Big Flipping Deal

I was starting to feel that I was among a disturbingly small group of people -- a minuscule minority. In this group are the people who never saw Titanic, and who have no interest in seeing it (me) and who haven't seen Avatar and really had no interest in seeing it (me again).

So, over the weekend Todd and I found ourselves in a situation where we could watch Avatar. We didn't spend a dime to see it (thank Christ). Let's just say that a friend of ours was able to get us "free passes," and leave it at that! ;-) Since I was among a group of people, I was captive to the group will and so, Avatar it was!

What is the big flipping deal with this stupid movie? After about 15-20 minutes into the film I found myself (as well as the others) settling into an easy onslaught of commentary, a la MST3K. I absolutely cannot believe this ridiculous piece of crap won Golden Globes for best director and best motion picture for drama (DRAMA??? WTF???). There is no drama; only contrived, pointless, eye-rolling dialogue within a trite, overdone, predictable storyline that is about as subtle as using a grenade to crack a soft-boiled egg.

There are SO many problems with this movie that I don't even know where to begin. How about the dialogue?

Here's one of the first lines of dialogue that got me going:

Main dude (can't even remember their names): Why didn't you just let them kill my ass?
Main Na'vi woman: Because you have a strong heart.

My eyes rolled so hard they almost came out of my head.

What the fuuuuuuck? The notion of "a strong heart" or "a good heart" is the most ridiculous, weak, American plot convenience that exists. Why would a race of alien people, who are ostensibly at war with the "sky people" that come to steal their resources, make THAT kind of statement? It makes absolutely no sense.

More weak dialogue? That would be any words that came out of the mouth of the movie's absurdly stereotypical antagonist: the military general (of course) running the show. He's a 60-something, hard-ass, crew-cut, buff, racist, misogynist, jackass with three huge scars that run from the back-side of his head to the front, as if he lost an epic battle with an enraged garden rake. I forget his name too. But it doesn't matter. Really, there is nothing memorable about this movie at all. Anyway, he says things like "I got them by the balls!" And "Time to bring the pain!" No, I am not making that up.

Did I mention that this movie lacks any kind of subtlety at all? It does. Drama MY ASS.

Ok so how about the acting? Well, you know you've got problems when the most acceptable acting performance in your movie was delivered by Michelle Rodriguez. Maybe I should stop there. I will. But I do need to add that I think that the apparent life-sized, puppet version of Sigourney Weaver didn't hold up too well during the nearly 3-hour running time. Hey Cameron, maybe you should reconsider allowing actors to telephone in their performances?

The story is, as everyone is saying, nearly identical to Pocahontas or Dances with Wolves (or as South Park jibed: Dances with Smurfs). What makes Avatar slightly more unique than either of the stories I just mentioned is that Avatar COMPLETELY LACKS ANY DEPTH OR SUBTLETY OF ANY KIND. Cameron comes out of the box hammering the story into your face with absurdly one-dimensional characters.

But what everyone is really talking about with this film is, of course, the visual impact it presents. Nearly everyone I spoke to who saw this film all had the same thing to say, "Story and dialog were so-so, but the GCI (or graphics, or visuals) were unbelievable. You have to see it to believe it." Okay. I did see it. And, um...well...I hate to break it to you but, I'm not that impressed.

First of all, the Na'vi people are blue, 9-feet tall, skeletal, lumbering, mammals with tails that serve no purpose whatsoever. They have cat-like, wide eyes and mostly cat-like noses. They all look identical to each other. There is seriously little to no variation on what these beings look like. Towards the end of the movie they decide to go around Pandora (which must be pretty friggin' small) to ask for help from the other tribes to assist in getting rid of the general and his soon-to-be, ass-kicking army attack. Aside from the occasional bone in the nose (no I'm not making that up either) or different clothing, tribes from other parts of Pandora look EXACTLY like the ones we are introduced to and journey with throughout the film. Way to go, Cameron.

Second, most of Pandora looks like the cover of an 11-year-old girl's Trapper Keeper: Purple, pink, blue, and sparkly with unicorns! If you can't picture that, Pandora looks almost exactly like Zangarmarsh from World of Warcraft.




I kid you not.



