What a waste of time, money and resources!

So I am going to jump on the massive bandwagon and say that M. Night Shyamalan's live action version of the beloved cartoon, The Last Airbender, was crap. I knew what to expect going in (it has 6% on Rotten Tomatoes and has been lambasted by every major critic) but I guess I was hoping for some redeeming features.

I started watching the original animated series some weeks ago. Not being a fan of anime in general, I was skeptical. All it takes is a few episodes and you're hooked. The show offers lovable characters, an engaging plot and valuable philosophical insights. It's action-packed, humorous and dramatic at all the appropriate times. The voice actors are perfectly cast and bring to life characters you feel like you've known personally for years. I know I'm raving but I haven't gotten involved in a plot that has made me this excited in a long time.

The series won accolades and has a very strong fan-base. This is why I wonder why the powers that be would want to remake it into a live action film. The series ended not too long ago so this isn't a long awaited thing. Who were they trying to reach by remaking the cartoon? Were they trying to expose it to a more "grown up" demographic? If so, they failed. It is not only not an adult movie; it is not a movie for anyone. I would not even insult a kid with that trite dribble.

I'll tell you what they did wrong:

They mispronounced the names of almost all the main characters. I know it doesn't sound like that big of a deal but it gets annoying fast. The original creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender created their own world in which the characters exist. They made up the names and dictate how they are pronounced. It isn't up to interpretation like in real life. The title character is named Aang, like Ang Lee the director, not Ah-ng. The character Sokka's name is pronounced Sock-a not Soo-ka like SoCal.

The acting was bad. The kids kept to one emotion through most of the entire movie and lines were delivered weakly like they weren't sure of themselves. I love Aasif Mandvi but him as a sinister, power hungry admiral? Come on! He is too cuddly to be a bad ass. The casting of Uncle Iroh was just bad. The character was supposed to be fat and jolly and they cast this gaunt, serious man. Dev Patel worked with what he got as Prince Zuko but it is hard to be good in a really, really bad film.

The special effects were weak. The earth bending looked like tossing dirt around. When the earthbenders hurled rocks, it looked like a pebble traveling in slow motion. No need to block it, just step aside– you have time. The airbending looked like a gust of wind, not something that could toss people off of their feet.

They changed the nature of the characters. Aang may be the avatar but he is a goofy kid with a smile constantly on his face. In the movie, he looks confused the entire time with a furrowed brow. They also made Sokka brooding and humorless. What the heck? Sokka is quintessentially funny. Every other thing out of his mouth is some kind of wisecrack. Katara is the show's inspirational character. She keeps Aang and Sokka on their mission with her passion for helping others. This can make her preachy at times and sidetracks them from their mission to help villages in need. In the movie, she barely says anything and it is Aang who is the inspirational one. They also did a weird thing by adding tracking shots of the Fire Lord having conversations with Admiral Zhao. The Fire Lord barely even talks until the last book (a.k.a season) of the story. When he is seen, he is sitting on a throne surrounded by fire in a dark, barren room. By making him walk around chatting with people, it takes away from how imposing he is and makes him seem more like a guy and less like a threat.

There's also a scene where some earthbenders are imprisoned by the fire nation and the prison is in a dirt quarry. Does anyone see why this oversight is completely retarded? They are earthbenders surrounded by dirt on their own turf. They could take the fire guards at any time. In the cartoon, they are deliberately imprisoned on a metal island so that they do not have any weapons to fight their captors.

Shymalan is the director, writer and producer of the movie. What was he thinking, really? The cartoon offers so much to draw from and he chose only the basic things and left the more interesting stuff on the cutting room floor. Instead, he added things that just didn't fit. He has shown talent in the past. What has happened to him? It takes arrogance or slovenliness to put something so shoddy together and release it. At this point, I don't think he will film the other two books of the series. I hope he doesn't and takes the budget for them and donate it to something.

If you've seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, you know what I'm talking about.

