ponderous pontification

America's Most Miserable Cities

  in Hollywood, where recent films tell a similar story. The success of
Avatar, for example, is really rather odd. In its lumbering allegorical
style it depicts an American way of life that consists in equal parts
of cynicism, destruction and a brutal, galaxy-encompassing greed. You
might think citizens would object to such demonisation, but they don’t.
Instead, millions have flocked to it, apparently willing to make an
emotional commitment to the crippled marine who symbolically rejects
America to become, instead, the local blue people’s messiah.