All the animals have pink, blue and purple on their anatomy somewhere and many have extra legs or wings. Big deal. Know what fantasy animals really looked awesome on screen, and they didn't have to be pink, purple, blue and have 6 legs? The oliphants from Lord of the Rings.


As for the action, flying, fighting, etc. where Cameron used motion-capture on the real actors (though Sigourney Weaver is a HUGE MAYBE) that looks ok. But it isn't anything I haven't seen already in other films. I pretty much hated the prequel Star Wars movies (Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith). However, I saw all the same "groundbreaking" stuff in those movies as I did in Avatar. So how was this movie any different or better? It wasn't either. Period.

Maybe I am just cynical and jaded, but I fail to see why Avatar has generated SO much interest, acclaim, and CASH. Boy am I glad that I didn't pay one, red cent to see it.

Devil's Haircut

Most people that I know (especially women) have a regular hairdresser. Or a "stylist" or a barber, or whatever is the PC thing to call the person who cuts the mangled mess of tresses on the top of your head. It's kind of like your dental hygienist or optometrist. You usually know this person by their first name and you know a little about them as a person. Or in the case of hairdressers, you may know A LOT about them personally. More than you ever wanted to know. Well, not me. I don't have a hairdresser. I am rather ambivalent towards my crazy hair, in general. And I think hairdressers sense this.

You have to understand where I am coming from. I grew up in a house where my dad cut his own hair. Still does. When we were little kids, and we needed to have our hair cut, my sister and I used to be dragged forcefully down the street to this old guy named Frank Ruggieri. He and his wife, Laura, were hairdressers, or at least that's what our mom told us. This is the mid- to late-1970s that I'm talking about, and these folks --- though lovely, sweet people --- had to be in their 80s; I swear. One spin around their salon and you felt as if you were transported back to those nifty days when Warren G. Harding was president and the US was giving birth to the jazz age. Everyone! Crank up the Victrola and get down with some Irving Berlin! In retrospect, the salon also had the sort of eerily silent, unused, sad air about it, kind of like Ms. Havisham's house from Great Expectations. They had this one dust-covered, little, adorable, gilt birdcage hanging from the ceiling, with a fake bird in it. Almost exactly like the one pictured here. I'm sure that thing must be worth a small fortune today. And I'm right. That one in the picture? $2000-$3000. Saw it on the internet today.

Anyway, Frank --- as I recall him--- was a tall, thin man with white hair and very bushy eyebrows. He wore a white shirt almost always and suspenders with gray pants. If poor Abe Lincoln had the opportunity to get old and silver-haired, he would have looked like Frank. The main thing I remember about Frank was that he had tremors, possibly Parkinson's Disease. How did I know this? Well, whenever the comb (probably made from 100% elephant ivory) rested on my head it felt like someone was aggressively tapping their fingertips across my scalp. What is supremely funny is that he would say, in a rather perturbed Italian-accented tone, "Stand still!" As if it was somehow my fault that the comb was hammering into my skull. How did my mom let this man come within 40 feet of me or my sister with a pair of scissors? You can imagine what our hair looked like. Is it any wonder kids made fun of us? Or that I really don't give a rat's ass about my hair now in 2010? Sigh.

I'd also like to note that the Ruggieris sold old-school candy in the back of their salon until sometime in the early 1980s. We all had bad haircuts; red, gummy teeth from the Swedish Fish, and multicolored, sticky necks from the candy necklaces. Nice.

I don't recall much of any conversation that might have occurred while sitting in Frank's salon and getting my hair cut. I was too busy wailing and screaming. I was terrified of having my hair washed in those salon sinks. Actually, I was pretty much terrified of having my hair washed at all. (This is a whole 'nother story.) To this day, the sensation of water all around my head freaks me out, IF I am not the one who's doing it. This is probably why I can never learn to swim.

Anyway, after Frank, I don't recall ever having a regular hairdresser. To this day, there isn't one that I particularly seek out. And ever since the dawn of institutions like the Hair Cuttery and Super Cuts, it's been nearly impossible for me to get that hair-dresser/patron relationship that seems to be a staple in so many other people's lives.

