» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

jelewis8 — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 22:05:47 +0000

Oh, Harry Potter. You have so many in the grip of your wizardry that it’s difficult to imagine anyone disliking your wonderful book-to-movie adaptations. I’ve generally been critical of them, however, despite having not read any of the books (or perhaps because I’ve not read them), and even knowing the scope of the series and how difficult it is to adapt something that bulky to the screen. Mostly I dislike the lack of depth of the movies, something I’m told the books suffer from as well.
Forgetting all that, however, the flaws in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix revolve around an overly talkie script, in which very little happens, and what does seems mostly irrelevant to the series as a whole. Relationships don’t change, with the exception that Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) finally shows his affection for Cho (Katie Cheung), though that adolescent fascination presented so well in Goblet of Fire seems forced here. Whatever depth of characterization the books might have has been utterly leached from this script by newcomer Michael Goldenberg. Likewise, new director David Yates, whose work has predominantly been in television, offers little new direction or fresh perspective on the series, instead giving us a drama-heavy two hour special. By the end, very little has actually changed, except for a few hearts and minds.
The film opens with Harry under questioning by the high court of the Ministry of Magic, under the adjudication of Prime Minister Cornelius Fudge, for unauthorized use of magic in the presence of a Muggle. It’s a rather Pyrrhic scene, however, as Harry’s indictment is overthrown by the clearly unbiased majority. What is revealed is that while Harry and Dumbledore believe Voldemort is on the rise to power once again, no one else, including the Ministry of Magic, believes them. Harry’s return to Hogwarts is met with steely eyes and whispers against him. It seems most are under the impression that Harry was responsible for Cedric Digory’s death, despite the fact that Harry’s impeccable behavior and heroic deeds have saved Hogwarts time and again. No matter.
Harry has also been having more dreams. Through them Harry feels he shares a connection with He Who Must Not Be Named, whose name is frequently and unabashedly mentioned. While Harry mopes and feels sorry for himself, Hogwarts has undergone a change in leadership. Under the new headmistress-ship of the pink-clad and delightfully strict Delores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), Hogwarts is turned into a post-Patriot Act/Homeland Security school where wizardry and witchcraft are relegated to the land of theory, student interaction is fiercely monitored, indiscretions are harshly punished, and ill behavior is met with medieval torture.
In spite of her oppressive regime, Harry and his friends Hermione (the expressive Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) gather a group of students dedicated to practical training against the coming battle with Voldemort. Under his tutelage, they become skilled in various spells now outlawed under Umbridge’s new rule of law.
Unfortunately, the majority of the film is told to us rather than shown. Much of the movie is simply scenes upon scenes of dialogue, as Harry’s angst and prophetic sense of doom is played out against the occasional new edict from Umbridge. With so many characters and so much going on, it’s no wonder that storylines are abbreviated or completely missing in favour of giving us as much of Harry as possible. Thus, a handful of delightful characters from previous films, like Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), and Alistair Moody (Brendan Gleeson) have little to do and less to say. Newcomer Helena Bonham Carter, as Bellatrix Lestrange, gets barely any screentime, and like the others, is mostly superfluous. Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) gets the most play here, as his involvement with Harry is most central to Harry’s character development, but even he gets short shrift as the plot laboriously but inevitably pushes our heroes toward a showdown with the evil Voldemort.
Who really doesn’t seem all that powerful when it comes down to it.
As the children have grown into adults and learned to fight for themselves, the series itself has matured and become darker and more complex. But with each book increasingly packed with more subplots and characters, they have also become less intriguing. The world of Harry Potter has outgrown its own mysteriousness, becoming just another teen drama. Order of the Phoenix feels like a well-managed stage drama brought to life with a lot of digital trickery and a little smoke to disguise the fact that at its heart, it’s all talk and no action. Let’s just hope the next film will go light on the chatter. After all, it’s a story about magic, not the mundane.
Fringe Rating: out of 5

