Books
Heidi Lynn - 09:05 pm Pacific Time - Jul 14, 2009 - #3980 of 4039
My sister just called, and a great big multiplex near her house is showing it tonight on all twenty screens. Yowza.
Dale - 05:32 am Pacific Time - Jul 15, 2009 - #3982 of 4039
I saw the midnight show last night.
Oddly, it was, in fact, the funniest film of the lot. I don't recall thinking about the book that way, although I haven't read it for a long time.
The theatre complex I went to had it on two screens. Don't know about the other one, but the one where I was sitting was only half-full, if that.
Tonstant Weader - 11:08 am Pacific Time - Jul 15, 2009 - #3987 of 4039
My viewing companions and I were all pleasantly surprised by the physical comedy Radcliffe and Grint got to work with- the love potion and Felix Felices scenes were so well-played. Now that I think of it, the girl who played Lavender did her dippy lovesickness perfectly too.
I don't tend to be a cheer-for-the-villains type, but I love how Carter plays Bellatrix as just gloriously batshit insane.
She just has so much fun with it. And really pulls off the impression that Bellatrix is just obsessively infatuated with you-know-who, while also being a sociopath who, as Dumbledore pointed out, likes to play with her food before killing it.
thatsheila - 06:38 pm Pacific Time - Jul 15, 2009 - #3992 of 4039
See, I never read Bellatrix as insane, and that's why I don't like HBC in the role. I think Bellatrix is more compelling as just really sinister and evil, no insanity required.
I loved the movie - funny, visually stunning, the small modifications totally warranted and mostly well-done...
...until the scene in the Astronomy Tower. I felt like the excitement and most of the raw emotional power of the climax of was just sucked out of the film. Why add a battle scene to the middle (which was just fine) but then take it out of the end?
Anglophile - 10:14 am Pacific Time - Jul 16, 2009 - #4002 of 4039
I always thought each book got funnier than the last, to counterbalance the increasing darkness of the subject matter.
Waiting to hear from my sitter--hoping to see the movie this weekend. I'm SO glad it's not too short. Two and a half meaty hours--yay!
Jeanny - 07:06 pm Pacific Time - Jul 17, 2009 - #4021 of 4039
I just got back from the movie. I want to talk about some specific things, so be warned -- spoilers below.
1. I, too, missed having at least a bit of the Dursleys. This was a place to tie the muggle and wizarding worlds together in a concrete way with the Death Eaters attacking muggles and Harry still having a foot in each world.
2. I wish they'd made it clear that it was Ollivander the Death Eaters were hustling out of the shop. They did that all so quickly.
3. WTF is up with the burning of the Burrow? It never happened in the books and it was pointless in the movie. They would have done better to save that few minutes for a good fight scene at Hogwarts at the end.
4. I really preferred the Harry-Ginny first kiss in the book, out in the open as a celebration of Ginny's joyous spirit.
5. I think it was more powerful in the book to have Harry petrificus-ed during the scene atop the astronomy tower. Don't know why they wouldn't do that here.
6. It was out of character for Hermione and Harry to have that conversation about their feelings for Ron and Ginny, respectively.
I know you have to take shortcuts in the movie to get the story told, but with a few minutes stolen by not burning the Burrow and a few more added here and there, it could have been a stronger movie and more faithful to the novel.
I realize that a movie is a different entity than a book, and I kept telling myself that throughout this one. But these books are so well known, so committed to memory by now, that being as faithful as possible is important, I think.
Nina Katarina - 03:46 am Pacific Time - Jul 21, 2009 - #4039 of 4039
Only two more movies, then what will we do?
Come on, Jo, write something new!
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