2004-07-01
I haven't been writing in a while and I've really been meaning to. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to write at the moment, so this will be a quick one.
I'm thinking about joining the book club at my work. It's on the first Thursday of the month from 12-1:15. This is a little difficult as Thursday is the day I go in early for the class I teach. So I guess I'll just have to cut out early every time. The book we'll be reviewing this week is "How to Change The World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas" by David Bornstein. Unfortunately I didn't find out what the book was until this Monday, so I have only read the first three chapters. Oh well. I guess today I'll mainly go to feel it out and see if this is something I want to do and if it is, find out what next month's book is.
And now for my quickie quick review of Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. Do not read if you haven't seen the movie and are going to. I don't want to spoil it for anyone although I don't think I'm really going to be talking about plot points.
I loved it, as I love all HP movies, but I have to sort of agree with a woman I talked to at Akon about it. It didn't seem quite as magical as the first two. I think this was primarily due to the director. Some of the scenes in the beginning at the Dursley's look like they were shot with a home movie camera. I can see why he might do something like that, but the Harry Potter movies are ones I like to get pulled into and feel a part of, not feel like I'm watching someone else's memory of an event. I felt like there were very few truly magical scenes in the movie and they were restricted to the scenes where there was magic.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie and it was just lessened slightly by two things. The first being Dumbledore. I felt that this replacement did a good enough job, but why did they change his overall appearance? It was only more apparent that this was a different guy because of the much shorter, gray beard, less colourful clothes and HORROR-his hands were disgustingly filthy with these long scary fingernails! This was not the image of the well-kept, kindly old wizard that I had cherished. This Dumbledore was just all around dingy. And I'm sorry, but dingy isn't magical. Changes like this really wreck the continuity and flow from one movie to the next. Yes, Dumbledore's appearance bothered me that much.
The next thing that was by far the main thing that bothered me about this movie was WHAT THE HELL DID LUPIN TURN INTO?! El Chupacabra?! I don't see at all how anyone would have EVER thought that was remotely wolfish enough to ever arrive at the term werewolf. He looked like an extremely long limbed hairless chihuahua. And that was the closest I could come up with to giving him any dog-like traits to even consider him in any way wolf-like. I was extremely disappointed by the CG werewolf.
But! I do commend his performance. I thought both David Thewliss and Gary Oldman portrayed their characters so well! Lupin was stuffing chocolate into everyone's mouth anytime there was distress and Sirius' line, "the tail I can live with, but the fleas are murder!" was hilarious. The scars on Lupin's face were great and his performance was excellent.
The only complaint I might have about Gary Oldman was that he is such a little man. Snape (and Lupin) towered over Sirius and that is not how I ever imagined those two in a height comparison. I always thought that Sirius Black should be taller. Merlin knows they could have made him taller with movie magic like they do Hagrid. But that's just a minor detail. His portrayal of Sirius Black was excellent.
Alan Rickman's performance as Professor Snape was again my favorite. I have such a crush! Heheh! The scene where he comes tearing into the Defense Against the Dark Arts class as their substitute teacher... YUM! Yeah, I'll turn to page 394, as soon as I come out of this daze and my hands start working right again. Hahahaha!
Ack! I need to get to the book club. I talked far too long. Quick HP review. Although it sounds like I didn't care much for it, I really did. It kept true enough to the books. I won't say it's my favorite movie, just because I prefer the way the first two were directed so much more. As much as I think it is cool to have different directors for each film, I feel like I really don't want to see each director's "vision" for that world. I want it to flow seemlessly from one to the next. We'll just have to see how the next director works it.
I love Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban!
Dancin': 24.5 | Dog walkin': 83.5 | Total: 108 miles
XOXOX
Loch
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