oel ngati kameie

In keeping with all the now-vanished merriment, V. & I found ourselves on Xmas eve standing in line a 1830 hours waiting with the rest of the crowd to be let in to see Avatar in IMAX 3D. We usually go see some blockbuster du jour on Xmas morning for matinée prices, but this year, in keeping with our efforts to shore up the Californian economy during the Great Recession, we plunked down over thirty bucks and waited to get our 3D specs and a seat not too far in the back of the theater. I wanted to see it because I had been intrigued by interviews with Paul Frommer, a USC linguist, who had designed the Na'vi conlang used in the movie. Frommer had even guest blogged over at Language Log (link) about it. We had fun. The story is a simple morality tale with kick-ass 3D effects. The best take I’ve seen so far online is by James Kunstler (link). There were some obvious bits retreaded from Aliens, and V. noticed that the pacing was similar to Titanic, a film that I never got around to seeing. When we got home we were not sleepy enough yet to go to bed, so we watched another film, Ein Frau in Berlin. It’s based on a memoir published in 1954 (in English and in the USA) about the events in one neighborhood during the Battle for Berlin during the period from 20 April to 22 June 1945. Its publication caused outcries in Germany about the honor of German women being besmirched.