My day off.

So, today I had the day off. A rarity for me on showsite, but considering I worked almost 50 hours Mon-Thurs... I got it. And instead of what I wanted to do (sleep in and wear pajama pants all day), I decided to actually have a Jamie-Day-o'-Fun.

Except... I woke up at 6am. And proceeded to toss and turn until 8:30. Bah. However, I met my old friend Sylvain from Montreal (who is in D.C. on business) for brunch at a French cafe in Georgetown; we had crepes. (Sandy, remember those crepes in Central Park? Mmmmm.) Then I went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I always love the dinosaurs, but the Smithsonian doesn't hold a candle to the Museum of Natural History in NYC (my absolute favorite museum, ever; it has the life-size replica of the great blue whale [the size of 26 African elephants!], the Rosen Space Center with that awesome universe perspective exhibit and "THE HALL OF BIO-DIVERSITY" which I always have to say in a James Earl Jones voice)... so I went to the Insect Hall, got sufficiently creeped out, the Gem Hall where I saw the Hope Diamond, a new exhibit on Sikhs- the Legacy of Punjab, and a great National Geographic photography exhibit. I had planned on seeing a movie in the afternoon.... *drum roll* The Chronicles of Narnia.

So, I had looked it up online and saw that it was playing every hour, so I didn't bother writing down the schedule and just went to the theater when I was done at the museum. I got there around 2 and lo and behold, I had missed the 1:35 and the next showing wasn't until 3:20. The ONLY hour all day long it didn't start. It was freezing and ridiculously windy outside, and I was a long way from the hotel, so I decided to see Syriana, which got out at 3:55 and run into the 3:50 Chronicles of Narnia.

Syriana was good but quite honestly, I don't know a lot about the oil and gas industry and most of it was over my head. The cast was fantastic but there were several storylines and most of them didn't really intersect so I was a little confused... possibly also because I was so distracted about NARNIA!

Ohmigah, you guys. As most of you know, this is one of my favorite books of all time. I even did a senior honors research project on it in college. I have been waiting for this movie for 20 years. I have been on pins and needles for the past 5 years I've been reading about it... SO EXCITED for it to be here and so scared they were going to mess it up. How often do you get a truly great movie out of a truly great novel? Especially one that you've read and studied as much as I have this one? Well. Let me tell you how often. Almost never.

Until now.

This is my favorite movie of 2005. Hands down. It was... AMAZING. They were true to the story. The four children were perfect, as was the rest of the cast, especially James McAvoy (who plays Tumnus the Faun) and Tilda Swinton as the White Witch... and Jim Broadbent, who has a habit of morphing so completely into his roles that he's scarcely recognizable. The special effects were fantastic, even down to the talking animals (which most of you know is one of my great pet peeves in life). The battle scene was spectacular. The creatures were sensational. And listen. My eyes welled with tears the moment Aslan walked on screen, and stayed full for the entire rest of the movie, and that, by the way, was at least an hour.

I just re-read that paragraph and my words don't do it justice. I'm sorry... but Lord of the What? and Harry Who? This is by far the best (the best the best the best) of the British children's fantasy movies of recent days. See it. And then call me.