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Avatar: Fire and Ash
PLEASE DO NOT LAUGH, I AM quite aware I am probably one of the last of my or any other generation to make the switch to paying my bills online. Yes, you are free to call me a dinosaur because i still pay my bills the old fashion way, with a check in the mail. Because of the uptick in our traveling, I realized paying online would be so much easier instead of what I have been doing, which is to overpay my bills enough to cover the months I would be away. I still do not want to have a debit card, but I have wrapped my brain around this new idea, at least for me. The first step I had to do was go to the bank and have them set up a profile for me. Maybe I could have figured it on my own after downloading the bank’s online banking app; but, I wanted to physically be with a banker who could walk me through it. By the way, the bank I planned on using for this endeavor was a large national bank. The process of setting up an online presence was painless and easy; the banker explained the features as we went step by step through the application’s options. With my new found knowledge, I was eager to get home and start the process of setting up my vendors and entering the pay dates for my payments. EVERYTHING WENT SMOOTHLY GETTING MY FOUR bills loaded into my profile. I set up the due dates, double checked my work then signed out. The rest of the day I went about my business until dinnertime. It was around that time I decided to look at the mobile application to see if there were any updates from the bank. I tried signing in but a window opened to tell me I had been locked out due to fraudulent activity, and I would have to call the fraud department. I was dumbfounded. Gratefully, I did not wait long until a human came onto the line and asked me a series of security questions. Each one, I answered correctly then was prompted to explain my issue. I told her about being locked out and being new to this online process. The representative took a look at my account and took the lock off, asking me to wait an hour before reentering the one bank card bill that they had labeled fraud. I did as instructed and thought that would be the end of it. Well that was not the case. The very next day, the same thing happened where I was locked out and my bank card transaction was cancelled for fraud. I was in the depths of hell dealing with customer service, the fraud department, and two managers for the next six days, being told the same thing and getting the same results. Finally one of the managers suggested I write a check. I lost it, decided to end the call and went over to the branch again, in a total state of anger. Face to face with a banker, I listed all the asinine conversations I had had with the bank’s employees and not being able to get resolution, stating if I was committing fraud, why would I also list my medical insurance provider as a vendor to be paid every month. The banker had me delete and reenter my bank card vendor after typing several notes onto my profile. Today, I re-entered my payment instructions for the fifth time and now I must wait until tomorrow to see if it gets cancelled again or processed. These dealings I have had the past week with the bank have been exhausting and grueling. It got to the point where I felt overwhelmed and beaten; battling a large corporation takes its toll on the body. Because of this experience, I felt a strong connection to the Na’vi beings who were about to face their toughest opponent. WITH THE BUILDUP OF MILITARY FORCES, for an all out assault, and an aggressive tribe seeking conquest; the peaceful tribes would have to find a way to put differences aside if they wanted to keep their planet. With Sam Worthington (Relay, The Exorcism) as Jake, Zoe Saldana (Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, Emilia Perez) as Neytiri, Sigourney Weaver (Call Jane, The Good House) as Kiri, Stephen Lang (Don’t Breathe, The Optimist) as Quaritch, and Oona Chaplin (Game of Thrones-TV, Anchor and Hope) as Varang; this action, adventure, fantasy sequel was visually breathtaking. The action scenes were intense with many moving parts in them, that it almost became overwhelming. I found the creativity amazing in the creatures and landscapes. However, as for the story, it was predictable with little variance to the previous films, to the point where it offered nothing new or fresh. My interest was kept mostly due to the visual and technical aspects in this science fiction film. And possibly I felt a little more connected to the good vs evil aspect since I saw this during the middle of my bank ordeal.