I've been to Hair Cuttery a lot, ever since a couple of them opened up fairly near to me in South Philly back when I was about 14. In the time before I moved to DE, I only went to the Hair Cuttery. Not because it was great, or because I had that "relationship" I mentioned, but because it was cheap. Ten dollars for a haircut; how could you beat that? I don't even get my hair cut very often because I am both cheap and lazy. In all the years since first going to Hair Cuttery I don't think I ever had the same hairdresser more than twice. Sure, they give you a card, with their name handwritten on it (usually with a heart dotting any "i" that might appear in their name), with the alleged hours that they appear in the salon. But it was (and still is) all lies. LIES, I tell you! They retire, move, open their own shops, leave the profession entirely, etc.

Todd and I both go to Super Cuts now, because it's the closest of the hair "chop shops," as I like to call them, to our house. But I still hate going there. It's the same story as Hair Cuttery, but with an added flair for the dramatic. Maybe I was too young to realize it or pay attention in my teens and 20s, but there is WAY DRAMA going on at any given time in a salon collective such as Super Cuts/Hair Cuttery.

Scene: Todd and I finally get our butts into Super Cuts one day. There are like 11 people waiting there, all the salon chairs already filled with patrons. Thankfully, we remembered to "call ahead," which they recommend. This means that you call them on any given day and they add your name to a secret list. No it's not an appointment! How dare you say that?! It's a walk-in salon! So, no matter when you show up, if you are on that list, you get bumped up to "next." I find this practice infuriating. I mean ostensibly, you could call them at 9:00 am when they open, then wait until 6:00 in the evening to show up and you'd still get preferential treatment. Wrong. They should just take frickin' appointments. Period.

So anyway, we got bumped up to practically "next," lucky us. There was one guy waiting ahead of us. He called ahead too. Only, the stylist that was supposed to work on us never showed up for work. So they made a hasty call to a couple of people (they tried to be super secret, but I knew what was going down) and finally came up with someone to come in and cover. About 15 minutes later a very ANGRY young woman shows up with a fitted blouse that was so tight it literally popped a button at the bust. She threw her stuff into a chair and slammed some supplies and implements around as she mumbled under her breath, trying to contain her blistering fury.

She looks at the list and looks into the growing swarm of people waiting and throws her hands up and then on her hips and says, "Oh HELL no. There is NO WAY I am taking him. I cannot deal with that man today! I don't care...blargh de blagh de bippity boo!" She turned her back and started walking away to her station by that point. Now apparently, I was the only person that saw or heard this, even though it was so obvious and audible that people out in the parking lot could have understood her. So the poor guy that was "next" really wasn't "next." He didn't seem to notice or care.

Guess who was next? Me. Awesome. She didn't even offer to wash my hair, which they normally always do. She spritzes some water on my head and says, "How much off?" "About an inch?" I replied. NO other questions about style or anything. She got to work cutting. She said not one other word to me the entire time. I didn't think it was humanly possible for a hairdresser to go more than a minute without speaking. It was probably the fastest and most furious haircut I ever received in my entire life. Maybe 6-7 minutes tops. She then says, "Dry it?" I say, "Yes, my grand-" WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRR the dryer went on. I was about to make a funny little comment about how my grandmother always said, "Never go out with a wet head! You will catch pneumonia!" So much for my little witty ditty.

I was more than a little terrified. Visions of Frank's 1970s butchery went swimming through my head. For maybe the second time in my life (first being my wedding day) I actually cared about how my hair might look. The dryer went off. She paused briefly before unsnapping the neck of my hair cape thing. I assumed she wanted me to look. She didn't even offer to show me the back through a mirror.

To my shock and surprise it looked AWESOME. "Great!" I said. She released me from the chair. Todd was next. We were paying all together, so she took care of him before ringing us both up. She was more chatty with Todd, but not much. He, too, received a speedy and excellent haircut, if silent and moderately ticked-off. Still, we tipped her generously, and her mood skyrocketed as a result. She thanked us profusely for the tip and wished us both a good evening.

Maybe this is the key! Hire stylists with rage issues! Forget anger management courses, just let them cut hair! Needless to say, I am sure that my next visit to Super Cuts (which must be soon, unfortunately) will probably not be as interesting, dramatic or, frankly, good.

