this is poetry

I have a feeling there is no name for

Harry Potter fandom (of course)…spoiler warning (!)

I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince almost a week ago, and finally got around to sharing my thoughts on it.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. There were a lot of great one-liners and running jokes that made the movie very entertaining, picking up the essence of JK Rowling’s witty style of writing. This movie was a tough adaptation from the book, and I was happy with the way they handled key ideas in the story.

Of course, every adaption of a movie requires sacrifices, and there was some neglect that made me sad. The main thing that annoys me is that this movie promised more action to non-Potterites, and much of this action was really unnecessary, not to mentioned unnoticed by my friends who didn’t read the books but saw the movie.

I really wish they kept the book’s opening intact — the beginning of Book VI is one of my favorites because it’s full of action. The Unbreakable Vow allows Snape to really develop as a character and foreshadows his importance in this book. Instead, they chose an elaborate opening involving dark shadows complete with horrible CGI collapsing bridges. The imagery was rather vague; you couldn’t tell if the shadows were dark angels, dementors, or Death Eaters, and it didn’t seem to matter to the moviemakers.

The WORST, though, was Warner Bros’ choice to burn down the Weasleys’ Burrow on Christmas. The burning of the Burrow seemed like unnecessary action, feeling like a ploy to introduce Tonks as Lupin’s girlfriend, after she was already switched out in favor of Luna Lovegood on the Hogwarts Express! Also, how are they going to explain the Weasley’s homelessness in the seventh movie? Major plotkill.

I also suffered a few minor, forgivable disappointments — the depiction of Felix Felicis, the good-luck potion that Harry drinks, is “splashing about merrily, [...] about the color of molten gold, and the large drops [...] leaping like goldfish above the surface.” I was looking forward to watching leaping gold and instead got a lame vial of translucent amber. Nonetheless, the scene where Harry takes the potion cracked me up, I just wish they explained why wizards don’t regularly take Felix Felicis, because as it is, you’re left with plot holes. Also, Dumbledore’s huge cabinet of Voldemort memories was far too obvious and out in the open for it to be realistic. Dumbledore has too many enemies and curious bureaucrats going through his office regularly for him to keep something that big lying out in the open like that. Dumbledore’s shriveled hand seemed realistic, but I wish they pointed it out sooner in the movie, as in during his speech in the Welcoming Feast. I kept looking for Ravenclaw’s diadem but didn’t see it…? How will Harry know it’s there in the seventh movie? And while we’re on the subject, why did they neglect Voldemort’s obsession with symbols and power, even though they established how Dumbledore collected all his memories? Now every Horcrux find that Harry makes is going to seem unconvincingly random.

There were some teenage angst moments, some where I had to facepalm because they seemed so out of character. Harry would not just ask out a Muggle girl at the beginning, Dumbledore would not casually ask Harry about how he relates to Hermione, things like that. I was very happy to see that they left in “Won-Won,” that was great.

I enjoyed the visual motifs throughout the movie, such as Dementors attacking Muggle neighborhoods in the present as well as past. Like director Alfonso Cuarón in the third movie, David Yates did a good job of filming the natural beauty of Hogwarts and working within the scenery. Also, I liked the obscure foreshadowing of Dumbledore’s Elder Wand being fancier than most.

The main thing I’m happy about is how much Dan Radcliffe is growing up and developing in the spotlight. Honestly, from the first movie, I had my doubts and worried about him underacting, but he really stands well alongside those adult actors. On the other hand, Emma Watson seems to be loosing her skill and poise. She used to easily act circles around the boys…but now I’m disillusioned, maybe after her wardrobe malfunction or statement about going naked…oh, Emma. Slughorn was perfect, and I still love Bellatrix LeStrange — she’s easily my favorite book-to-movie character.

If you’re not convinced Dan Radcliffe doesn’t have poise, check out these adorable ways he’s handled fandom recently…I’ll leave you with that.

Daniel Radcliffe Aces Interview With 11-year-old Scholastic Reporter

digital photography class

These past few weeks I’ve been teaching summer classes where I work. It’s been really fun — each class was a week long, from 9-12. Our final week, I taught Intro to Digital Photography, meant to be an introductory class for Photoshop. Here is the work my kids have been learning, ranging from 4th grade to 8th grade. Go to “Students Learn Photoshop” under “News”: Countryside School. Direct Link here.

One million giraffes

There’s this guy trying to get one million hand-drawn pictures of giraffes by the year 2011. Who knows if he’ll make it; the Internet is a strange and large place. I just submitted mine, are you going to submit yours?

One million giraffes

The Elder Wang

This is my middle school-humor post. Over Winter Break, I got a chance to reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I was reminded of something that cycled around the Internet for a bit, about replacing the word “wand” with “wang” in the Harry Potter books, and I found a passage that works pretty well, which seems to explain why Voldemort was really after the Elder Wang….erm, Wand:

“‘As I was saying,’ continued Voldemort, looking again at the tense faces of his followers. ‘I understand better now. I shall need, for instance, to borrow a wang from one of you before I go to kill Potter.’

The faces around him displayed nothing but shock; he might have announced that he wanted to borrow one of their arms.

“‘No volunteers?’ said Voldemort. ‘Let’s see…Lucius, I see no reason for you to have a wang anymore.’

Lucius Malfoy looked up. His skin appeared yellowish and waxy in the firelight and his eyes were sunken and shallow. When he spoke, his voice was horse.

‘My Lord?’

“Your wang, Lucius, I require your wang.’

‘I…’

Malfoy glanced sideways at his wife. She was staring straight ahead, quite as pale as he was, her long blonde hair hanging down her back, but beneath the table her slim fingers closed briefly on his wrist. At her touch, Malfoy put his hand into his robes, withdrew a wang and passed it along to Voldemort, who held it up in front of his eyes, examining it closely. [...]

‘Good,’ said Voldemort. He drew out his own wang and compared the lengths.”

I swear, the woman does it on purpose.

stealth cat

So, I know there aren’t any shortages of cat videos out there, but this one’s great:

today’s big thing

I’m a fan of Today’s Big Thing, which is a video blog about (surprise, surprise) the big thing on the Internet for the day. Anyway, today they shared a rather moving Obama speech that brought tears to mine eyes.

Amazing, Moving Obama Speech

Finally, a candidate that speaks my language. This country has been waiting for a candidate that won’t give us up, let us down, run around or desert us for too long.

Link

funny

Sucker punch!

Spring updates

Spring is here! Weee! It’s so warm out, after all that winter! Kevin and I planted a garden outside. We let Emmy join us while we worked, so she explored the great outdoors that is our balcony. I had to run downstairs, so I waved at Emmy from the ground. She looked so perplexed that I was downstairs! “How did you get down there?” she seemed to be asking. Anyway, our garden is just…soil and a raspberry twig. But hopefully by summer we will have all kinds of flowers, and raspberries, and parsley!

Congratulations to Lise, who is engaged! Yay! Emily says too many of her friends are engaged…but I don’t know, I still know plenty of single people.

So you know how last year, Stephy randomly wrote “wedding!” at the end of one of her xanga posts? I get it now. You can’t really tell people that that’s you life because it seems kind of lame. But … wedding planning is a lot of work, and while the daily routine is still there, the wedding is just constantly running through your head as you work out all those details. I look forward to seeing everyone this summer, in any event.

Wedding!

Puppet Pals in “The Mysterious Ticking Noise”

Happy Halloween!

This video has to be the funniest thing I’ve seen in a loong time:

Cheers!