We arrived at the mall early and walked around Macy’s for a while. Mom wanted to buy a slow cooker but we couldn’t find one. We went from display to display in the cookware section, examining various hi-tech implements. Everything seemed to be an air fryer. The toaster ovens were air fryers, the crock pots were air fryers. (Mom: “What is an air fryer?” Me: “It’s like a thing that fries stuff with air.” Mom: “Huh.”) They had some cast iron casserole pans that didn’t seem to be air fryers. Mom found an extra large one and proceeded to tear open the box, removing the packaging and pushing aside the other pans on the display. “I want a pan that I can cook a whole chicken in,” she said. “Is this big enough to cook a whole chicken?”
“I think so,” I said, looking around to make sure no one was going to yell at us. The only employee around was a tall, muscular Hispanic kid with his hair up in a frizzy ponytail. He didn’t seem to care that we were messing up the display, or even notice us at all really. He kept walking up and down the main aisles of the store, strutting with exaggerated swagger. The way he walked was silly but also transfixing somehow. I didn’t want to look away. He must drive women crazy with that walk, I thought. I wondered if he’d always walked that way, or if he just decided to do it one day. Was it a difficult skill to learn, or did it come naturally? Did he have to practice in front of a mirror? I imagined myself walking with swag like that. I wondered if it would help my image, or make me more attractive to men.
“Can you imagine if I bought another pot?” mom was saying. “It would make your father crazy.” Her eyes lit up mischievously as she considered it. “Maybe I should buy it.”
“Maybe you should think about it before you commit,” I said. “It’s a really big pot.”
“I guess,” she said.
It was time for the movie. The middle-aged woman checking tickets clucked with excitement when she saw what we were seeing. “Oh, you’re seeing the IMAX,” she said. “It’s really quite the experience.”
Mom wanted the pink 3D glasses, but those were for kids, the woman said, and might not fit over mom’s glasses. She tried on both pairs before settling for the gray adult ones. I felt a rush of excitement as we rounded the corner and entered the theater. I love the IMAX theater! Oh, how I love it. I just like being in there, it’s so nice. The screen is so big, and it smells good, like a new car. The seats don’t recline, which I also like. Theaters with the reclining seats make me feel like I’m in a big bed with a bunch of strangers. I don’t know, it’s just gross. The stadium seats in the IMAX are perfect. They always seem to have been just freshly upholstered. Everything is clean. I swear there’s a different energy to the crowd at an IMAX screening too. All the other patrons always seem excited to be there. You feel like you’re in some special club. The movie appreciators’ club. Real ones only, you feel me? Swag.
Mom and I climbed the steep stadium stairs, holding onto the bannister for dear life. I reserved seats towards the back, which I think is the most fun, because it’s way up high, plus you can actually see the entire screen.
We took our seats, and a few minutes later the trailers began. I started crying almost immediately, first at the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer. I haven’t seen any of the other Guardians of the Galaxys, but I think the trailer they showed was for the third or fourth sequel. I couldn’t really tell what was happening in the trailer, but there was a little anthropomorphic raccoon and some sort of ferret guy, and they reminded me of my cats, and that’s why I cried. I honestly think I’ve cried at almost every movie I’ve ever seen. Or if not cried outright, at least had a “cry ball” well up behind my eyes. I love going to the movies because of this. It just lets me be emotional. Next they showed the trailer for Creed III, which I also cried at. Seems like a very manly yet intensely emotional kind of movie. Then they showed a sneak peek of the new Mission Impossible: Tom Cruise speeding a motorcycle up a giant ramp and over the edge of a cliff, then opening a parachute and skydiving back down into a canyon. In the preview, they showed the film crew shooting Tom. The director and the crew looked nervous as he performed the stunt, but Tom pulled it off perfectly every time. I felt my heart swell with pride for Tom Cruise. I felt proud of him for all the crazy stunts he can do. Proud to be the same species as him. Proud that he represents us. Tom Cruise is amazing.
“I want to see that in IMAX,” I said.
“Let’s do it,” said my mother.
Avatar! We both loved it. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, even including the original Avatar, which I remember not liking, but I was so much more cynical back then. I fancied myself quite the critic. I loved to hate movies. I’m the exact opposite now, isn’t that funny? I used to think it made me interesting if I disliked a thing. Now, if I could, I would love every movie. Every movie deserves to be loved. Every movie is a miracle. I mean, how do they do any of that? Avatar 2? It’s a miracle among miracles. It’s a marvel. I can’t even begin to fathom how this movie was created. It just seems like magic. In fact, it would almost be easier to believe that this movie was created using magic as opposed to man-made technology. That’s how incredible it is. You feel like you're watching something historic, and you are. It advances the cinematic medium.
I often have problems with movies that use CG for the visual effects. I never understood why we didn’t just stick with animatronic puppets and practical effects. They almost always look better, in my opinion. Jurassic Park, shot in 1992, looks infinitely better than movies filmed this past decade. The animatronic dinosaurs just look real. They have weight to them, they have personality, they have the correct texture, they seem like living things. Avatar 2 is the first movie I’ve seen where the CG actually looks real. Where the animated creatures actually seem to have life breathed into them. The whales and the dragonfly fish monsters and the flying angry dinosaur things in this movie look like they are real. They look as good as the animatronics in Jurassic Park. Every detail in every scene is perfect. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked upon the rainforests, the floating islands, the underwater reefs teeming with colorful, shimmering fish creatures. This is a world that seems completely alien, yet also somehow deeply relatable. The characters are archetypes, they speak in clichés, but there is power to their words and actions, the same way there is power to mythology. We are trained, in the modern era, to wield a cynical “readerly disposition,” where we evaluate art based on how well it humors our finely-tuned political and ethical sensibilities. If you’re the type to intellectualize your aesthetic responses, this is probably not the movie for you. It will not stand up to rigorous sociopolitical analysis. This movie only works if you set aside your readerly brain, and experience it as cinema was meant to experienced: like an unfolding dream.
There is a plot to this movie, and there are characters. Best not pay too close attention to those. There is something where characters who died in the previous film are cloned and placed into the bodies of fresh Avatars. I don’t know how any of this works. But I like when movies do things like that. Movies should not follow the logic of real life. Anything should be possible in the movies. I was reminded of Paul W. S. Anderson’s hypnotic Resident Evil films, where Milla Jovovich’s Alice dies and is resurrected again and again over the course of the series. There’s never any logic to it, at least not any that makes sense. None of it matters. Just make it beautiful. Mesmerize me. I just want to be enchanted. I’ve noticed a lot of criticism directed at the plot, the narrative structure, the rhythm of the film, and, worst of all, its “politics.” Meh. You shouldn’t go to Avatar expecting Scorsese. I actually liked the parts of the film where nothing much happened. I could have sat there for six hours, just taking it all in.
My mother wiped tears from her eyes as the credits rolled. We hardly had words.
“It was spectacular,” I said.
“It was a marvel,” said mom.
When I got home, I kept thinking about how nice it is to get out of the house with the people you live with. I often feel like there’s two versions of me: the shuffling, grunting, low-energy “home Unity,” and the fun, exuberant, “out-and-about Unity.” How rare it is for my family to see that latter version! When you go out together, you get to see the best versions of each other. What a gift it is, to be able to drive out to Albany and see Avatar 2 with one’s mother. And for the record, I should have let her buy the cast iron. We could use a big pan like that.
