Reason watched: Friday night pizza movie!
Notes: This is pretty near perfect--the casting, the photography & music, the script, everything fits together into a seamless whole. Not exactly an easy movie to watch, but then, what can you expect from the story of a 14 year-old girl tracking down the murderer of her father? Don't know if I'd buy a copy, but I'm certainly interested in a rewatch or two. (Followed up by watching the trailer for the John Wayne version, which was hysterical for probably all the wrong reasons.)
Title: The Good News We Almost Forgot
Reason read: I've been meaning to study the Heidelberg Catechism for awhile now, and I've read and appreciated several other of the author's books.
Notes: Basically the Heidelberg Catechism with solid commentary. Might wind up buying this one.
Title: Captain America
Reason watched: Friday night pizza movie!
Notes: Much fun, and the best superhero movie I've seen a while--reminded me of the best aspects of The Rocketeer and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but I think the titular character is my current favorite hero. He's so refreshingly normal and decent and selfless. One I'd watch again without hesitation. (I didn't squirm with vicarious embarrassment even once! And that is rare.)
Title: The Song of Albion (trilogy)
Reason read: Dad mentioned it, and I was looking for something to read on a Sunday afternoon.
Notes: Must admit I didn't actually read all three books in their entirety--read most of The Paradise War, all of The Silver Hand, and only the ending of The Endless Knot. The first is in large part a fish-out-of-water story, which I almost always find intensely uncomfortable to read/watch (one reason I didn't enjoy Thor or Green Lantern as much as I might have), and the third shows the disintegration of everything that was built over the course of the second book. But I find stories about building new things out of the rubble of the old, of overcoming great odds, fascinating, and so stayed up until almost 2 am to finish The Silver Hand. (Which can just about be read as a stand-alone, fyi.) I read the entire trilogy because of the third book's ending, which is a brief vision of how things could be, should be.
Title: Peacemaker
Reason watched: Friday night pizza movie!
Notes: A very young Nicole Kidman and a less-weathered George Clooney chase down some stolen nuclear warheads before bad things happen. One of those movies where everything's done well, it just doesn't have much to make you watch it more than once. Feels almost like a high-end pilot for a TV series.
Title: Inception
Reason watched: Friday night pizza movie!
Notes: In order to pin down how exactly everything fits together, I think I'd have to watch it at least 8 more times while taking copious notes, but it is a gorgeous film in pretty much all respects, and the whole lucid-dream-sharing idea is a nifty one. Probably not something to watch right before going to bed, though.
I also read a bunch of The Dark Is Rising fix-it fics, because although I like that series very much, I absolutely hate the ending. The very end, with what happens after they save the world. To my disappointment, however, I couldn't find any satisfactory stories--there was one that asked the question "what about Mordred", which was interesting thematically, but fell a bit flat as a story. Another played with the lady of Shalott story, but threw in a romantic relationship between Will and Bran, which kind of spoiled it for me. The one I liked best was where Bran wound up in the Welsh government and Will was a professor, and they remained best friends and that was all. It's probably the closest to what Susan Cooper had in mind when she wrote the ending, anyway, so there's that.
Still, I guess I'll reread the series anyway, despite the ending, because the rest of it is terrific, and part of it is set during Christmas. And after I've read it, I'll probably write up something about dualism vs. Christianity, and how that plays into why the ending bothers me so much. So. Consider this your warning.
Also, while looking for The Dark is Rising stories, stumbled across a handful starring Diana Wynne Jones' characters Chrestomanci and Wizard Howl, which were all quite delightful. I'd link to them, but I've decided to stop doing that because it's already too easy to spend hours (days) wandering the internet and I don't want to add to the problem.