I was leery about watching Lars and the Real Girl. From the little bit I knew about the film, it appeared strange, which could be good, and awkward, which for my particular personality is bad. It is a film about a man who thinks a sex doll is his girlfriend (not private lover, but public girlfriend). Enter everyone else stage right. How much more awkward could it get?

It was great to hear what you all have been watching this summer, so let's bring on the books! Summer is often known as a time for lighter reading, but I have a feeling with this crowd we've got quite a mix of books on the bedside stand or in the beach bag. What book keeps your attention right now? What books are challenging your assumptions? Inspiring you? Making you laugh?

We have waited a long time to have Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight hit out movie screens. And finally, it’s here! And dark it is -- more violence, dark humour, and much darker moral complexity. The story opens with a bank robbery in progress and as it proceeds we realise that these bank robbers are ruthless and motivated by an intense greed. The moral darkness of the whole film is set as we see the bank robbers turning on each other. Even the "honour among thieves" code is broken. Finally, the perpetrator of the bank robbery is revealed.

This is the summer movie season, a time not always known for stellar titles, but I thought it would be nice to open a thread to see what you all are watching at home or at the theater.

What's worth watching? What's not? What stories are a part of your life right now?

Australian Peter Singer is the the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is also arguably the most controversial philosopher alive today. His critics label him “the most dangerous man in the world”. Using an adjective like “dangerous” to describe a philosopher might seem vastly overblown or at least oxymoronic.

Just a reminder of this month's Book & Film Club selections are Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor and Babette's Feast.  

I went to see Wall-E, the new film from the animation powerhouse, Pixar, not because I like animated films (although I usually do) and not because I like stories about robots (although I usually don’t). I went because my life briefly touched one of the story artists behind the film, one of the hundreds of names in the credits that often scroll by without me giving them much thought.

Mid-June 2008, a newly published 379-page book arrived in my mailbox on the east coast of Australia. Who was willing, I wondered, to pay $15 to airmail this volume from the United States to the Antipodes? Immediately, the title arrested my attention:

Ethical dilemmas only really occur when values that are held equally dearly come into conflict with each other and cannot be resolved by protecting both. For example, a mother is pregnant but continuing with the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.

If you pick up Chris Hedges’ recent book I Don’t Believe In Atheists, don’t be misled by the title. This book is no recapitulation of the well-worn phrase: “There are no atheists in foxholes” which is often used by those wishing to combat atheism by dismissing it.