Sigh.

Top Ten Things I Will Never Understand About the Harry Potter Universe

Ok. Don't get me wrong; I fairly enjoyed the Harry Potter series. I hung on my seat while reading certain chapters, wondering what would happen to particular individuals. I was tremendously sad a the untimely passing of Sirius Black. And all of that jazz. But sometimes...I just want to put my fist through the books and call shenanigans!





10. In a world where there appears to be no heaven or hell or any semblance of a religious deity at all, they still celebrate Christmas.

9. Where do all these magical people exist, if not among the "muggles?" I mean I was on board for Diagon Alley appearing out of the randomness of the bricks and the secret train that takes a long, winding journey to Hogwarts. But the Ministry of Magic, which seems to employ about 11 billionty people? The huge-ass Quiddich stadiums that hold what looks like countless quantities of people?

8. There are apparently no child-endangerment laws in the "wizarding world." Wait, forget the wizarding world, in ENGLAND? I find it excruciatingly hard to believe that Harry Potter's life of confinement and servitude "under the stairs" would have gone unchecked for 11 years. Don't even get me started on Dolores Umbridge.

7. Speaking of Harry being emotionally and physically abused by his aunt and uncle (the Dursleys), why on earth would Lily Potter leave her only, infant son --- for whom she sacrificed her own life --- in the hands of her embittered sister and cruel brother-in-law, both of whom she KNEW hated her and her magical existence? I guess living wills also don't exist in the wizard world either.

6. Doesn't Hermione have a freakin' time-turner? Um...can't she take some wizards with her, go back to when Voldemort kills Cedric --- or anyone else for that matter--- and...you know...help stop him?

5. As a corollary to #6: Since there are apparently ways to go back in time to confirm or even alter events of the past, then why is it that no one ever believes Harry when he says that "the Dark Lord has returned?" Every year he exhibits evidence that it's true, either by fighting Voldemort himself, or one of his minions. Yet, with the exception of his closest friends and a few folks at Hogwarts, everyone dismisses him. Isn't he the "boy who lived---" the most celebrated wizard EVER? And now nobody believes him? Right.

4. The Cruciatus Curse is illegal, but Veritaserum is not. So...why do you even HAVE trials of any kind? The whole trial of Harry Potter for using "underage" magic out of school (in Order of the Phoenix) was pointless and dumb. I mean, just give him the flipping serum! "Oh! But wait," you say...! "The serum might be unreliable at times, since some witches & wizards could be resistant to its effects." (That's convenient, huh?) Ok, then what about the Pensieve? Wizards can just use their wands to yank out the memories from their heads and put the silvery, slimy stands into the Pensieve and anyone who dares stick their head in there can see them.

3. Snape. I don't get Snape. At all. Someone really needs to tell him to get a life. Oh, but he's dead now, so nevermind. Yeah, ok, James Potter was a jerk to you. So what? Get over it, dude. Seriously. Don't take out your frustrations on students, particularly the ones who can (and DO) SAVE YOUR ASS on numerous occasions. And that whole story line of him being in love with Lily before she married James was ridiculous, maudlin tripe. He does have some rather funny lines and is amusing in some ways. But I will never understand the cult-like appeal that his character has to the masses of Harry Potter fans.

2. I probably wouldn't call a witch or wizard "stupid" to their face, but anyone who spends their hard-earned Galleons, Sickles and Knuts on the Daily Prophet is a complete moron. How is this the ONLY daily, widespread newspaper that exists besides Luna's and her father's crazy-ass, subversive publication, The Quibbler?

1. Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts. It's painfully obvious to me that wizarding folk need to exist and subsist in the muggle world. How the hell do they pay for things? You don't walk into a bank and say, "I'd like to exchange these 50 Galleons for British Pounds, please!" I suppose it's possible for a wizard to go into a "wizard" bank --- like Gringott's --- and ask for some muggle currency exchange. Fine. But where does Gringott's get the muggle money? The banks are run by goblins, right? So...WTF?

Oh man, ONE MORE THING:
If a wizard dad and a witch mom spawn a PLAIN, OLD, DUMBASS KID, then where does this kid go to school?