In Transit

Listened to Arcade Fire's The Suburbs (and odd bits of Mozart) and watched the special edition of Avatar (I've not seen the unspecial version so I'm not sure what extras I experienced) on the flight over. Unreservedly enjoyed the former - all of it - and distinctly reservedly the latter. How so?

I don't think I need to strain to justify enjoying the music. It's obviously very, very, very good and that's an end to it. (Except for the need to expand my CD collection far enough to include all 3 Arcade Fire albums.)

But I do think I need to justify my reservations about James Cameron's popular epic, especially since people whose judgments I respect regard it very highly. (No, not film critics - just John, Jeanette and Sam.) I did enjoy the film visually. Even on the tiny screen on the seat in front of me it had quite an impact and it was possible to get a sense of how great it must look on the big, big screen. My problems lay with the storyline. In short, although the story is delivered neatly, it's extremely predictable and the final battle began to put me to sleep as I was confident in my assessment of what was going to happen. It felt as if a committee had written it, and this was a committee blind to their own enjoyment of destructive violence. I was uneasily aware they were having the time of their lives blowing the heroic world and People of Pandora to bits whilst pretending it was all deeply sad.