29.7.03
The following is from ew.com. Minimal spoilers.
Getting Sirius
''Potter'' saga turns dark on the set of ''Azkaban.'' Harry goes punk, Hermione goes hormonal, and director Cuaron goes political
Under the direction of Alfonso Cuaron, the ''Harry Potter'' saga is taking a darker, sexier, even more political turn in ''Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,'' Newsweek reports from the film's set. Though he's best known for ''Y Tu Mama También,'' the road movie about two horny teens for which he earned an Oscar nomination (he also directed the child-friendly ''A Little Princess''), Cuaron hasn't sexed up the ''Potter'' franchise. But he hasn't had to, since the hormones of the young actors are doing it for him. ''You just have to let it flow,'' he says. ''You don’t need to encourage it. You allow it to be. And believe me, they have a lot of it.'' (Emma Watson, who plays Hermione, has posted on her dressing room door a sign that says, ''Beware: Babe Inside.'')
To get into the mindset of an alienated teenage Harry, Daniel Radcliffe is listening to the Sex Pistols, the Strokes, and the Dandy Warhols, and he's watching such bleak film classics as ''The Bicycle Thief'' and ''The 400 Blows.'' Newsweek describes the new Dumbledore, as played by Michael Gambon (replacing the late Richard Harris), as ''an elegant old hippie.''
Cuaron says he finds parallels between some of the shadier adult characters and real-life contemporary Muggle world leaders. Villain Voldemort reminds the director of George W. Bush, ''in combination with Saddam,'' he tells Newsweek. ''They both have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people. I read books four and five, and [Minister of Magic] Fudge is similar to Tony Blair. He's the ultimate politician. He's in denial about many things. And everything is for the sake of his own persona, his own power. The way the Iraq thing was handled was not unlike the way Fudge handled affairs in book four.''
Newsweek reports that pubescent stars Radcliffe, Watson, and Rupert Grint (who plays Ron Weasley) are expected to return for the fourth installment, ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.'' Cuaron will not, however. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. and Mike Newell (''Four Weddings and a Funeral'') are keen to work together on ''Goblet.'' That would make Newell the first Brit to helm the veddy English franchise.
23.7.03
In honor of Spain and Guinea Pigs, my current favorite commercial is the Snapple: Running of the Pigs. Have you all seen it? It is so cute. I love me some Snapple too.
So I've got my heart set on going to the beach. Variables to consider are Amanda's recovery time, Jenny's and my work schedules, and any prior commitments. I'm pretty sure that I'd be able to take a Thursday off, which would be cheaper than a Friday night in a hotel. I also wouldn't mind staying two nights, but that's up to people's cash flow and such.
I've only researched the Topsail/North Topsail area, and the closest hotel is Holiday Inn Express in Sneads Ferry. The place looks nice enough and the prices are good. Any other beach recommendations where 3-year-olds aren't the dominate wildlife would be appreciated.
Be nice to us, we're sunburned. We went to the lake today and then to Jack Astor's for lunch. Chun met her match with our waiter, Brian. He tried to win her over with brining us free pudding and encouraging her to turn in an application. He sealed the deal with "I'd love to have you here." Nice guy, bad shoes.
I move into my apartment in under a month and I am taking suggestions for magazine subscriptions. I currently do not subscribe to any magazines. I like a little celeb gossip, but don't need it in full doses from magazines like People or US Weekly. I like to read a little about fashion, but don't think I need a 700 page issue of Vogue. What does everyone subscribe to, and does anyone have any suggestions for me? Does anyone get Vanity Fair and if so, how is it?
11.7.03 This article is a bloated and vitriolic criticism of adults who read the Harry Potter books (you may need to join NY Times online to read it, but it's free).
This post is the long and more polite way of saying "Up yours, you stuck-up old hag."
Ms. Byatt is certainly entitled to her opinion. She also has the God-given right to express that opinion in as many overlong and overwordy op-eds her little fingers can type. However, I am afforded the right to think that her opinion is nothing more than a load of pompous, ponderous crap.
Byatt, and several other authors (including Caleb Carr, who will remain in my good graces because The Alienist kicked so much ass) seem to think that the staggeringly large number of adults who read the Harry Potter series are unimaginative and intellectually stunted, and are concerned with nothing more than what those cute little buggers in Family Circus are up to or what will happen on the next General Hospital. Besides being a sweeping generalization, it's pretentious beyond all belief. These people seem to have appointed themselves the guardians of high culture, sworn to protect and defend it from the assaults of the vulgar masses. Well, just because something is popular, doesn't mean it's bad. Think the Bronte sisters and Charles Dickens, in their day.
