I saw several people using Na'Vi avatars last night--I guess that's rather appropriate, isn't it? They were exceptionally well made avatars, and I'm guessing there's an Avatar promotional sim somewhere.
I guess I was totally wrong about Avatar not making any money. As I said to Tim last night, observing Avatar's success makes me feel like I'm on a planet populated by an alien species. Aside from the engaging pace of the first fifteen minutes or so, there's really no aspect of the film I can imagine liking--the design, the plot, the acting. Contemplating the idea of sitting through the movie again makes me feel tired. But clicking on the permanent trending topic on Twitter reveals thousands of "OMG Avatar is so freaking amazing!" with maybe two or three, "Yo Avatar is a racist azz movie." I mean, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, since I can't remember the last time I really liked a popular song. I tried listening to some Lady Gaga a couple weeks ago, and I kind of liked a couple songs, including "Bad Romance", but I started zoning out halfway through the album. And now I can't hear "Bad Romance" without hearing the Bababooey version ("Ba, ba, Ba-babooey, Ba-ba-Bababooey . . .").
Meanwhile, last night I was drinking scotch and really loving Easter Parade, which is hardly a masterpiece, so what do I know?
With breakfast to-day, I watched the first episode of Akiyuki Shinbo's latest series, which so far seems to be his weakest, Dance in the Vampire Bund. I was a little worried I might get busted for having child porn for downloading it as it features a pre-pubescent female vampire as its lead who seems to be topless half the time. Despite internet rumour to the contrary, I'm not turned on by children or by "lolicon", which is starting to become increasingly prevalent in mainstream anime. I tried watching what turned out to be an excruciatingly dull popular series called A Certain Scientific Railgun a couple days ago and found it was another Lucky Star style series that followed the daily routine of humourless, slightly ditzy girls who, regardless of whether or not they're actually pre-teens, are drawn that way. I'm not sure that this particular look is so popular is an indicator of a paedophilia epidemic. In a way, I can see it as a natural progression from stylisations that give characters unnaturally large eyes, which is a childish trait. I remember watching Desmond Morris' Human Animal special from the ancient, actually educational Learning Channel and hearing him suggest that the more child-like physical features of women relative to men are designed to provoke protective instincts.
Anyway, the first episode of Dance in the Vampire Bund rather uninterestingly comes from the POV of a fictional Japanese game show, coming off as awkwardly artificial, so it may not be an indicator of the series' actual quality. I do like that the Robert Pattinson caricature transforms into a giant chameleon who swings from the rafters by his tongue.
Here's the only decently formatted version of the trailer on YouTube, subtitled in Spanish as Spanish speaking anime fans generally seem to be a lot smarter than the English speaking ones. Like most anime trailers, none of the dialogue or title cards make sense anyway;
Last night's tweets;
Televisions can't really be turned off.
Ronald McDonald's passed out at Wal-Mart.
Pale pervasive light tasers the new croft.
A cell phone clock keeps ticking by your heart.
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