Avatar and a Leap Year

Today Maddie and I caught a movie before picking up Charlie -- and the one that best fit our time frame was Leap Year. It wasn't a movie either of us was particularly anxious to see, but we weren't against it either.

A few days ago I went to see Avatar. It was good; the 3-D technology was impressive, but I commented that the story line was a bit lame in that it was the same old, same old story.

I asked Maddie what she thought of Leap Year when it was over and she said that she thought it was good, but predictable.

Me? I was completely mesmerized. I love a good love story -- and this one is set in Ireland, and the landscape reminds me of Scotland. The craggy hills and the churning sea, characters that walk about saying words that you are supposed to know but for the life of you can not understand ... it was fun to watch. I thought the lead guy was pretty darn cute too, and that always helps. He isn't a movie star, I don't even know his name. The lead chick is Amy Adams. She is fine, the typical over-achieving control freak who has it all -- money, looks, $600 shoes and the cardiologist boyfriend.

Now, I wondered afterwards why Leap Year was almost easier to take in terms of the story line than Avatar was. And I realized that for one, I like real scenery versus worlds that I don't even understand. I never did get where Avatar was set, or what universe/world or planet. I know that "we" were referred to as the sky people, and the Avatar people had another name in a language I couldn't quite grasp either!

Anway ... what it boils down to is that it doesn't take a multi-million catrillion dollar movie to tell a love story. Sometimes it is pleasant not to have to see big robotic monsters kill beautiful things just so that the hero and heroine can get together. Sometimes all it takes is a trip to Dublin with a cute guy in a really old car and a set of circumstances that cause events to happen. That are believable if not contrived!

I think that Avatar should have skipped the love story and focused on the greed, war, ruin world story line that all the bang bang shoot 'em up stuff was about. You know, a Terminator movie that lands in Oz. Remember how The Wizard of Oz starts in black and white, and then when they land in Oz, it is in technicolor? That is what Avatar is -- a black and white Terminator movie colored in to make it look pretty.

Now, now now, I am not saying I didn't like the movie! I did. But a simple love story is often more beautiful in its simplicity than when it is layered down with so many different (and unlikely) aspects that sort of boggle the mind. And I hate it when technology isn't explained! How does the avatar thing work? So you climb into a tube and a bunch of wires that aren't even attached to you somehow transport you into a different dimension where the body that was in an aquarium floating around is now there to be lived in? And if you return to your regular body in the tube when you go to sleep in Avatar-land, and then you stay up all day and plot how to kill your new friends, when exactly do you get any sleep? Because you ARE both people, right?

All that you have to believe in, in a love story, is that a true connection has been made. We have all felt it -- we don't have to boggle our brains trying to figure out how it works to reside in two worlds in any 24 hour period -- sometimes just standing around in the rain surrounded by cows (real cows at that!) is all it takes.

I hope that Avatar does not set the trend for future movies, in terms of trying to wow the audience with a big fat painting on a canvas with nothing really going on but the SAME OLD STORY.

In either story, the bottom line is all you need is love. In Avatar's case you get the Las Vegas version and in Leap Year you get a night home snuggled up by the fire with a bottle of wine.

They both work.