And not without me chauffeuring them to and fro.
The tickets to see the movie on what was once the world's third largest IMAX screen were a Christmas present "from" my 12-year-old son to his grandfather, which really means I bought the tickets and told my son they were from him. So my son got an extra present.
They were supposed to go on Wednesday, December 28th. But Tuesday, December 27th was when I tested positive for COVID. Neither of my sons ever tested positive, but it was understandable that my 83-year-old father didn't think it was a good idea to carry on with the next day's scheduled activities when we had no idea whether he'd be infected by his own grandson. (And we tried not to think too much about his exposure to me when I was infectious earlier that day, when we all went to see Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.)
I had wondered if L,L,C might be the only movie in the theater they saw on the trip, which would have been okay since he and his wife seemed to like it. It was in keeping with the tradition of digital animals that blow my dad's mind, which started when he saw Peter Rabbit five years ago (as discussed in this post).
But the IMAX people surprised me. Despite stating flatly on the ticket that it is "non-refundable and can't be transferred to another session," the good people at the Melbourne Museum gladly allowed me to postpone our IMAX visit indefinitely, given my diagnosis with COVID. (My dad said he would have been willing to buy the replacement tickets if they couldn't reschedule for us, but it's uncertain whether this would have actually happened.)
I stopped testing positive on January 1st, and my wife did on about the 3rd or 4th. On the 6th we left on a weekend trip out of town for four nights, and the remainder of that week was spent finishing a building project that my dad had given us as a present, actually for my birthday if memory serves.
This week is their last week in town, so I had to move now if I was going to reschedule the Avatar screening. I was sure the IMAX people would have thought better of it by now, but they had not. So we managed to book in seats D-18 and D-19 for the Tuesday 3 p.m. showing.
My original plan had been to send them off on the train for the excursion, but I had started to think better of that plan myself. Although my dad is one of the sharpest 83-year-olds you will ever see, he's shown some signs of confusion on this trip -- nothing major, but enough that I wasn't sure I wanted to send him off on a voyage into the downtown, where he'd have to catch the right tram up to the museum after the train ride, then walk correctly to the museum. Especially since my 12-year-old is fairly hopeless at the moment, which I'm told comes with this age.
Plus, speaking of this age, there's the fact that the 12-year-old has started to respond monosyllabically to every question or potential topic of conversation. I could only imagine the awkward 70 minutes on either side of the movie, when my dad tried in vain to engage him and my son reciprocated with nothing. A fate far worse than getting lost in the big city, it seemed to me.
So I drove them in, waited around three hours, and drove them back out.
This actually worked out to have its benefits. It turned out that our back driver's side tire got a flat the day before, and the place where we have a warranty against roadside tire hazards is right in the same neighborhood as the Melbourne Museum. So it actually worked out quite nicely, as the tire was fixed quickly (at no cost to us), and I could even finish off my normal workday, having only taken about 90 minutes to negotiate the logistics of getting them to the movie. I sat and had an iced coffee with the remaining hour of my work.
But getting there was a wee bit tense. Although I thought I left with plenty of time, the traffic started to crawl as we got into the city, and I probably hadn't taken the optimal route to get there -- seeing as how I was trying not to abuse the spare tire, which was not supposed to exceed 80 km per hour (about 50 mph). It was especially frustrating as we got closest to the museum, though I did luck out in finding a parking spot in front. But I had to go in with them and wait with them in the 15-minute line for the candy bar, since that's where I needed to redeem these replacement tickets. (I think they didn't want to just send me a barcode because then I could sell it to someone else, which goes against the spirit of their kindness in allowing the COVID postponement of the viewing.)
Fortunately, I sent them inside the theater just after the trailers began, and was back to my five-minute parking spot before anyone could realize it had been closer to 20.
Fortunately again, it was all worth it.
My son didn't call it his favorite film ever -- for once -- but he did say that as mind-blowing as the visual effects were, he actually might have liked the story more. Given that it focuses on teenagers bristling against the rules of their parents, that doesn't surprise me. (And I do think the story is a big improvement on the original Avatar.)
My dad used the three-word phrase both James Cameron and I were hoping he would use: "totally immersive experience." He was pretty amazed by it all, and asked a lot of questions that revealed my lack of technical expertise in describing the motion capture process.
Neither reported being overwhelmed, in a bad way, by the 3D, but my son did say he had to take off his glasses for ten seconds here and there just to reset.
There was an added risk with Avatar: The Way of Water that I haven't mentioned until now: Neither of them had actually seen the original. So I brought them up to speed over dinner a few nights earlier, though I'm not sure how much they retained, nor how much they needed to retain -- the film's first ten minutes do a pretty good job catching you up on the events of the first.
I did feel a bit bad getting them tickets to the movie, knowing that they hadn't seen the first -- the least I could have done was set them up with a screening of Avatar, which is of course streaming on Disney+. However, if that hadn't worked for them, either because the story left something to be desired or because my TV wasn't an impressive enough way to watch it, it would have curdled some of their enthusiasm about the sequel. Besides, I know that most people aren't as worried as I am about whether they've seen the first movie before they sit down for the sequel. This was their big chance to see this impressive visual experience on as large a screen as possible, in 3D, so we had to take it.
And just as I thought would probably happen -- because it happened, or more properly didn't happen, to me -- neither of them had to go to the bathroom during the movie. This even though I bought my son a popcorn, a bag of mixed lollies and a large Sprite (reminding me that they would have had to stand in this line even if we hadn't had to fetch the tickets). My dad settled for a more modest bottle of lemon lime and bitters, but this also did not travel its way through his bladder before the end of the movie.
The movie is having some trouble settling in its right spot in my year-end rankings, having started out higher than it currently is before dropping behind about seven movies that it used to be ahead of. I'm not immune to the backlash there has been to every James Cameron movie in the last 30 years.
But "seeing it again" a month later, through the fresh eyes of my son and my father, has reminded me that the commodity Cameron brings to the screen every time -- most succinctly described as "movie magic" -- is worthy of a pretty prominent place on this list. That realization couples especially well with seeing a different movie last night whose technical challenges blew me away. This time of year, we always have to remember that while being moved, emotionally, may remain the ideal cinematic experience for most of us, the less sentimental -- but sometimes equally powerful -- emotion of awe must always be reckoned with.
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