Despite everything else happening at the moment in my life, I managed to go to the movies four times in the last week. Here's a non-comprehensive and sadly spoiler-free summary of my thoughts about the different films. (It's not worth doing spoilers behind cuts - you might be spoiled for other movies while looking at the details for a different one.)

Howl's Moving Castle
- Seen on Monday with curtana, forthright, cwjat, SmithKatie, theengineer, A.Z., dark_age_gal, larkvi, saffronjan and John.
- Seen on Sunday with double0hilly and pittenweem

I've been waiting for a year or more for this charming movie to come to theaters, and then come out in English dub. Hiyao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke) directed, and his ongoing concern with human impact on the environment was a major movie theme not present in the world. His world is full of coal-burning trains and war-torn landscapes. The first made some sort of sense, the latter less so. The war plot was an add-on to the movie. Calcifer was perfect, Sophie decent, while Howl had some fabulous scenes but was voiced as a little too sickly sweet by Christian Bale, I thought. My first time through the movie, I spent the whole time comparing it to the book (they're about two-thirds the same). The second time, I very happily relaxed into the flow of plot and enjoyed it.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith
- Seen on Thursday with aerinah

The most fun, consistently entertaining thing I've seen this week - eye candy, intrigue, comedy, intense action. Surely, not all of the plot made sense; but it made enough sense that the gaps didn't bother me until I thought about it afterwards. Angelina Jolie was particularly good for her role. Also, the movie offered up some fabulous quips and puns. Good wordplay.

Batman Begins
- Seen on Friday with the Serial Diners

I'm not overly familiar with the Batman franchise. I've seen a movie or two, when they first came out, not since, and I haven't read the comic books, the t.v. show, or any other tie-ins. This is all a lead-in to say that, of our group of 20-or-so audience members, the Batman fans were generally very happy with this movie, while the rest of us were merely content. It was a fine movie, not bad, reasonably engaging, but I failed to relate to any of the characters, so I didn't have much stake in what happened to them. I did, however, much prefer Christian Bale's voice in this movie (as Batman) than in Howl.