Several of you took my advice and checked out the “Second Hand Lion”. So far everyone I have talked to has found it a real fun movie to watch. One said to me, “Where did that movie come from? It had very little hype but is a good picture.” So it is and I hope more will see it.

Now we are not big moviegoers. My favorite movie of all times has got to be “Lord of the Rings,” especially “The Return of the King.” Here is fantasy, high drama, intense battle scenes and true love fulfilled. All of these are key ingredients for my favorite movies. After “Lord of the Rings” I love “Shreck” and “Shreck II.” These have hardly any of the characteristics of “Lord,” but they make you laugh. As you know from last week, I love to laugh. In “Shreck II” when the formidable Puss-in-Boots has an attack of hairball coughing and could not continue his fight I found it hilarious. Our cat named Patsy Cline is prone to the same coughing spells.

One other movie that I recommend to anyone who loves a good story, well told, with great acting and photography is C. S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” I do strongly recommend that you read the book before you see the movie. The Chronicles of Narnia is actually a collection of C. S. Lewis stories. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is only one of seven short novels that make up the Chronicles.

It is a great movie for kids. Lewis wrote them for children but he embedded in the stories Christian allegory that takes some maturity to draw out of the work. Some are very subtle; some, not subtle at all. The Lion is a type of the trinity representing Christ as Creator and Lord. The world that is created has both good and evil. The children enter this alien world through a magic wardrobe but in doing so they become fulfillment of prophecy that saves the Narnians from the evil of the White Witch.

In many ways the movie fills out the story but, all in all, it is very faithful to Lewis’s work. The acting is some of the best I have seen, especially for children.

Well, it seems I have turned from moralist to movie critic. As I said last week, we all need some entertainment in our lives. There are plenty of movies on TV it is true but I can’t sit and watch a movie interrupted every 15 minutes with 6 minutes of advertising and I refuse to pay for premium channels, so an occasional trip to the movies is worth my time and money.

By the way, except for Chronicles, Lucille does not agree with much of my taste in movies, music or books. In fact, she went with me to see Chronicles already thinking she was not going to like it. It is the vast gap between historian and mathematician. She loved The Chronicles, so I guess our marriage is safe for another few years.