orichalcum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
orichalcum) wrote2004-06-08 08:02 pm
orichalcum) wrote2004-06-08 08:02 pm
Reunions
I'm in an odd mood. An assortment of thoughts:
Family: I just called my dad. As it turned out, he was in the Chicago airport, en route to Glasgow. Apparently he's still potentially looking at a job in Scotland. One of the odd things about my family in the last three years has been the increasing disconnection, as my dad, brother and I all largely pursue our own adult lives. It's not that we don't love each other...but I don't even know what country my dad is in most weeks. I've been having a lot of dreams in my childhood home lately, probably because I know my dad is about to sell even the new house in San Diego and move to New Jersey. Or maybe Scotland. I don't like not having a family home, but there's not much I can do about it.
Reunion: I attended my 5-year college reunion this last weekend. It was better than expected, overall - only a few moments of feeling like I knew remarkably few people in my class, and some good reconnections. I was having a fair amount of nice college-nostalgia moments as well, at least until my class secretary butchered Bright College Years at the Class Dinner. He screwed up the handkerchiefs. It was awful. I've never made pretensions to being a singer - and at my college, not being able to sing well often made you feel like part of an outcast minority - but I at least know the basic rhythm and melody of my college song. Oh, and it is apparently a rule at reunions that the dance music is only at a tolerable volume if you are standing at the other side of the tent, with 500 people between you and the speakers.
The other odd uncomfortableness of reunions, which was also true last year, involved the prevalence of heavy drinking. Now, I like a nice glass of wine, straight scotch, or the occasional chick drink as much as the next person (if the next person isn't my husband), but the fact that the kegs started at lunch and kept going straight through 1 AM was a bit disconcerting. Also, couldn't they have put a bowl of pretzels or goldfish near the drinks? 4 hours of straight alcohol without snacks and, well, it wasn't surprising that there was at least one person from our reunion alone sent to DUH and a nasty incident in which someone broke into the Master's House.
But hey, my good friends from the class are all doing pretty darn well with their lives, and have changed in largely good if sometimes unexpected ways since graduation. We haven't taken over the world yet, but give us a few decades. Or, possibly,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jendavis77, who couldn't make it, will beat us all to it by building a mad doomsday device. We missed those who couldn't be there, of course. And the end of the weekend, which we spent with friends celebrating their 10th reunion, was marred by one of them falling victim to a nasty stomach flu on our couch. But she seems to be recovering now.
A. and I saw the movie last night, and largely really liked it. It is, as many people have said, a real _film_, and also, crucially, an interpretation of Rowling's work rather than a rather plodding set of illustrations like the first two movies.
A couple of comments:
The New Dark Gothic theme and set: Largely really cool, although I did imagine the Leaky Cauldron as a much more, well, comfortable pub. I'm a bit worried about how this will progress in the next few movies, as if the pub's this horrific, I can only imagine what, say, the Ministry of Magic will look like... OTOH, I loved the paintings in Hogwarts.
Themes and motifs: What does Cuaron have against birds? I lost count of how many innocent pigeons and sparrows gratuitously (if amusingly) lost their lives in the course of this movie. Of course, seeing Hermione draped with dead ferrets was a visual treat.
One thing I really liked was how Cuaron made Time the whole central theme of the movie, in a way that I suppose it was in the book, but was much stronger here. The swinging pendulum of the clock tower was just terrific. The movie is really all about time - about the change between kids to teenagers, about the gap between Harry's parents' time and the modern day (Lupin has suffered through the 12 years, Sirius hasn't really experienced them, and Pettigrew spent them as a rat...), about the relationship between the past and the future. And in the end, the message is to some extent that you can't really change the past - Harry asks at the end whether it was all for nothing.
Remus: I had expected Lupin to be much more handsome, but Thewlis totally sold me on his portrayal. I liked the tighter, more intense bond between Harry and Lupin. The one moment I came close to tears in the movie was the last scene with Lupin, where you realize that he had never unpacked. Lupin assumes he's going to be fired from every job, and that he will be a constant, friendless wanderer. Favorite line: "Wow, Professor Lupin's having a really rough night." The "werewolf-as-gay" subtext was also interesting - and, of course, lots of meat for all the Remus/Sirius proponents.
The Kid Actors: Emma Watson's terrific, although I do mildly object to Hermione the Athletic Heroic Genius, as she's a better character with her Rowling-written flaws. Ron - well, Grint has one facial expression, and the poor kid isn't given much to do besides comic relief and flirty quarreling with Hermione. Daniel Radcliffe still _looks_ very Harry, but his acting in the crucial Shrieking Shack scene was somewhat disappointing.
Overall, a great movie, with some distinct pacing problems, and a continued tendency to leave me distanced rather than caught up in the action. (This may be partially because I know the plot so well - I experienced the same thing with certain moments in TTT and ROTK.)