Certainly, JK Rowling's books are not the most difficult reads. They are written with child readers in mind, and for adults, they're escapist literature, to an extent. However, what Ms. Byatt and the other critics fail to see is the maturity of the themes in the series. In one way or another, important issues like government corruption, racism, PC interference in the educational system, death, differing types of evil (i.e. Umbrige vs. Voldemort), and the choice between what is right and what is easy. These things are important to think about at any age.
At some point in Byatt's 1300 word epic, she complains that Rowling's magic is not 'magical' enough, and "leaves no place for the numinous." This isn't C.S. Lewis. It doesn't need an overarching spirituality to make its point. Rowling's version of magic is one of the less important aspects of the books. This magic isn't a cure-all, it can't raise the dead or solve all the world's problems. What Ms. Byatt fails to realize when she criticizes this sort of magic is that THIS IS EXACTLY THE POINT OF THE BOOKS. There is no magic solution, magic is only a tool that the characters use - as Hermione pointed out in Book 1, there are more important things, like friendship and bravery. But the books don't need my pitifully inadequate defense. The breadth and diversity of the fanbase speaks for itself.
On a personal note, how dare this woman judge me by the books I choose to read. How dare she assume that because I enjoy the series that I don't have a brain in my childish head? Has she seen my bookshelves? Does she know what I've read before, and what I'm going to read in the future? It infuriates me to no end to be judged this way. Nobody should have to justify what they choose to read, and where in the hell does she get off telling me that the choice I made was "wrong" or "disturbing." I read for ME, not for A. S. Byatt and her legion of elitists. They are clearly instituting a literary class system, with themselves as the upper echelon and Potter readers as the trailer trash of the literary world. Well I refuse to be de-classed by a bitter, jealous old harridan.
So, in conclusion, up yours, you stuck-up old hag.
9.7.03
This week's Entertainment Weekly has a guest review of Harry V by none other than Stephen King. The magazine's Web site has an Adobe file of King's actual review in his classic handwriting.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix By J.K. Rowling
Scholastic Press: 870 pages. $29.99
-Review by Stephen King-
Volume 5 of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series finds our hero and his friends cramming for (and agonizing over) their end-of-term exams, known at Hogwards as O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Levels). Of course Harry as a few other things on his plate-- the growing menace of Voldemort, aka He-who-must-not-be-named, and his serious crush on the beautiful Cho Chang are only two of them-- but here, in the spirit of the exam motif, are some questions (and answers) of my own. The first is the most important... and may, in the end, be the only one that matters in what is probably the most review-proof book to come along since a little bestseller called the Bible.
1. Is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as good as the other Harry Potter books?
Answer: No. This one is actually quite a bit better. The tone is darker, and this has the unexpected-- but very pleasing-- effect of making Rowling's wit and playful black humor shine all the brighter. Where but in the world of Jo Rowling would one find deadly supernatural beings and their frightening familers existing side-by-side with empty gloves that twiddle their thumbs impatiently, not to mention enchanted interdepartmental memos that fly from floor to floor in the Ministry of magic as paper airplanes?
2. Are there spoilers in this review?
Answer: Spoilers from a novelist who thinks that the best dust-jacket flap copy ever written was "Gore Vidal's Duluth rips the lid off Dallas?" Perish the thought! But even if there were spoilers, would it matter? I'm betting that by the time this piece sees print, ninety percent of the world's Potter-maniacs will have finished the novel, and will be starting their letters to Ms. Rowling asking when Volume 6 will be
3. You say this one's better than Azkaban, better than Goblet of Fire. Is there still room for improvement?
Answer: Heavens, yes. In terms of Ms. Rowling's imagination-- which should be insured by Lloyd's of London (or perhaps The Incubus Insurance Company) for the 2 or 3 billion dollars that it will ultimately be worth over the span of her creative lifetime, which should be long-- she is now at the absolute top of her game. As a writer, however, she is often careless (characters never just put on their clothes; they always "get dressed at top speed") and oddly, almost sweetly, insecure. The part of speech that indicates insecurity ("Did you really hear me? Did you really understand me?") is the adverb, and Ms. Rowling seems to have never met one she didn't like, especially when it comes to dialogue attribution. Harry's godfather, Sirius, speaks "exasperatedly"; Mrs. Weasley (mother of Harry's best-friend, Ron) speaks "sharply"; Tonks (a clumsy witch with punked-up, parti-colored hair) speaks "earnestly." As for Harry himself, he speaks quietly, automatically, nervously, slowly, quietly, and-- often, give his current case of raving adolescence-- ANGRILY.
