Silver screen Sunday

[sigma7]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince bothers me. I haven't read the book -- really, none of the books save for the finalé -- but still, I got the idea that I was watching half of a really good movie. Even in a three-hour movie, how do you walk out wanting more? And worse, how do you walk out wanting less of the plot and more of the characters milling about in their natural environment? Weird, isn't it? There was no sense of wonder or intrigue in the plot, really, and maybe just a little sense of danger, heightened by one of the scenes (I understand) shoehorned in, not even in the original text. I don't know if Rowling or Yates fails here -- I'm putting more probability in the latter, though. Of all the scenes to omit, though, the end? Where's the closure, the curtain call for one of the mythology's iconic characters? Baffling. But by all means, let's see more Slughorn dinner parties. (Broadbent does a great job, even if I find his scenes a bit repetitive.) Maybe it's just me, but I walked out more than a little bit disappointed, despite the Hedwig content.

Speaking of disappointment, which sticks in your craw more: the idiot who brings his hyperactive and restless three-year-old to the movie, the child asking constant questions of the film's narrative in his outdoor voice and proceeds to run up and down the theater aisles when he gets restless -- or the idiot adult who, whenever he hears a funny line, while laughing, repeats what he thought he found funny to his companion? At least there was no instance of the obnoxious loud-talking frat boy with cell phone; thank God for summer matinees.

Upon reflection, I think I like Shaolin Soccer more than Kung Fu Hustle for just one reason: pacing. Soccer builds gradually, dialing up the, well, cinematic aspects slowly until reaching its peak in the film's climatic showdown with the Evil Team. I'm not sure Hustle has the same pace -- if Soccer dials up from 0 to 11, Hustle hits 11 at least an hour in, and keeps the throttle flooded for the rest of the film. And both films are fun -- it's just that Hustle's narrative arc doesn't keep pace with its audacity, and maybe that's what throws me off about it. Not that either film's worth missing -- they're live-action cartoons in the best way, ambitious and insane, and they know what they are and revel in it. Time well-spent.

Comments

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

I think you put it where I would, with Azkaban -- I think Goblet and Phoenix were the two I've enjoyed the most up to this point. I can rarely distinguish Stone and Chamber anymore, as they feel so formulaic (here's a scene where Draco's a douche, here's a scene where Harry's alienated, here's the Dursleys being obnoxious...) and I can't tell you how happy I am that that mold was broken, because they were monotonous the first time I saw them. The earlier films were too expository because they chose to exposit information we already knew or, having minds, were able to figure out on our own. But now we get "I'm the half-blood prince" with literally no explanation or clarification, no observation on its significance.

I think it's an incomplete film, but even so, what's there impresses and entertains me. It's excellent in terms of what it does, but I wish it'd done more.

[lady-findel.livejournal.com]

I think my biggest problem with the films adapted from Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix is that these left things out that were very dear to me in the books. I do think that as films they function very well. I guess it's just a reader's bias, because Azkaban and Half-Blood Prince were my favourite books as well.