2 3/4 stars
Flash Movie Review: Avatar: The Way of Water
THERE IS PLENTY OF TRUTH AND plenty of examples that show beauty is only skin deep. I realized this at a young age because of a friend’s grandmother. My friend lived in the same apartment building, so I had met his grandmother numerous times. She was always well dressed, with hair that was never out of place, thanks to her weekly beauty shop visits. I remember how she constantly avoided being out in the sunlight for too long. Being at such a young age, I translated her prettiness for niceness; in other words, if a person was good looking, then there should be no reason why they were not kind. I do not know how I came up with that reasoning, but I was completely wrong. My friend’s grandmother appeared pleasant upon first meeting, but it never lasted long. My friend and I would be playing a board game at his house, and she would walk into the room, eating a bag of candy. She would offer her grandson a piece, but she never offered me one. From other times I was over there, I could hear the way she talked to her daughter and son-in-law; it was demanding, where she constantly had them bring things to her instead of her getting up to go get them for herself. I DISCOVERED THE IDIOM ABOUT BEAUTY being skin deep was not exclusive to people. It could be used as well for buildings. In college, I had a class in a futuristic looking building. From the street it looked amazing, with an outer surface that looked like a checkerboard, with some of the squares raised up. There was a rooftop garden which was more of a novelty back then. When I discovered one of my classes was in this building, I was excited I would finally be able to get inside of it. Upon first entering, there were these cool orbital globes hanging from the ceiling that lit the hallway. My class was held on the third floor; during the warmer months, the room never got cooled off from the air conditioning. The professor told us when they built the building, they installed a HVAC system that was too small for the building. So, the rooms were cold in winter and hot in summer. I later discovered some of the windows leaked which led to a constant cleaning regiment to get rid of the mold. From such a dramatic façade, being inside the building was rarely pleasant. Not that it is as dramatic as that college building, but this action-adventure fantasy is in a similar predicament. HAVING SETTLED INTO DOMESTIC LIFE WITH a family, life takes an ugly turn for Jake, played by Sam Worthington (Hacksaw Ridge, The Shack), when an old foe returns to the planet. With Zoe Saldana (Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, Amsterdam) as Neytiri, Sigourney Weaver (The Good House, Call Jane) as Kiri, Stephen Lang (Don’t Breathe franchise, The Lost City) as Quaritch and Kate Winslet (Sense and Sensibility, The Mountain Between Us) as Ronal; this three hour and twelve-minute-long movie was a visual spectacular. There were times where I sat and wondered if things, I was seeing, were real or not. The use of color and detail in creating visual stimulating palettes was a joy to behold and the special effects were magical. It is a good thing because I thought the script was weak. The story is predictable and a bit repetitive at times. I was feeling the length of the film at some point which told me the writers could have cut the length down some. Spending a little more time on character development would have been beneficial in my opinion, though I appreciated the moral messages. And I did not care for the obvious ploys used in the script to prepare the viewers for the 3rd installment of this franchise. How long will that one be?
3 stars
Flash Movie Review: Don’t Breathe
I blame two things that made people become afraid of the dark; that Scottish poem with the line “…things that go bump in the night” and Francisco Goya’s painting Que Viene el Coco which translates to Here Comes the Bogeyman. It is that damn Bogeyman that started this reign of fear when day turns into night. How many of us slept with a night light on or the bedroom door opened enough to cast a line of light into our rooms? I never had anything underneath my bed but I knew several kids who felt something could be hiding under their beds. If they had to get up in the middle of the night they could not just swing their legs out to the side of the bed to plant their feet on the floor. Instead they would stand up in bed then jump off like an Olympic long jumper, to get as far away from their bed as possible. These days there seems to be an industry devoted to products that help alleviate the anxiety of going to sleep. I know some families that have sleep machines that produce soothing sounds like ocean waves or wind chimes to calm their children at bedtime. It is funny, I never associated the dark with being scary; in fact, I considered nighttime safer than daylight due to some of the events I had to endure during the day. Darkness meant I was less visible which was a good thing for me. Daylight meant I was a more visible target. Who would have thought this horror thriller would now make me scared of the dark. THINKING it would be an easy target friends Rocky, Alex and Money; played by Jane Levy (About Alex, Evil Dead), Dylan Minnette (Goosebumps, Labor Day) and Daniel Zovatto (It Follows, Innocence); decided to rob the house of a blind man, played by Stephen Lang (Avatar, Public Enemies). They could not have been more wrong. Before I tell you about this film I want you to know I had some conflict with the story line. Since I do not want to give anything away let me just use the following scenario as a random example. If an abandoned building is fenced off with signs posted about its demolition and someone trespasses and gets hurt; who is responsible for the injury? So now back to the film; I liked the way the movie started up as it put the pieces of the story together with little explanation. The acting was good for a horror film but I thought Stephen’s performance was the best. Sitting in a theater full of people made the shock scenes more intense in my opinion. Though there were a few scenes that seemed repetitive and somewhat unrealistic, I did like the way the script threw in surprise twists. On the other hand, the reason the story worked for this picture was because it was based in reality. Many of the scenes seemed like they could have happened and we would have read about them in the newspaper. This film was a thrill ride that may cause you to sleep with the lights on.
2 3/4 stars
moviejoltz 