AVATAR [2009] review

I was fated to see AVATAR alone.  I know this now.  AVATAR is a powerful environmental message exactly when the human race needs it.  It is a move that rivals the epic NAUSICAA in its organic environmental message.  It is an expression of imagination and wonder far, far greater than any movie I can remember that tried to do so.  The thing that made me most skeptical of the movie, its CGI characters, were in reality its greatest asset.  Human actors could not replicate the adaptation and harmony with the environment that the Na’vi had.  The moistness in their eyes illustrated their love for there world.  AVATAR IS A MASTERPIECE film by James Cameron.

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ROMANCING THE STONE [1984] review

A stroke of good luck (finding $40 cash on the ground) and potential job news put me in an unusually good mood today, so I did not want to risk that good vibe by watching a potentially depressing movie.  For some reason ROMANCING THE STONE periodically pops into my head from time to time.  Long ago I remembered seeing pieces of it, if not the whole movie.  I could really only remember birds in cages and a giant mudhole.  By the end, I was remembering a lot more and I guess no doubt I saw the whole movie before.

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Poem in Amber

Amber is the color of no pain, no happiness, no fault.

Preserved in all is amber stasis

Not failing, nor succeeding, locked in potential

On the verge of everything in a reality of no-thing

Amber suits a life of side stepped opportunities

Dreams never fall into amber, vivid colors only

Fame in Truth is found by mastery of amber phasing

Amber is the color for what was before the Future

• Written at:  Saint Petersburg, Florida
• Where exactly:  my desk in notepad on MacBook
• When:  Sunday December 06, 2009 12:45am

PONYO [2008] review

In what is probably the very last Hayao Miyazaki film, PONYO unfortunately does not place a cherry on top of a grand collection of animation masterpieces, but rather puts an odd bookend of a movie with almost no story and a pointless climax utterly free of suspense.

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Florida Family Thanksgiving 2009

It had been a long time since I was in Cape Coral at my mom’s for Thanksgiving, long as in since 2001.  The past few Thanksgivings were spent at the Pink Cow in Tokyo.  Before that I cannot remember.  Despite the time away I did try to revive some of the old customs, like playing football before dinner.  This year it was running around a baseball outfield wrestling with Kiki (above).

This was Aya’s first ever Thanksgiving in the U.S. and as seen above my mom started showing her how to make all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes.  With the pumpkin pies and stuffing already made, all that was left was to make the corn muffins.  Well, that and the tofurky!

As with all Thanksgiving dinners, the waiting is the hardest part.  Kiki took it particularly hard as it was also her very first Thanksgiving too and she had no idea how long the wait could be.

Finally, after 90-minutes in the vacant apartment next door’s oven, the tofurky was ready to be carved!  I had long heard of tofurky, but never eaten one and was very stoked, though a little skeptical it would be enough for me as its size did not look that large.  I was dead wrong.

The tofurky provided three full meals of satisfied sustenance for Aya and I.  It was totally delicious too.  Absolutely no reason for millions of turkey birds to be murdered anymore.  It’s an outdated ritual that’s time has past.

We closed the holiday by driving out to Pine Island and watching the sunset.  I made this family portrait using the self-timer on my Nikon D300.  This Thanksgiving was much smaller than those of my youth where extended family gathered together, but it was still a very pleasant and stomach filling one.

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