July. You have finally scared the person who never finds "scary" movies scary.

Impulse Purchase

I found this 'banana box' (sounds/looks dirty, but it's literally a case to protect bananas in lunches) too cool to resist.