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

[rainfletcher.livejournal.com]

Due to my disappointment in the last two books, I'm not asking for much from this movie: just sufficient oddball behavior from Luna Lovegood.

This may be the first time we wind up waiting for DVD on a Potter-pic. Hitting the drive-in during the height of summer for a movie this long means having the kids out until oh-dark-thirty, and I'm not so sure that would be a happy time.

The world needs more drive-ins, though. Then at least most of the obnoxiousness gets contained within individual vehicles.

Now I need to look into Shaolin Soccer. I'm glad I'm not the only one who found Kung Fu Hustle to be a little skewed: I thought maybe I just wasn't getting the joke.

[patchsassy.livejournal.com]

This was the best Potter yet, in my opinion. Was I annoyed by the fact that the filmmakers didn't want to overshadow the epic final battle, so they cut this battle and added an attack on the Burrow for no apparent reason except to make the watchers know the danger they all face? Yes.

Was I disappointed in the development of characterization, especially in the younger kids who change from movie to movie? Yes.

Was I really annoyed with the fact that they basically cut most of the information that Dumbledore gave Harry about what he's going to have to do to off Voldemort? Very much so.

However, I think it was the best dialogue for the movies thus far, gave a good sense of what was going on in the wizarding world without spending too much time on the gloom and doom and was hilariously funny at times.

I liked it, but I still had problems with it. However, I had fewer problems with this one than most of the other ones. I think the series as a whole would have been better if they had hired one director and held him to doing the entire series. There's a reason why the Lord of the Rings movies (and I'm sure the Hobbit will be as well) are so much superior to the HP movies - because Peter Jackson had a vision and didn't change everything around every movie.

[lady-findel.livejournal.com]

Indeed, the end of the Half-Blood Prince was left out and that was a great pity. The film did have a problem with pacing, with all the "action" at the end. Actually there wasn't too much action in the film.

I really think they wanted to make it a 'calm before the storm'. Too bad, because I never perceived the book that way.

Despite all its faults, I think it is one of the better films in the series, together with The Prisoner of Azkaban.

[daethkow.livejournal.com]

Shaolin Soccer is a fantastic movie, for all the things you've mentioned and more. I've yet to see Hustle, only because we rented it once and tried to watch it with Henry and the opening scene kind of put us off of viewing with The Boy.

I read the first four books. When I got to Book Five it all started getting so depressing that I just stopped. It suddenly became work to get through a novel, and unless it's Tolstoy and I'm getting a grade for it, that isn't happening again.

[aardy.livejournal.com]

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It's not the best of the bunch, but it's much nearer that end of the scale.

I was disappointed that they seemed to have gutted the CGI budget for the "little things" that made the movie's world seem so real.

For example, not one staircase or wall moved (all shots that in previous movies would contain animated castle bits seemed to have been replaced with shots of random teenagers snogging), not one painting was three dimensional let alone moved (especially not even the painting of Dumbledore at the end), and of all the times the Daily Prophet pages took up most or all of the screen, I can only recall two photos moving. And those are just the most obvious bits.