Harry Potter

Last night I got to see the new Harry Potter movie. I don't think I really need to write up a full review since there are already about a million of those floating around already, but I figured I'd share my thoughts. I remember when the first film came out and while it tried to cram in just about everything from the book, there were some nitpicky fans who complained about things that didn't make it in. As the books kept getting progressively longer, this happened more, where entire plotlines would wind up not making it into the movies. I remember reading Order of the Phoenix and wondering how they would manage to cram that whole thing into a 2 and a half hour movie, and while there were some things that I think really should have been in there, they did a really good job of it. Obviously they couldn't fit the whole Quidich story in, and it wasn't really missed though a mention of it might have helped to further illustrate the oppressive atmosphere at Hogwarts. They also didn't go into Harry's fumbling attempt at a relationship with Cho, but that wasn't a glaring omission either. While I would have loved to have seen Hagrid's story about his time with the giants, that was not important enough to the plot (DVD spinoff, perhaps?). There were other little things that I think may have helped contribute to the storytelling, but the one that really should have stayed in was Professor Trelawny's involvement with Harry's prophecy. Besides the importance to the story, it was such a waste of Emma Thompson's talents. She was one of the highlights of the third film for me. Alan Rickman was incredible as always. One of my favorite stories about him is from Kevin Smith. When they were in pre-production for Dogma, he told Jason Mewes that he better know his lines because he was going to be working with Alan Rickman and he really didn't want to look unprofessional in front of such a great English actor. Mewes was so intimidated that he learned everybody's lines. I would have loved to have seen more of him, particularly Harry's reaction to seeing him at the Order's house, but we'll be seeing plenty of him in the next movie. The girl who played Luna Lovegood was perfectly spacey and creepy. It wouldn't have taken much to give more of her backstory, but oh well. Lastly, I don't want to be one of those people who tries to find metaphors for real life events in every piece of pop culture I see, especially seeing how obnoxious that was when the right wingers had their collective meltdown over Happy Feet. And I highly doubt that there was any intention by J.K. Rowling or the filmmakers to make any commentary on world events with these books and movies. But I do think that the themes of good, evil and corruption are so universal that sometimes you can't help but make a comparison. It just goes without saying that whenever I see some big evil character on screen I tend to draw parallels to Bush or Cheney. In this case, it wasn't Voldermort who reminded me of the criminals running our country so much as the Ministry of Magic. Their refusal to believe the truth about Voldermort's return and their smearing of Harry and Dumbledore for their continued insistence of the truth is much like the way the Bush/Cheney Crime Family have dealt with certain MIA WMD's and their entire rationale for getting us into Iraq. Also, the way that they stuck their hand into Hogwards and dictated the way the children should be taught defense against the dark arts reminds me a bit of how they tend to choose religious wingnuttery over science and education whenever possible. While teaching defense against the dark arts in theory rather than practice is not quite the same as pushing abstinence only birth control in sex-ed, creation mythology in science classes, and doing everything possible to stop stem cell research, it's the attitude of politicians thinking they can do a better job than educators to educate our children that is infuriating in fantasy or reality. One can only hope that Bush and Cheney are dragged off in the woods by an angry gang of centaurs! Coming Soon: There were some pretty cool trailers before the movie. Christmas movies can be pretty hit or miss. For every Christmas Story, Bad Santa or Elf there's one with Tim Allen playing Santa or some other crap. So when they started this trailer I had my doubts until I saw that it stars Paul Giamatti as Santa and Vince Vaughn as Santa's slacker brother and it's made by the same people who did Wedding Crashers. Check out a trailer.