Anna and I decided to see Avatar last night at the Grand Lake Theatre. It’s a 15 minute walk from our apartment. After an early supper (home made soft tacos with a nice shredded cabbage salsa that Anna threw together) we stepped out for a pleasant stroll up Grand Avenue.
We left a little early so that we could grab a cup of coffee at the Day of the Dead Cafe next to the theatre. Cute place. There were half a dozen people inside working on laptops and watching the cafe’s large screen TV. Smokey poured us a couple of cups and we sat outside and sipped for a few minutes before buying tickets for the show.
We grabbed a couple of the bags of popcorn that the Grand Lake gives away on weeknights and chose our seats. The 3D glasses are pretty clunky looking (I enjoyed sneaking a peek at Anna in hers—it made me laugh), but the effect is pretty sweet. One of the trailers was for the 3D version of Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland, and it looked great. (It looks good in 2D, too — 3D just accentuates Burton’s already heightened visual reality.)
Avatar was a very engaging film. If you’re one of the few people left who haven’t seen it, treat yourself to a nice evening out. The story is a bit over the top — melodramatic is probably a fair description — but the visual world James Cameron creates is stunning, totally worth the price of admission.
We wrapped the evening with the short walk back down Grand Avenue. I have to remind myself that it’s January — walking to the movies in the dead of winter was not something we’ve done for the past several years.