Family: I just called my dad. As it turned out, he was in the Chicago airport, en route to Glasgow. Apparently he's still potentially looking at a job in Scotland. One of the odd things about my family in the last three years has been the increasing disconnection, as my dad, brother and I all largely pursue our own adult lives. It's not that we don't love each other...but I don't even know what country my dad is in most weeks. I've been having a lot of dreams in my childhood home lately, probably because I know my dad is about to sell even the new house in San Diego and move to New Jersey. Or maybe Scotland. I don't like not having a family home, but there's not much I can do about it.
Reunion: I attended my 5-year college reunion this last weekend. It was better than expected, overall - only a few moments of feeling like I knew remarkably few people in my class, and some good reconnections. I was having a fair amount of nice college-nostalgia moments as well, at least until my class secretary butchered Bright College Years at the Class Dinner. He screwed up the handkerchiefs. It was awful. I've never made pretensions to being a singer - and at my college, not being able to sing well often made you feel like part of an outcast minority - but I at least know the basic rhythm and melody of my college song. Oh, and it is apparently a rule at reunions that the dance music is only at a tolerable volume if you are standing at the other side of the tent, with 500 people between you and the speakers.
The other odd uncomfortableness of reunions, which was also true last year, involved the prevalence of heavy drinking. Now, I like a nice glass of wine, straight scotch, or the occasional chick drink as much as the next person (if the next person isn't my husband), but the fact that the kegs started at lunch and kept going straight through 1 AM was a bit disconcerting. Also, couldn't they have put a bowl of pretzels or goldfish near the drinks? 4 hours of straight alcohol without snacks and, well, it wasn't surprising that there was at least one person from our reunion alone sent to DUH and a nasty incident in which someone broke into the Master's House.
But hey, my good friends from the class are all doing pretty darn well with their lives, and have changed in largely good if sometimes unexpected ways since graduation. We haven't taken over the world yet, but give us a few decades. Or, possibly,
jendavis77, who couldn't make it, will beat us all to it by building a mad doomsday device. We missed those who couldn't be there, of course. And the end of the weekend, which we spent with friends celebrating their 10th reunion, was marred by one of them falling victim to a nasty stomach flu on our couch. But she seems to be recovering now.A. and I saw the movie last night, and largely really liked it. It is, as many people have said, a real _film_, and also, crucially, an interpretation of Rowling's work rather than a rather plodding set of illustrations like the first two movies.
A couple of comments:
The New Dark Gothic theme and set: Largely really cool, although I did imagine the Leaky Cauldron as a much more, well, comfortable pub. I'm a bit worried about how this will progress in the next few movies, as if the pub's this horrific, I can only imagine what, say, the Ministry of Magic will look like... OTOH, I loved the paintings in Hogwarts.
Themes and motifs: What does Cuaron have against birds? I lost count of how many innocent pigeons and sparrows gratuitously (if amusingly) lost their lives in the course of this movie. Of course, seeing Hermione draped with dead ferrets was a visual treat.
One thing I really liked was how Cuaron made Time the whole central theme of the movie, in a way that I suppose it was in the book, but was much stronger here. The swinging pendulum of the clock tower was just terrific. The movie is really all about time - about the change between kids to teenagers, about the gap between Harry's parents' time and the modern day (Lupin has suffered through the 12 years, Sirius hasn't really experienced them, and Pettigrew spent them as a rat...), about the relationship between the past and the future. And in the end, the message is to some extent that you can't really change the past - Harry asks at the end whether it was all for nothing.
Remus: I had expected Lupin to be much more handsome, but Thewlis totally sold me on his portrayal. I liked the tighter, more intense bond between Harry and Lupin. The one moment I came close to tears in the movie was the last scene with Lupin, where you realize that he had never unpacked. Lupin assumes he's going to be fired from every job, and that he will be a constant, friendless wanderer. Favorite line: "Wow, Professor Lupin's having a really rough night." The "werewolf-as-gay" subtext was also interesting - and, of course, lots of meat for all the Remus/Sirius proponents.
The Kid Actors: Emma Watson's terrific, although I do mildly object to Hermione the Athletic Heroic Genius, as she's a better character with her Rowling-written flaws. Ron - well, Grint has one facial expression, and the poor kid isn't given much to do besides comic relief and flirty quarreling with Hermione. Daniel Radcliffe still _looks_ very Harry, but his acting in the crucial Shrieking Shack scene was somewhat disappointing.
Overall, a great movie, with some distinct pacing problems, and a continued tendency to leave me distanced rather than caught up in the action. (This may be partially because I know the plot so well - I experienced the same thing with certain moments in TTT and ROTK.)