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Harry Potter Review
Harry Potter Review.
On Saturday night, after a stressful day and a stressful week,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morgan1 and I decided that what we needed was dinner and a movie. So we headed out to see what kind of showing time we could find for the new Harry Potter flick. It was 8:00 and the best we could do (considering that we still needed dinner) was 10:40. This was wonderful, because we would be sitting down to dinner at the Timber Lodge Steakhouse with absolutely no worries about having to drive for a really long time. We took full advantage of the situation.
Timberlodge has single malts. Nothing too exotic - no Tallisker or Lagavulin, but they did have Glenmorangie, so we each ordered a shot of that and a nice red ale. The shots were triples. We had this with steak and some very excellent Garlic Mashed peotatoes which I recognized as having been produced by a company I once worked for. Good Stuff. The Glenmorangie had a fruity bouquet, was creamy on the tongue and proceeded through a peaty middle to a smoky finish. A very nice, complex scotch. The ale was unobtrusive. It was crisp and clean, lovely for clearing the palate petween sips of the scotch. We finished off with plenty of coffee (hey, the movie was still an hour away and we had to stay up through it) and choclolate cake. In short, we managed to nail each and every one of our vices in one sitting.
We still had an hour to kill before the film, so we went to this place called Lava Links which was an indoor Mini-Golf course. The tees were badly worn, the water hazards empty and dry. It was very 80's and kind of tired. Still, the holes presented plenty of challenge to the pair of wired drunks that Morgan and I were of the moment, and we played 9 holes before the movie started. Then we headed to the theatre.
It has been said before but bears repeating: Couran is a far, far better director than Columbus. Magic was taken for granted in the world he created, and, by and large, special effects did not stop the plot and say "Hey, pay attention to me, I'm a special effect and I'm cool!" the way they did in the Columbus directed film. They are tightly integrated into the plot, and used to move the action along.
Couran has also done a very good job taking ownership of the story. The Film deals beautifully with themes of its own, especially themes of time and timekeeping, and of locking and unlocking. Images of Incarceration and Release occur throughout the move like a heartbeat, beginning with the moment that Harry locks himself into his berth on the Hogwarts Express and recurring throughout the film with subjects ranging from the Boggart that Lupin uses to train Harry to protect himself from dementors to Buckbeak and Sirius. Clockwork also plays a very important role with people constantly passing in under over and around a large clock whose pendulum puts one immediately in mind of the pendulum from Poe's story "The Pit and the Pendulum."
When the point in the story is reached where two timelines are running synchronously (this begins with the trio's initial journey to Hagrid's hut to console him about Buckbeak's sentence and ends with Hermione's and Harry's return to the hospital) Couran treats it like a fugue. The events of the two timelines, like themes in a two-part invention, depend on each other in a tight logic of causality and interplay.
CGI
Buckbeak was by far the most stunningly rendered CGI in the film. Harry's first flight on him was pure excitement and joy. Indeed, although this scene did a fine job demonstrating a bond beteween Buckbeak and Harry, it was SUCH a joy that the later flight on Buckbeak, which should have been a climactic moment, wasn't.
Second best CGI is Peter Pettigrew. A challenging transformation indeed. The Peter/Scabbers Transformation that occured right before his escape was surprisingly convincing given the huge disparity in scale we were dealing with.
Padfoot was passable. It would have been better, perhaps, to have just used a big black dog in the role, because the CGI moved very unnaturally and things were happening to its fur that shouldn't have been.
Knight Bus - not as bad as Pod-Racing, but that is about as much as can be said for it.
Lupin's wolf transformation was perfectly dreadful. Couran seemed to use the Lon Cheney Wolfman as a starting point, and instead of turning into a proper wolf, he became this weird bipedal canid-like-object that can't even be described as anthropomorphic.
Other Problems
A few major points were too aggressively cut. Couran expects us to infer the entire relationship between Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs and the people to whom these nicknames belong from the fact that Lupin is capable of using the Marauder's map. It is simply asking too much of a viewer who has not read the book, while creating a gaping absence for viewers who have. Fuller exposition could have been achieved with a line here and there.
The hospital wing was most problematic because of the extensive use of muggle medical supplies. Hermione spends about a quater of the film running around with a pair of Johnson & Johnson butterfly closures on her cheek. And here I thought Madame Pomfrey plied her craft with charms and potions. At least no one put vet-wrap on Sirius.
I was grateful that the "Oh, we have to disassemble your broom" subplot from the book was sacked. The way Couran managed to make the necessary point was, in some ways, more satisfying: a firebolt arrives at year's end along with a hippogriff feather, leaving no doubt as to who sent it and why.
These are all pretty minor things in what I would say is
All in all a very enjoyable film, with beautifully rendered closing credits to boot.
On Saturday night, after a stressful day and a stressful week,
morgan1 and I decided that what we needed was dinner and a movie. So we headed out to see what kind of showing time we could find for the new Harry Potter flick. It was 8:00 and the best we could do (considering that we still needed dinner) was 10:40. This was wonderful, because we would be sitting down to dinner at the Timber Lodge Steakhouse with absolutely no worries about having to drive for a really long time. We took full advantage of the situation.Timberlodge has single malts. Nothing too exotic - no Tallisker or Lagavulin, but they did have Glenmorangie, so we each ordered a shot of that and a nice red ale. The shots were triples. We had this with steak and some very excellent Garlic Mashed peotatoes which I recognized as having been produced by a company I once worked for. Good Stuff. The Glenmorangie had a fruity bouquet, was creamy on the tongue and proceeded through a peaty middle to a smoky finish. A very nice, complex scotch. The ale was unobtrusive. It was crisp and clean, lovely for clearing the palate petween sips of the scotch. We finished off with plenty of coffee (hey, the movie was still an hour away and we had to stay up through it) and choclolate cake. In short, we managed to nail each and every one of our vices in one sitting.
