Reviewapalooza

Saw a great number of things this weekend:

Howl's Moving Castle, the newest film from Hayao Miyazaki. A young girl named Sophie is turned into an old woman, and becomes housekeeper to a (good? evil?) wizard named Howl who has, you guessed it, a moving castle. Not his best, I have to say; I prefer the more serious Nausicaa or Mononoke. This one is much more like Spirited Away, a simple fable. Reminded me of the Wizard of Oz in some ways. But the problem with fairy stories is that it's impossible to build tension or suspense when literally anything might happen at any moment. Still, a quality film and miles beyond anything Disney's done by itself in years. Take a peek if you liked any of his other films.

Batman Begins. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaark. Did I mention that I like dark? But honestly, Batman was meant to be a moody sort of story, far more so than any of the other comic books that have been filmed recently. It gives the impression that they plan to ignore and wipe away the other Batman films to date, which I'm perfectly fine with. They've given themselves a decent place to start this time. Oh, and mad props to my new hero, Christian Bale, who managed to be both Batman and the voice of Howl in the same year.

The new IMAX theatre, at which I saw Batman: not so much. The only IMAX theatres I'd been in to date were the IMAX domes, aka OmniMax, where you're right up close to a screen that wraps around you. But this one was just a bigger-than-usual screen - inside a bigger-than-usual auditorium. End result? You really can't tell the difference, honestly. Maybe it's a little brighter and the sound is better, but not worth it.

Last but not least, I finally finished The Rule of Four, a book I've been listening to on CD. Not something I'd usually do, but you gotta occupy those long trips to Lincoln somehow. It's in the historical-mystery-thriller genre that the DaVinci Code made popular of late. And it's about a very real, very strange book called the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. But it has the audacity to actually be about its characters, and the central mystery is really just a MacGuffin. Kind of a daring choice, really. Recommended if you're into the genre, or if you went to Princeton.

There were some other things I managed to do and think, but I seem to have forgotten them for the moment...