Loud Noises and Shiny Things

My wife and I saw Avatar Tuesday afternoon, and kept wondering when there was going to be a plot. There never was. In place of plot we got a thin pastiche of Wall Street, Return of the Jedi, Dancing With Wolves, the Disney version of Pocahontas (they even had a tree of wisdom), Platoon and, Heaven help us all, about a dozen Tarzan of the Jungle flicks in which stampeding elephants come to the aid of our hero in the nick of time. The 3-D effects were OK and the computer-generated visuals were mind-boggling, but does this make a movie worthy of a best picture nomination? I think not. Avatar is at best a collection of loud noises and shiny things, created at horrendous expense to thrill 15-year-old boys. Sad, very sad. Our culture is in worse shape than I thought.