I'm Wearing Tweed. It very well could be wearing me!

[eumelia]

Yesterday was a bust.

I had plans, y'all.

I was going to meet with friends and eat Sushi.

Alas.

Now I'm at work and work is slooooooow. I didn't bother to forward my current writing project (yes, I'm committing fic! Or I'm committed to fic? I don't even know) because I'm usually running around and doing stuff in the Library.

However I have complete internet access and my own spanking desk to sit at when I'm not running around making sure books are tidy and in their place.

I haven't even gotten around to starting to write about all the stuff I said I would. Why? I suck, I know. I break promises left right and centre sometimes. But those subjects will be written about eventually I swear!

In the meantime know that I've finally seen Scott Pilgrim Vs the world. Which was cute and sweet, but I wasn't Wow'd by it. The elements of Magical Realism were really well done, though. The over all design of the world was cute, but the characters themselves were a bit... not enough development on anyone's front really. Even Scott; yes, don't be an ass when you break up with someone. Good message, hardly profound or life altering as they make it out to be.

I also saw Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows part 1 and dudes! I actually enjoyed it! I actually thought it was good. I was not expecting that! The Half-Blood Prince was a stinking pile of shit compared to this, really. I hated that movie. This one, this one actually made me feel good about the characters and the plot! Jesus, Malfoy looked sick, it was awesome. And Snape's hair, it finally looked like how I'd always thought it should look - swept back and sinister - not floppy and unkempt.

The story sequence was possibly the best "Movie within a Movie" I'd seen in years. It touched all my aesthetic buttons and was actually a very compelling and moving sequence.
Emma Watson should do Audio Books.

The trio did a very good job holding the movie together, I must say. Is it just me, or did Daniel Radcliff totally queer Harry this time around? I dunno.

I don't do this usually, but I can't help but compare the film to the book, I've done this with the other films as well, because I honestly can't imagine anyone understanding the nuance and dynamic between the elements without having read the books.
But at the time (almost four years ago) when I read the 7th book, it left a very bad taste in my mouth.

J.K. Rowling doesn't do narrative coherence very well. What she puts down on the paper and what we're supposed to glean or what is conveyed isn't the same as what we actually read or understand.

I have no qualms is saying that during the wait between Book 4 and Book 5, I was very much a Snape/Sirius shipper - I thought they had a Lust/Love-Hate relationship going on. Come Book 5 and Sirius' sadism came though I was actually kind of glad he was dead.
I felt bad for Lupin, but I had such a visceral dislike to Sirius (the Marauders in general and Lily), I was okay with Lupin being with his replacement, Tonks.

My point in that little tangent is that J.K.R makes me hate characters I'm supposed to like, like Sirius and Dumbledore (who I ended up despising by the time Book 6 came along) and others as well, because the concept of accountability is utterly and totally lost in that world. The only one held accountable and pays for it dearly (over and over again) is Snape.

I'd like to see how they manage to pull him off and the other trio (Neville, Luna and Ginny) in the next movie - because the dynamic of what went on in Hogwarts, now that would be interesting.

Also, ack! Naked Hermione and Harry! WHAT?!?! Poor Ron, I actually felt sympathy for that idiot.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Yeah, I think Scott Pilgrim was so brutally cut down from the comics that the only person who got their entire comics storyline was Knives. And it really showed. Harry Potter sounds like the opposite, though - I haven't seen a HP movie in the cinema since the first one, but I might go to see this!

[eumelia]

Good to know. I haven't read Scott Pilgrim, and the film doesn't really make me want to, but I have read your reviews and opinion on the comic so I may give it a shot when I have money to spend on comic books.

[silveradept]

I was interested in how this movie sequence would turn out, mostly because, well, for the first half of the book, it's the Harry, Ron, and Hermione show. It felt like filler for the most part, and the movie was about the same - only a few bits of it seemed important.

I totally agree on Emma doing audiobooks - she's a great narrator, and the animation studio that did that story did it very well. Also, the venom in her voice during the "Ron fights the Boggart in the locket" (it was a boggart, right?) sequence was excellent. Not necessarily as fond of the naked Harry and Hermione part as a visual part of the storytelling, but Emma saved it with her voice.

Oh, and Evanna Lynch makes all of those movies better because Luna is wonderful. Looking forward to more of her in the second part. And to seeing Neville finally come to his proper role.

[eumelia]

I've started listening to Podfics and Audio Books and I've found it such a great way to experience text. The quality of the reader matters a whole lot and the interpretations that come out of spoken word is really fascinating.

Boggart?! It was Moldyward's "soul" (such as it was).

[silveradept]

Ah, yes, the soul bit, but the way it was presented made it seem more like a supercharged Boggart, but maybe that's bad cinematography.

I think audiobooks are a reminder to ourselves that we were a performance culture before we were a text-based culture, and that we get a lot out of a good performance of them.

[eumelia]

I thought it was very dramatic, with the smoke and the skulls and all that. It may have gone off the mark a bit.

*nods nods* Oh yeah, I totally agree, one of the great things oral performances is tone and inflection. So much nuance!

[silveradept]

*Lil' Destiny Squee*

I think where things went unhinged was that the whole time in the sequence, it was Ron's fears being played out in front of him, in a Warped and Darker way, so I remembered the Boggart is supposed to show you fears, too. I was half-expecting a Ridikulus to happen, which after it went nowhere, would have told me much better that this was not a mere Boggart.

Yes, nuance and tone. Makes a page jump alive. Some of the readers that can do an entire cast of people by themselves are wonderful. (Although, I think I like the idea of full-cast recordings better. Wouldn't it be nice to have a movie cast recording audiobook versions of their story?)

[eumelia]

My mouth waters at the thought of Alan Rickman reading anything.

[silveradept]

Quite. (Also, nice juxtaposition of Snape character with Metatron line.)

[eumelia]

One of my favourite icons - it has survived many of my purges and changes :)

[silveradept]

Good. Also, the house that I'm supposedly in in all of my Sorting Hat tests. I never quite liked it, but I think that was mostly because the Hufflepuffs got short shrift in the Gryffindor-Slytherin war over all the books. Even the Ravenclaws show up more in the narrative than the Hufflepuffs.

(Oh, last thing - is it me, or does the sword of Gryffindor in these movies look like a child's toy instead of an instrument of destruction?)

[eumelia]

I tend to shift back and forth between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor (I'd rather date a Slyth to be honest, than live in that House).

I think they made it a tad too shiny. But remember it's a Goblin sword and Harry used it like a broad sword when he was 12. They've grown. The sword has stayed the same size.

[silveradept]

Ah, that's right. Thank you for the reminder - they said it was goblin-made, I'm sure, but those details sometimes slip out. So good on them for being accurate.

Also, in the Gryf-Slyth war, I think the Sorting Hat has an opinion on the matter and thinks it's rather silly, at least with the way he and Harry talked to each other in the first book and his warning at the beginning of book (4? 5?). They're mirror images of each other - ambitious, tight-knit hostile to outsiders, and willing to bend or break rules when they think it's a good idea. The Slytherins are a bit more open about it, that's all.