Saturday, November 26, 2005

The Birthday Trip

I actually want to write about our trip last week but I'd like to do it with pictures and, as you know, I have the photo uploading (downloading?) problem. I'm gonna work on it tomorrow. So, instead I'll fill you in on E.'s B-day trip to the movies. If you could care less about Harry Potter, save yourself some time and don't bother reading on.

There were 16 of us. Four adults and 12 kids. I had help. My friend Christy came and it was the first time in her life that she'd ever been to the movies.

In India they assign seats when you buy the tickets so we had a whole row to ourselves and 2 seats behind it. The movie was great. However, these Harry Potter movies always feel so rushed to me. And since Goblet of Fire was the longest book (I think) of the series and by far my favorite (I admit to having read it at least 4 times) this one seemed really rushed. I tried to think of a metaphor to describe what watching a Harry Potter movie is like compared to reading the book. The best way I can describe is to imagine taking your favorite television program, comedy, soap opera or reality show and condensing an entire season into a 1 hour highlight show and watching that instead of watching every minute of every 22 episodes of the season. That's what this movie felt like to me. It took the highlights of the book, rushed through them and, voila, you have the movie.

I'm not knocking it, I mean, what can they do? Make an epic movie/miniseries of Lonesome Dove proportions? I don't think so. And anyway - we have the books!

On to my thoughts on casting - Cedric - GREAT!, Madame Maxime - GREAT, Krum, Karkaroff... great great. Fleur -- not so great. But hey, I'm not a teenage boy. Ask them instead. Voldemort - well, he was not nearly as cold and evil as I think he should have been.

I did get choked up in the beginning because it is always overwhelming to see something you've imagined in your mind up on the big screen. I cried with Harry when ... died. (I was going to write who and I could care less if I spoil it for someone but I didn't. Why would you even bother to see this movies without having read the book first?) I did not like the scene in the bathroom with Myrtle and Harry. But I loved the marching deatheaters at the Quidditch World Cup! Very very cool! They were scary like a sleestack.

There you go. I ended up with a migraine by the end of the movie. I don't know why. I almost didn't make it to our next trip but, by God's grace, I got better before we had to take off after lunch.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Bec -

Chris pointed out to me that your recent post on Harry Potter 4 was similar to my feelings too! we just went to see it last night, and I totally agree with your comments. I was a little disappointed to see the downplay of Fudge's involvement, and especially the ommission of his outright denial of the Dark return toward the end...I thought this added a lot to the book and was disappointed to miss out on it, for those that didn't read the book (ie...Chris! :) I also missed that they seemed to make Cedric and Harry's relationship more of a competition, were as in teh book they were portrayed as brothers fighting for their school - working together, especially in the last task. (IF ANYONE IS READING THIS, READ THE BOOK, IT IS WORTH THE 700 PAGES!!!!) I too was all choked up at ...'s death. SO SAD! Anywho - enjoying reading your blogs - it is nice to hear how you are doing on the other side of the world.