…last week while I was on vacation, I was flirting with the idea of going to see Avatar… While the story and dialogue might be furiously predictable, those visuals….. Man…. In 3-D no less… I realized that it’s just not gonna be as cool watching it on my TV at home, so chances are I WILL see it…… Even if I have to go alone…

….which I might, because my wife flat-out rejects this film… She was telling me about these “support groups” for people suffering from some kind of post-Avatar depression syndrome… Literal online discussion groups and forums dedicated to helping people through the distressing aftermath of living in our own 3-D here in America, falling gruesomely short of the Utopia they see in Avatar… Apparently they see and hear echoes of the callousness of the film’s antagonists, all around them, day-in and day-out…

……..and something occurred to me… Regardless of what or what did not cause these people to have these feelings, I do think their experience is valid… From what I can tell, it seems these people had a visceral, pure reaction to what they perceived as beauty… I won’t be patronizing and call it “innocence”, I HATE that, because that implies falling short of true adulthood somehow….

I think it’s more accurate to say that people were touched by something that was aesthetically beautiful, by something that had harmony……………. Something that perhaps instilled in them a sense of wonder…… And the fact of the matter is that those kinds of things simply are not featured in most films, in most ANYTHING in mass culture… At all… Something that has been a part of most human cultures has been marginalized to a grotesque degree……

And the thing about going to the movies is that you are captive……. You are not going anywhere, you are not looking at anything else, your consciousness can be completely taken over……… But instead of beauty you get to be captive to slasher films, cheap action flics, romantic comedies that insult the intelligence of most people, and kids movies starring The Rock…. I think it’s possible that people are refreshed by Avatar, or at least the experience of it…..

…and I also think it’s an experience, an interface with something soulful and artistic that’s missing from music, and from, well, quite a few things…