A Valentine’s Day Massacre

jelewis8 — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:59:24 +0000

Today, the obvious holiday with some unobvious advice. Those of you who still believe in true love might not want to read this. I am partially joking here, but partially not. I walk a fine line on the whole love issue to begin with, and Valentine’s Day tends to tip me over the edge into oblivion. Trust me, there are worse places to be than oblivion. But if you have a stomach for cynicism, and dislike the huge stage play that is V-Day, then you might find some wisdom here.
Read on, at your peril/leisure.
Valentine’s Day isn’t a bad holiday, if you like the idea of remembering a Roman who became a martyr because he wouldn’t renounce his Christianity by eating chocolates shaped like hearts, buying roses by the dozen(s), and purchasing cards that simper out sentiments of faux love delivered by fat cupid babies, all in the service of someone whom you’re unlikely to even be with six months down the road.
Am I bitter? You bet I am.
Valentines is the worst holiday foisted upon the world, if for no other reason than the simple fact that it gives Hallmark an excuse to sell cards with the worst kind of love poetry ever conceived by man. In just over two hundred years, we’ve come from the heady Romantic writing of British poets like John Keats and Lord Byron to drivel that hardly passes for English.
The long slow march of decay in a society can be measured in part by the quality of its holidays. To its everlasting disgrace, Valentine’s Day, above and beyond any other holiday, is responsible for the degradation of the idea of respect. Take the Valentine card from the nineties that reads: “With a friend like you on Valentine’s Day, who needs a big, hunky guy bearing chocolates?” The business suit clad fellow with the flashy smile and carrying a huge box reading “Candy” strolls toward the back of the card asking the same question. Only it’s a huge joke for him, because hey, he’s the big hunky guy, and you’re the big fat loser.
Rhetorical as this card is, and as punchy, what is this really saying? That a girl’s feelings can be bought with Switzerland’s only other major export that isn’t cuckoo clocks. That a stand-up guy like you is only as good as a card that implies that you’re no good at all. That you are, in fact, a loser; this card simply validates that fact.
So I was pleased to wake up to a grey day that promised rain (it has since started raining, cold and dreary and perfectly apropos). The weather perfectly matches my antipathy for this most cursed of holidays.
Lileks posts a particularly saddening Bleat about his dog Jasper’s bout with hip dysplasia. It’s a condition I know enough about from my work at the Veterinary Hospital back a few years ago to know that I don’t wish it on any animal, even ones I don’t particularly like (goats, for instance). It’s a reminder of the fleeting nature of life, and how quickly decay comes, even despite our care. I look at Rufus, my cat that’s not really my cat (for which I still owe a story), and see her gazing at me through sleep-slitted eyes, and I wonder how much longer she has. I don’t even know how old she is or how long cats live in general.
How depressing that we measure life in quantities of years, as if it is the definitive ruler of things. The saying “Time heals all wounds” is the motto of a trickster. Wounds are marks of life. At the end, it’s not wounds you succumb to–it’s time. Time doesn’t erase our earthly pains, it just stops them from becoming, forever.
Perhaps that is a thought for Valentine’s Day. Today’s cards and hearts and candy and roses might be tomorrow’s painful romances and tragic loves. And I suppose it is those things, among others, that help us know we are still alive and kicking. So this year, take the time to do Valentine’s Day right. Forget Hallmark. Forget the sexy lingerie or the candlelit dinners. Ignore the shiny plastic smiles and the quickening of your breath as you hold the hand of your lover. Deny the sweet shop your money. Give no member of the opposite sex (or the same, for that matter) the once-a-year rhetorical card of playful cupidean desire. Reject the sentiment of high school romance. Spoil the moment with a well-timed movement of your head as she/he moves in for the kiss.
“I can’t,” you say, and they look at you in confusion. You draw back, letting go and leaving them empty-handed and broken-hearted. “It’s Valentine’s Day, the day of love and life, of sharing and being shared, of caring and giving and being true.”
“Yes,” they cry out. “Come back!”
But don’t you answer. Don’t say a word. They’ll remember it for as long as they live. And they’ll know they’re alive as long as they recollect when you broke up with them, on that grey and rainy Valentine’s Day.

