Avatar (December 27, 2009)

All seven of us attended, with Pat Herrera. My first movie in a theater for about a year and a half (last saw Wall-E).

I bought into the movie from the beginning, and really liked it.

We saw the IMAX 3-D version, and it was captivating. I just liked looking around the screens. The critics who comment that James Cameron bridged the gap between live action and CGI, are correct, it's almost seamless.

I also liked the lead actors.

I also can see the points made by various critics who found the story line unoriginal, plus found other things to pick at. Including a cartoonish military guy and some lame dialogue moments. The movie had elements of Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness, Braveheart, Independence Day, Lord of the Rings. And I guess Dances with Wolves, which I've never seen.

But in the end I was a big fan. Grateful for movie makers who try to do something new. Even if demonstrably imperfect, so much more going on than the pedestrian TV junk with which I'm bombarded regularly.

Sea of Faith - Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World (Stephen O'Shea, 2006)

This was a very helpful follow-up to related books described here and here and here and here.

O'Shea builds the story around seven key battles involving Christianity and Islam around the Mediterranean during the middle ages.

Poiters in 732 (only 110 years after the hejira).

Baghdad was a new city in 762 - supplanting Damascus.

Spain is really complex - interaction between Islam, Christianity, Jews; always a bit geographically removed.

"Horns of Hattin" - effectively ending Crusader states in 1187.

And Constantinople "falls" in 1453.

Plain Tales from the Hills (Rudyard Kipling, 1888)

As with The Light That Failed, I read this as a result of working through Kipling's biography.

This book includes a series of short stories that were published in some British newspaper that served the expat community in the 1880s. Kipling was widely praised for his originality; had a good feel for the interaction between the communities based on residing there as a child.

Entertaining. But I didn't find this terribly interesting either. Quit about a quarter of the way through.