I just saw the Harry Potter movie today. Actually, I started out with misgivings about seeing it at all seeing as the book it was based off of ended up putting me to sleep three or four times, because of that I listened to it on tape and in the end I was seriously wondering why I put out the effort. It just seemed clunky, poorly formed, ugly. To be kind, I suppose it was more like the bound slave sculptures that Michelangelo never finished for his commission on Pope Julius II's tomb. When we were in museum, we almost missed them entirely. Some people argue that these sculptures represent a statement since it was Michelangelo who often spoke of freeing the figures from the marble. Personally, I always thought he just got sick of them. That was how I felt about this book, there was just all this excess marble clinging to the pages, slowing it down and clogging it in such a way that you might miss the delicate figure beneath the stone.

The reviews were all the same as they were for every "book to movie" movie that I have seen in the last few months. "It's awful" "They cut everything important" "How could they bastardize it like that." Well, yeah, sure, whatever. Personally, I have a renewed respect for Hollywood. As Zanzibar says in her blog, they made important connections that they never fully manifested in the book: "Which was exactly what the book had been missing which was keeping it from greatness." http://zanzibar.nutang.com A lot of the lengthy development was politely rearranged, extraneous characters cut and irrationalities rationalized. For instance, the upsetting departure of Sirius Black hit me like a mac truck. Almost. Actually, more like a mac truck that comes really darned close and sprays dirty water all over your new dress and you start yelling the most lady-like things you can possible manage at the moment like: "YOU LITTLE... WHATEVER!!! I JUST! I HAVE NO WORDS FOR YOU- YOU- EXPLETIVE!" It's like: Hey, hit me or leave me alone, but for goodness sakes, don't dance around it like a pansy! You see, she left all these holes, millions of chances for Harry not to be an idiot and do something sensible. Like the mirror that Sirius gave Harry to contact him. It was like I was a parent sitting on the sidelines of a child's soccer game yelling "NO! NO! THE OTHER GOAL! THE OTHER GOAL!!!!1!" But in the movie, they took out all of the holes, or at least made it move fast enough that you couldn't blame Harry for missing them. It wasn't really his fault like it was in the first book. It felt more like real life. In real life, when you lose someone, you try think of the thousands of things that you could have done to make them come back, the time you should have spent, the calls you should have made, but the truth is that none of those worries, none of these things you "should" have done would have slowed the cancer or stopped the seizures or even kept the disease at bay. That is life. That is the sculpture. That is the finished David standing at ease in the halls of the Academie.

So, if you ask my opinion: SEE THE MOVIE! You don't even have to have read the book! In fact, DON'T read the book, just see it! I guarantee, even if you are not moved by it as I was, you'll at least have not wasted your 7 bucks.

I've never really liked the movie because I'm more to the reading kinds and I don't really like it when they miss parts of the book out. I'm not planning to watch HP5.. I'm thinking maybe I should just save money for the 7th book I've pre-ordered and save me the heartache of watching Sirius Black die because I like the character, not Gary Oldman..
» Nuttz on 2007-07-14 11:21:05

Warning: SPOILER ABOVE
Anyway, the Seattle Times gave it a good review, pointing out that cutting scenes is necessary if you want to watch a movie that isn't rushed beyond all reason.

On a sidenote, I saw part of the Chamber of Secrets the other day and suddenly realized how much I miss Richard Harris playing Dumbledore.
» The-Muffin-Man on 2007-07-15 03:57:43

Nuttz: to each his own, I guess. Gratz on the preoder, btw.

Muffin-Man: Well said! Chalk one up to the Seattle Times. And yup, I miss him. too :(
» jinyu on 2007-07-15 02:51:59

RE: comment
If you're having trouble with CSS I can help, since generally I have no life and spend a few hours doing nothing on Nutang. The basic rundown is this:

My headings are deceiving. The image isn't actually replacing the heading, it's just covering it up. You see, the image is designed to fade into black, and if the rest of the heading is black it looks as though it doesn't exist. I made the image big enough to fit text inbetween and make it look as though the title were designed to fit between the two widgets.

That's just the general idea, and the codes to do it are located here

Blah blah blah, I suck at teaching. Good luck :)
» The-Muffin-Man on 2007-07-16 03:32:54

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