These minor flaws of diction are endearing rather than annoying; they are the logical side-effect of a natural storyteller who is obviously bursting with crazily vivid ideas and having the time of her life. Yet Ms. Rowling could do better, and for the money, probably should. In any case there's no need for all those annoying adverbs (he said firmly), which pile up at the rate of eight or ten a page (over 870 pages, that comes to almost a novella's length of -ly words). Because, really-- we hear, we understand, we enjoy. If the sales figures show nothing else, they show that. And if by th end of Chapter Three we don't know that Harry Potter is one utterly, completely, and pervasively angry young man, we haven't been paying attention.
edited by burney on 11 July. I left the first part up as a tribute the all of Chun's hard work :)
8.7.03
This one's for Chun.
From Newsweek, on Orlando Bloom: "Sure, his pretty-boy good looks were obscured by a waist-length wig and pointy prosthetic ears, but as sharks can smell blood, young girls can sense hot."
In other news, come get down with your bad self Monday the 14th at Jordan Lake. More information on that as it comes in. Also, if you have any interest in seeing The Matrix: Reloaded at the IMAX Theater at Exploris in Raleigh (read: big fucking screen and bitchin' sound) leave a comment to that effect. Price is about $10 for students, evening shows only. Yarr.
Tip of the day: At Sakura Express, don't eat the shrimp sauce if there's only a little bit left in the bottle and has therefore been sitting out for a while. Your bowels will thank you.
3.7.03
Ok, some of you have been reading the comments war Chun and I have been having in the Order of the Phoenix post. She hates Ginny and I am defending the honor of my favorite Weasley. Well, I am upping the stakes. I am taking Chun's point system one step further. Annoying points BY BOOK. Points will be added for being cool, and detracted for being annoying. I will try my utmost to be objective.
Sorcerer's Stone:
+1 for being a Weasley
-1 for asking to see Harry once she finds out who he is
-1 for pointing at Harry when he gets off the train
Score: 2-1 in favor of annoying
Chamber of Secrets:
-1 for squeaking and running away
-1 for the elbow in the butter dish
+1 for sticking up for Harry in Flourish and Blott's
+1 for being sorted into Gryffindor
-1 for starting to write in the diary
+1 for Petrifying Mrs. Norris
+1 for trying to get rid of the diary
-1 for the singing valentine
-1 for stealing the diary back
+1 for trying to tell Harry and Ron about the diary
+1 for catching Percy making out with Penelope
Score: 7-7. Neither annoying nor cool
Prisoner of Azkaban
-1 for any blushing incidents
+1 for laughing with Harry about Percy
-1 for the get well card
Score: 9-8 in favor of annoying
Goblet of Fire
-1 for any blushing incidents
-1 for naming the owl Pigwidgeon
+1 for shutting Harry and Ron up for laughing at Neville
+1 for sticking up for Hermione re: having a date
+1 for not telling Ron and Harry about Krum
+1 for going to the ball with Neville instead of ditching him for Harry
Score: 12-11 in favor of cool
The points for Order of the Phoenix are going to be spoiler protected, just in case. Highlight below to see.
Order of the Phoenix
+1 for being over Harry
+1 for shutting Harry up/placating him when he's being a bitch
+1 for being a powerful witch
+1 for being the only one smart enough to shut that music box that made everyone sleepy
+1 for the "He Got Off" dance
+1 for being nice to Luna Lovegood despite her weirdness
+1 for playing Quidditch
+1 for stealing Fred and George's brooms as a kid
-1 for going out with Michael Corner
+1 for coming up with the name "Dumbledore's Army"
+1 for making Harry feel better in the library
+1 for hexing the crap out of Malfoy
-1 for tagging along at the Department of Mysteries (this one is debatable but I'll include it anyway)
-1 for dawdling in the Time Room
+1 for ditching Michael Corner
-1 for the Dean Thomas comment
Final Score: 24-15 in favor of cool. So there you have it. Cool by a comfortable margin of 9 points.
I agree with Chun that Harry needs to end up with a Gryffindor. The Gryffindor girls we know so far are Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet, Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown, Natalie McDonald, Hermione Granger, and Ginny Weasley. I doubt he'll end up with anyone 5 or 6 years younger than he is, so that leaves out any future girls. He's never been that close to the Quidditch ladies, doesn't think too highly of Lavender or Parvati, has never spoken to Natalie McDonald, and Hermione is essentially taken. Leaving....GINNY! It's great how these things work out.
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