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But still I was frustrated. I wasn't transformed. You would think seeing a movie three times would be enough to decide what my opinion of it is. Yeah, you'd think. For some reason, I still couldn't shake the fact that there was an experience that Avatar was providing audiences that I just hadn't had yet.

While I was wrestling with my inner comprehension on this subject, Avatar was causing a Box Office inferno and all were swept up by its logic-defying display. I was certainly no different:

From Monday Morning Quarterback January 4th:

"GOOD GOD!!! I can't wait to see how the rest of you attempt to put this into words. In a few days, James Cameron will have directed the two biggest films of all-time. My mouth is still agape at the sight of its third weekend. Now that he is behind the two films to perform the most abnormally in the face of current box office trends in the last 20 years, Cameron has to be included with the likes of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas when discussing the most commercially successful filmmakers in history. I haven't been this riveted by a films success in a decade. Huzzah!"

I was obsessed with both its stunning behavior at the Box Office and my perceived potential in it to deliver something truly revolutionary. I was driven to see it a fourth time. The only other film I saw four times in the theatre was Return of the King, which is perfectly explainable since The Lord of the Rings trilogy had already defined my early 20s before the final installment was released. My head was spinning, I was hell bent on Avatar changing my movie-going life and before I knew it was naming Avatar my #2 movie of 2009, after the insurmountable Up.

That was when I took a step back and question things. Did I really love Avatar that much? More than Inglourious Basterds? An Education? There's certainly no film I thought about more last year. But when thinking about movies I had enjoyed the most, I realized my reaction to Avatar wasn't a response to the film itself, so much as it was an idea what it could possibility be. I loved what I wanted it to be.

I did see the film a fourth and final (for now) time. I returned to the scene of the original crime, the Lincoln Square IMAX theatre. I went with the girl for whom I wrote the Titanic article and eventually made fun of for seeing Titanic seven times. It all came full circle indeed.

So what's my opinion now that I've seen this film four times – well, really three and a half - in all its various forms? Great, totally great, unlike anything we've ever seen. But in the end, I can't say it changed my life.

My several in-theater experiences with Avatar were memorable, satisfying (yes) and often spectacular. This is a movie that will be talked about for a long time and when it is I will have very little bad to say about it. But overall, what I'll remember most is how I was swept up in the fever with the rest of the nation, hungry for a theater-going experience that changed our understanding of the medium. This is an unfair expectation. How could I think anything would ever top Jurassic Park when I was nine?

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