YR L1CNS 1S RTRDD

jelewis8 — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:09:40 +0000

I’ve nearly had it with people who put the kind of car they drive on their license plates. In fact, my disgust with these kinds of people goes beyond my dislike for the jerks who put those “My kid is an honor roll student at Milk Dud High School” stickers on their bumpers. Like we care!
No, I’m not some mean old man who’s grown bitter and tired of the world. In fact I am a young man who’se grown bitter and tired of the world (on Tuesdays, at least). I find both practices patently offensive to intelligence, common sense, and rules of nomenclature. We know you have a Dodge Viper because it says so in chrome letters on your bum. Is there really a need to reassure me that you do indeed have a Dodge Viper by putting VIP3R on your license plate?
The fact that you used a 3 for the E means that some other idiot already took VIPER. That should have been your first clue that this would wind up on some anonymous blogger’s site. If you read Time Magazine (which you don’t, you’re not the type, I can tell by your license plate), you’d know that bloggers are a powerful force. We can wreck your life. You don’t want to get on our bad side.
Your second clue should have been the look the DMV lady gave you when you requested that sequence of letters. Those DMV clerks can smell pathetic before you even take a number, and believe me, they smelled it on you like cheap cologne from Bath and Body Works:
Looking for an enhancer for that lame Emo bullcrap you call a persona? This time, wrap yourself in the alluring scent of Loser. This whiny, freshman underoo cologne combines the irritating musk of your first failed sports tryout, the dungpile fragrance of all of your romantic failures, and a mealy-mouth, butt-kissing office jockey stench that will surely leave you breathless with pathetic gasps for air through your tiny, malformed lung tissue. It debuts on your birthday — to commemorate the day the world’s biggest wiener was born — and will be available in any cheap outlet store or your favorite body care and home fragrance essentials shop. When you want to smell like you, choose to Lose with Loser Scent and accompanying soaps and shampoo.
The last clue, and most glaringly obvious one, was the fact that you thought it was a good idea to put VIP3R on your license plate. What have I told you before? Any thought that starts with “I think this would be a good idea” should immediately be jailed, sentenced, and then drawn and quartered in a very public ceremony that will leave all other stupid thoughts quaking in mortal fear of being sent up the pike in a similar style. Get it!?
Now when it comes to vanity plates, one must approach with care and caution. Not every vanity plate must be funny, but it should be a socially viable message, ie. one that most of the driving populace can “get” and appreciate, if not admire. This means no plates with your initials and those of your lover/partner/driving instructor. I’m serious. It must contain the most amount of information in the space provided, and must be clever. In other words, B0BSCKS is lame.
TI 3V0M, on the other hand, is exceedingly clever, as the full weight of its message is only appreciated when looking at it in the rear view mirror.
When possible, you must form a vanity plate that contains multiple meanings. Entendres are clever, as are personal intents that become, by dint of social perceptions, jokes and teasers.
Here’s one I like: NDFLMKR
There’s two, maybe even three legitimate conclusions you could draw from this plate. It’s got mystery, but also style and a sense of confidence that proves that the driver of this car–a 1990 Honda Civic, in this case–isn’t afraid to bare his passion, his soul, and possibly his body in pursuit of the noble art of cinema. Or it might just be that he’s from North Dakota. Alas, neither of those explanations is true (there is a third alternative), but are examples of a private life becoming a public joke.
I won’t tell you how I know all this, I’ll just say that one gets more questions regarding said license plate in parking lots and at traffic lights than you will believe.
All this is to say: if you’re going to remind us all what kind of car you drive by putting the make and model of it on the license plate, don’t be surprised if you find yourself the subject of ridicule on some guy’s website somewhere. If you’re contemplating making this socially suicidal move, just think:
It could be you. And you really, really don’t want it to be you.