Julia Slaughter

Archive for December, 2009

I am going to try not to say anything spoilerish, but I can’t make any promises…

In July at Comic Con I saw 25 minutes of James Cameron’s Avatar and I was hooked, when asked later why I was hard pressed to come up with anything more substantial than “it’s pretty.” I didn’t mean that in a girly way I meant that I was looking at a completely rendered world and it was beautiful, colorful, and textured in such a way that made it seem completely substantial.

After months of waiting I finally got to see the movie, and I saw it with an odd assortment of people. There were those who were ardent in their fever to see Avatar, those who were apparently caught up in my excitement, and those who had the “misfortune” of being married to people who fell in one of the first two categories. At the end of the movie, we were all believers, and it was the first time for me in recent memory that we found a movie that we all liked.

I feel like there’s nothing I can say about the special effects of this movie that haven’t already been said – the movie is stunning, the special effects are amazing. The Na’avi were so beautiful and so realistically rendered that I often forgot that they were rendered, the 3D was used subtly – it added to the film, it never took away from the movie by doing any of the silly gimmicky 3D tricks. All of the technology helped submerge you into the film and enhanced the story.

I am shocked by the reviews that have taken issue with characters and plot.  I loved both. I really felt like I was swept up in the main character’s perspective, what started as alien and sometimes intriguing turned into something beautiful.  At several points I found myself so absorbed in the plot that I had tears in my eyes, and it was only through well placed humor that I was laughing instead of crying moments later.

I admit there was nothing about this movie that I didn’t like, and I had even expressed concerns to coworkers abut the length. (The film is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, so when you add in 20 or so minutes of previews and commercials, I knew I would be sitting in the theater for three hours.) I’ve always agreed with Alfred Hitchcock that “the length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” However, when the film was over I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t MORE film! It was the fastest three hours of my life.

If you haven’t seen this movie, if you aren’t even sure that you want to see it – go and see, consider seeing it in 3D if its available. It’s not just a movie, it’s an experience that no one should miss!

I love this time of year, not because I like shopping or even getting gifts, but because there are so many other things I love about this season:

Houses dripping in Christmas Lights, with Christmas Trees peeking out of the window. Even the most humble home looks grand to me, in all of it’s Christmas splendor and I love them all – from the humble homes “tastefully decorated” to the homes that set out to rival Clark Griswold.

Christmas movies. There’s not much that is unpredictable in Christmas movies but I love them all from various incarnations of  A Christmas Carol (though the Muppets Variety is my favorite) to A Wonder Life. My eyes well with tears and my heart skips a beat when the lessons are learned and love has reigned over even the coldest hearts during the holiday season.

Peppermint Ice Cream. Okay what’s funny about my love of Peppermint Ice Cream is that during the summer I’m an indifferent Ice Cream person at best. Every now and then I might grab a cone but even then I rarely finish it, but when December rolls around, the weather gets colder and the Peppermint Ice Cream hits the stores I can’t get enough of it!

Starbucks Christmas Treats! It was my love of peppermint that first brought me to Starbucks – Peppermint hot chocolate was what caught my attention the first time and then I saw Gingerbread Loaf, after that it was all over. I start doing driving by to check out Starbucks right after Thanksgiving and once I see the red cups, I’m in!

Oh sure there are other things I like that have nothing to do with things that you can buy and sell but those things are  so much harder to put into words…

I like that feeling of getting someone a gift that I know they are really going to like, a gift that says something about the way I feel about them. Sometimes I enjoy making gifts – baking them, creating photobooks, etc.

I love spending time with friends and family from near and far, everyone seems their best and brightest during the Christmas season.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I went away from home and visited some friends in Oklahoma, and it was fun and fascinating to participate in their Thanksgiving traditions. Despite my many blessings, Thanksgiving has never been a big holiday for my family (in fact we usually leave town), because I am a direct descendant of Mrs.Claus and Santa Claus.

My first scrap of evidence that I am related to Mrs.Claus came when I was in kindergarten, we had parents day and the next night I went to school and found a letter to me from Mrs.Claus! It talked about how she was making Pineapple Upside Down cake for Santa and that day when I went home from work I found my grandmother there in the kitchen making Pineapple Upside Down cake! (Aha! so that’s why I never saw grandpa – he was Santa Claus!)

The other supporting evidence is that my Mom has always been Christmas crazy! She puts up roughly twelve Christmas trees that range in size from 12 feet to 3 feet, there are elves and reindeer scattered through out the house, and tinsel and twinkle lights gleam from every surface that will hold still to tolerate such treatment. The decorating usually begins in October, it starts with mysterious boxes appearing from out of storage units and the attic and well before Thanksgiving it’s finalized, every piece of garland in place. I love our over the top Christmases but it’s always been a little much for me, I like to contain my Christmas decorations to the period after Thanksgiving and into the first week of January.

After Thanksgiving dinner, my Oklahoma friends piled up into cars and we headed to the Chickasha Festival of Light and it was a perfect end to Thanksgiving and a wonderful kick off for Christmas. There were horse drawn carriages to trot around the park in and a bridge that had been turned into a a tunnel of white twinkle lights. I giggled at the mermaids, seahorses, and ostriches and my heart swelled when I saw the huge tree and the 12 days of Christmas. It was wonderful.

I was so excited to get into the Christmas festivities that I ended up coming home and starting my own decorations, even though the weather doesn’t seem quite Christmasy enough yet.

I cannot help myself, I love this time of year. I love the smells of gingerbread, chocolate, and peppermint. I love seeing people in the season. I love twinkle lights and tinsel. I love it all, all of it but shopping…still not a big fan of that.

http://www.chickashafestivaloflight.com/