We still had an hour to kill before the film, so we went to this place called Lava Links which was an indoor Mini-Golf course. The tees were badly worn, the water hazards empty and dry. It was very 80's and kind of tired. Still, the holes presented plenty of challenge to the pair of wired drunks that Morgan and I were of the moment, and we played 9 holes before the movie started. Then we headed to the theatre.
It has been said before but bears repeating: Couran is a far, far better director than Columbus. Magic was taken for granted in the world he created, and, by and large, special effects did not stop the plot and say "Hey, pay attention to me, I'm a special effect and I'm cool!" the way they did in the Columbus directed film. They are tightly integrated into the plot, and used to move the action along.
Couran has also done a very good job taking ownership of the story. The Film deals beautifully with themes of its own, especially themes of time and timekeeping, and of locking and unlocking. Images of Incarceration and Release occur throughout the move like a heartbeat, beginning with the moment that Harry locks himself into his berth on the Hogwarts Express and recurring throughout the film with subjects ranging from the Boggart that Lupin uses to train Harry to protect himself from dementors to Buckbeak and Sirius. Clockwork also plays a very important role with people constantly passing in under over and around a large clock whose pendulum puts one immediately in mind of the pendulum from Poe's story "The Pit and the Pendulum."
When the point in the story is reached where two timelines are running synchronously (this begins with the trio's initial journey to Hagrid's hut to console him about Buckbeak's sentence and ends with Hermione's and Harry's return to the hospital) Couran treats it like a fugue. The events of the two timelines, like themes in a two-part invention, depend on each other in a tight logic of causality and interplay.
CGI
Buckbeak was by far the most stunningly rendered CGI in the film. Harry's first flight on him was pure excitement and joy. Indeed, although this scene did a fine job demonstrating a bond beteween Buckbeak and Harry, it was SUCH a joy that the later flight on Buckbeak, which should have been a climactic moment, wasn't.
Second best CGI is Peter Pettigrew. A challenging transformation indeed. The Peter/Scabbers Transformation that occured right before his escape was surprisingly convincing given the huge disparity in scale we were dealing with.
Padfoot was passable. It would have been better, perhaps, to have just used a big black dog in the role, because the CGI moved very unnaturally and things were happening to its fur that shouldn't have been.
Knight Bus - not as bad as Pod-Racing, but that is about as much as can be said for it.
Lupin's wolf transformation was perfectly dreadful. Couran seemed to use the Lon Cheney Wolfman as a starting point, and instead of turning into a proper wolf, he became this weird bipedal canid-like-object that can't even be described as anthropomorphic.
Other Problems
A few major points were too aggressively cut. Couran expects us to infer the entire relationship between Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs and the people to whom these nicknames belong from the fact that Lupin is capable of using the Marauder's map. It is simply asking too much of a viewer who has not read the book, while creating a gaping absence for viewers who have. Fuller exposition could have been achieved with a line here and there.
The hospital wing was most problematic because of the extensive use of muggle medical supplies. Hermione spends about a quater of the film running around with a pair of Johnson & Johnson butterfly closures on her cheek. And here I thought Madame Pomfrey plied her craft with charms and potions. At least no one put vet-wrap on Sirius.
I was grateful that the "Oh, we have to disassemble your broom" subplot from the book was sacked. The way Couran managed to make the necessary point was, in some ways, more satisfying: a firebolt arrives at year's end along with a hippogriff feather, leaving no doubt as to who sent it and why.
These are all pretty minor things in what I would say is
All in all a very enjoyable film, with beautifully rendered closing credits to boot.
no subject
no subject
Also, the Dursley house transformed to a somewhat less pleasant place in the kind of planned subdivision I loathe, particularly apparent when Harry runs away and finally meets the Knight Bus at the kind of place that inevitably shows up where a place like that meets the real world.
Also somewhat jarring was how some of the Peripheral characters changed. All of the original primary actors were back, but Malfoy was almost unrecognizable to me and Neville, while still recognizable, was also transformed quite a bit. I find that last bit interesting since Neville plays a much larger role in the next two books and I find myself wondering which actors will still be around in Movie 5 in which Neville is fairly important.
It has been long enough since I read the book that I didn’t remember it in that much detail, but I doubt I would have found the changes here anywhere near as upsetting as the changed ending to The Lord Of The Rings. I seem to recall a subplot with Dobby working in Hogwart’s kitchen and Hermione as an elf labor crusader, but that may have been book 4. At any rate, cutting it out didn’t really detract from the story. Editing out the scouring of the Shire changed the ultimate meaning of LOTR.
Still, books aren't movies and movies aren't books. I judge this one to be the best of the Potter movies so far.
And as for LOTR, I understand that Saruman's end will be put back in the extended DVD version, which will appease me quite a bit.
no subject
Do you ever wonder if the theatrical releases these days are just teasers for the DVD?
no subject
Speaking of DVDs, my big impulse buy of the month was "The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Megaset." $89.99 at Costco. I passed it up around Christmas and then it disappeared from the shelves right when I decided to buy it. When I saw it again I just had to get it. Not exactly a necessity of life, but pretty good deal, all things considered. Amazon.com sells the thing for $163.96.
"This parrot has ceased to be. This is an ex-parrot."