In Which I Don't Say Much About Narnia.

I feel like I should write something about the first Narnia movie, some sort of evaluative remarks, but I'm not ready to yet. I'm still processing it. There's so much there for me to consider... maybe not necessarily inherent in the film, but so many layers of meaning built up over years of reading and re-reading. So I'll just tell you that I watched it with my brother, and that we both really enjoyed it.

I used to read the Chronicles out loud to my siblings long ago -- four of us in all, just like the Pevenseys. My sisters tolerated the reading, that being the best entertainment available in the absence of television, but my brother was the one who really loved it. In a sense he has become part of the story for me, and I for him. So it was most fitting for us to stumble back through the wardrobe together, after all these years.

Ebert's review of the movie ended with the following rhetorical question:

But it's remarkable, isn't it, that the Brits have produced Narnia, the Ring, Hogwarts, Gormenghast, James Bond, Alice and Pooh, and what have we produced for them in return?

To this I can only answer: Earthsea. I know, I know, it was just subjected to a horrible TV adaptation; but now it's in the hands of Studio Ghibli, the people who brought you My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. Yes, you read that right: anime! It's a weird idea, but I kinda like it. Even though Ged looks suspiciously Caucasian in the movie poster.