Batman Begins, with Christian Bale and Liam Neeson. First of all, I was very impressed; it's been pretty much unanimously agreed among the people I know who've seen it that it's the best comic book movie that's been done. As much as I already like movies that are darker than not, this one made me especially happy because in being darker than not it makes all the other Batman movies seem like exactly what they are - satires at best, farces at worst on the original intent of the comic. I also especially enjoyed the style of language used, and I kept wanting to liken it to that used in Kingdom of Heaven, though I'm not sure why. The other parallel between texts that I noticed was between Batman's nature as a superhero and one of Frank Herbert's aims in his Dune novels. Basically, both Bruce Wayne and the characters with extraordinary abilities in the Dune novels did not become as 'supernatural' as they are by virtue of genetics or fate or whatnot, but by discipline, hard work, and will.
      Back to the movie, there were only two things that disappointed me a bit; one, Christian Bale's ability in martial arts (re: Equilibrium) seemed little used, with horrendous amounts of close-ups in the fight scenes - though, I could see an argument that ambiguity in the fighting might accent some of Batman's mysterious nature and at times ambiguous morality - and two, Katie Holmes, with that stubbornly repetitive half-not really-smile. Xuemei suggested that Rachel Weisz might have been better in the role, which I would readily agree to because of my jonesing on said actress, but then my dad pointed out that perhaps Weisz is usually cast in roles that might be considered too 'tough' for that character.

Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag, with Cptn John Stratton. When we went to the National Air and Space Museum near DC, we had the good fortune of catching this IMAX documentary. It's about the AIr Force (and apparently international) equivalent of the more well known Navy's Top Gun program. And on an IMAX, hoo boy is aerial combat exciting. Beyond that, as a documentary Red Flag is quite interesting throughout (trivia! I had no idea the use of flares was so extensive). Tangentially, my parents walked out of the theatre in tears, on account of Wyatt going off to the Academy soon, for whatever that implies about the film.

Revolutionary Omo Plata - this article is a good article in and of itself, but it really caught my eye for this line: "Believe it or not, I first came across Omo Plata as a finishing hold in Indonesian Silat." And here I was thinking that was a uniquely j(i)ujitsu technique; goes to show you, I guess.