"Allow myself to introduce myself"

I realize this is a little late in the blogging process and probably should have been my first post. I guess I never really thought of introducing myself. I try to write about relatively interesting things and talking about myself doesn't make the cut. However, Geoffrey started his blog with an intro which inspired me to do the same. I may not be interesting to myself but maybe one of the few people that stumble across this blog want to know a little about the writer behind all the rants.

In the most basic of descriptions I am a female human. I've been on this earth for thirty years and counting. Turning thirty happened pretty recently and it was a harsh reality to face. I feel obligated to "grow up" a bit, whatever that means. This poses a problem because I like running around like I just got to college.

I come from one of those meshugeneh, dysfunctional families that you read about in David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs but I haven't the talent or the drive to spin my memoirs into a book. We are Southern though, so I guess we're more Tennessee Williams. My dad grew up with big money. He's the kind of guy that would light a cigarette with a twenty dollar bill and not see the significance of that. Money and his plasma television are all that matters to him. My mother is possibly one of the most intelligent people alive and one of the hardest working. She is a self-hating Jew. This has caused tension between us because I chose to practice Judaism and she hates me reminding her where she came from.

I have the horrible habit of getting involved with severely emotionally disturbed people. I naively think that I can help them but I never can. They just latch onto me and become obsessed, weighing me down in the process. Being emotionally damaged, I feel more of a kinship to other disturbed people. Friends urge me to push these people out of my life, which I should probably do. It's a horrible habit.

I haven't had to work most of my life because of my family's money. I thought not doing anything is what I wanted but it is overrated. Nothing day after day starts to make you stir crazy. I've been trying to get into nursing school four semesters and have had no luck so far. Applying to the nursing schools I am applying to is a lottery. People are put into a pool and picked randomly by a computer into the seventy spots. How messed up is that?

Right now, I am not in any classes. My days consist of game show network. I really enjoy the show Baggage and dislike Family Feud. That doesn't stop me from watching it sometimes. Pathetic, I know. I have been challenged to write in my blog everyday until I get back into classes next semester. I don't know if I can write entries everyday but I will try to be more frequent.

I guess I just need to learn that blog entries don't have to be interesting. They can be inane dribble and often are. "Today, I ate cereal but the milk was bad." Seriously? Who cares. In this internet age, we can all be stars with our own blogs. We can feel important casting out thoughts into the void and hope that they will be read.

the movie ratings book

As long as my dear grandmother was alive, she was notorious for giving horrible Christmas gifts. She always gave at least twenty presents to any one person but it was all cheap mail order garbage. A broken pedometer, a chia pet, anything along those lines were common gifts.

One year when I was eleven or so, she struck gold with one of my gifts. She got me Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever. It is a huge volume of movie knowledge. It lists the vast majority of films ever made (I think I only found one or two titles missing from it) and rates them from zero to four bones. It also has other useful information like what movies or actors won what awards and who else was nominated each year.

This became my bible. This is before there was imdb or rotten tomatoes. It was my main source for movie information. I went through the awards section and made it my mission to watch all the nominated films. I voraciously rented movies from the fifties to current times. I evaluated what movies had unjustly won and what actors had been slighted.

I have grown into what my friends call a "walking imdb". I've seen movies most people my age haven't even heard of. Keep in mind, I have this movie knowledge at the cost of a social life growing up. Sometimes, I miss what I may have given up but I am mostly content. It's fun to introduce people to obscure films and I come in very handy on pub trivia nights. With netflix, I am still constantly building my knowledge base with new release, cult horror, foreign, classics, comedy and drama flicks.

I thought the Videohound Golden Movie Retriever and movie ratings books had gone the way of the dinosaur until I saw one of them at Blockbuster yesterday. I was filled with a warm feeling like I was seeing a long lost friend. Is imdb more knowledgeable and easy to use? Yes, most likely. Is it inconvenient to lug out a giant book and thumb through until you find a title? Definitely. Does it get expensive buying the new book every year so the current movies are in it? Sure. I mean, imdb is free and unbeatably up to date.

That wasn't always the case, though. We have not always had the access to information that we do now. My Golden Movie Retriever opened up a world of knowledge that I am grateful for. I hope they still make them as the years go by.