» 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

Marketing Education

jelewis8 — Tue, 22 May 2007 14:38:42 +0000

"There’s products and then there’s knowing your market target, knowing who to sell to," he thought. "All product and no market is called failure." He had been in the business long enough. Time to sell his story on the six o’clock news. He leapt forward. Thirty-two and married, no kids.

A Year’s Prospectus

jelewis8 — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 23:53:20 +0000

I returned from San Francisco last night around 11:20, after a grueling drive back along the 5. Driving there is like waking up from a wonderful dream. Driving back is the long wait of horrible anticipation before brain surgery. And it’s not just San Francisco. Any drive of four or more hours has a special quality of exquisite delight or depression. Every hour passed is a knife. It only depends on whether it’s being removed from or stuck into your flesh.
San Francisco is like no other place on earth, and you can say that even knowing full well it’s exactly the same as every other place on the planet because it is global, in the same way that Siberia and the Solomon Islands and Antarctica are global, in the same way that people are global, no longer confined to their little plot. San Francisco keeps a person looking straight ahead, always toward the water, always toward the setting of the western sun.
This week promises to be interesting, though that usually doesn’t translate to the blog very well, for reasons which I am about to elucidate. Generally my life is easily graphable, following a line which resembles a desert hovering along the asymptotal horizon, which implies not an excess of things which might be put into memoirs, unless memoirs were suddenly redefined to writing about the life of someone whose very existence is less interesting than that of a fuzzy caterpillar. And it’s true, let’s face it. Caterpillars go through incredible transformation a short time after being born, becoming something nature hardly has words to describe for sheer complex beauty. Meanwhile, I’ve been in Los Angeles a year, and I still have the same two pair of shorts I brought out with me. Wear them constantly.
But it’s not the kind of thing that sells books.
Nevertheless, I figured I could take this week to discuss two milestones, one being my birthday tomorrow, and the second being an LA resident for a year on August 9. I’m sure that sounds like the beginnings of a maudlin look back at the past year, with fruitless pondering of what I could have done differently, what things have occurred to bring me to this point in life, blah blah blah. Please shoot me in the head if I start doing that. I’d hate to write it ~~more than~~ as much as you’d hate to read it.
No, what I would like to do is make this a hilarious, E! Hollywood True Stories kind of looking back, where secrets are revealed, photos are taken, and lawyers gather like vultures to sue each other’s clients because the picking gets so vicious. In short, I want to say exactly what I’ve been wanting to say all this time, but needed a year in which to establish residency, so as not to taint what I have to say with the hint of illegitimacy. Now that I’ve been here long enough, my words might have some weight. Just not as much as anyone who’s been here longer than me. But that’s the advantage of having a forum. People tend to listen if you shout loud enough. Even if they’re just rubberneckers trying to catch a glance at the crazy guy on the corner shouting weird things and wearing no pants. So watch and wait, people. There’s good stuff a’coming.
Oh, and by the way, in case you were wondering, yes. You did just spend five minutes reading something with absolutely zero content value. I’m kind of like the LA Times that way.
See you tomorrow.

Something Sweet This Way Comes

jelewis8 — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 15:29:10 +0000

There’s an uncanny feeling you get when you know something’s about to change. It’s not at all like when you try and squeeze off a silent and hopefully non-lethal bit of stinky wind and realize you’ve squeezed a little too hard–that’s mild shame and even a bit of disappointment (“I thought I was in control here”), mixed with the usual run of regret (“Why did I think that wouldn’t happen?”) and disgust. Nor is it like the anticipation you feel before going on a trip, though it’s more in that vein. That’s a peculiar momentum of emotion, one that is neither happy nor sad, but looking forward to new sights and smells and the dissembling the anger over rising gas prices, knowing it’s not really the gas company’s fault, but simply a factor in the global exchange of products and services, which really took off in the 1800′s, when commerce on a global scale became the known reality. Hard to think that gas prices today were set in motion by some guy who invented the steam engine a few hundred years ago. Then again, it’s all money in or out of the hand anyway, and you could argue your way back to Adam and Eve if you wanted to, claiming that if God hadn’t invented fruit, we wouldn’t have Israel and Hezbollah going at it like two kindergarteners in a sandbox.
Whoa, way off track. That uncanny feeling, the feeling of change I am experiencing, probably has a French word to describe it, a word that carries within it all the necessary definitive properties, without actually containing any descriptives. Like deja vu. You know exactly what it is. Even if you don’t, because you’ve had it before. Like now. You’ve read this Fringe post before!
Anyway, I woke up feeling the world was the same old stinky grey tenement, but I was strangely satisfied, understanding that it was only temporary. I am not sure if the feeling comes from knowing I’ll be seeing sunny weather within an hour or two. No matter the source or the expectations, I feel that change is in the air. There’s probably a thousand Broadway songs that have been written about this topic, but none with this particular brand of sweetness.
I finished up the script I’ve been slavering over like a canine with a bone of contention, confident in the last 110 pages, not so much at the first 15. That’s the most important part, in a way, because it sets the expectations for the rest of the script. Anyone who decides to read past that first rough patch may find the rest a larf, but will they make it that far? So instead of sending it out like I am prone to doing, straight out of the gate, I’ve held onto it. But I haven’t looked at it. I’m letting it germinate. I’ll go back to it fresh, see what sprouts. The hand of God, perhaps.
So in the meantime, good things come to those who jog patiently. Waiting is for suckers, at least in this town. I’m jumping back into the novel, and will (I state that emphatically, though minus italics, despite the fact that it’s easier to use them than type all this, and looks better too) finish before the end of August. I’m also waiting to hear back from a potential animation job (who would have thunk it–me in animation?) that could be worth a few clams, and I also have the usual run of little freelance gigs that have somehow kept me afloat.
I’ve been here a year, and things have, in some ways, greatly changed. Other things are no different than they were when I last looked at my bank statement. But there’s that old feeling again. I know something’s up. I don’t know what it is, but I feel hope and Spring and hear the vague sound of cash registers. Though it might just be church bells. Something’s in the wind, and it smells perfectly sweet.
Have a great weekend, I’ll see you Monday.

Tubular Texas

jelewis8 — Wed, 31 May 2006 00:05:38 +0000

The trip to Texas was totally tubular, to talk in 80′s alliteration. Not that I want to associate with that era any more than I have to, though I have to admit an affinity for some of the music of the day, including Huey Lewis and the News who, besides sharing my last name (not the other way around, thank you), happen to have originated some of the seminal songs that defined me as a person more than fourteen years after they hit their stride. “Hip to Be Square” is an obvious choice, my own rectangular proclivities having long been known by eager bullies in my school. However, I like to think of “Power of Love” as an ode to my own failures as a Man of Mystery, knowing that forever I’m “Stuck With [Me]“.
Texas was much hotter than Los Angeles, which reminded me of my vow not to allow myself to become so inculcated by the balmy environment here that I would lose all sense of perspective when staying in other climes. It was not overly difficult to stay committed to that vow, though I confess that, after a long day working on a small yard project with my older brother, I was quite happy to spend the remaining hours inside, enjoying the view of dusty brown grass from the comfort of a padded seat whilst surrounded by insulated air conditioned goodness.
The visit was punctuated with several notable doings, including attending a Texas Rangers baseball game. Despite my lack of interest in baseball (AKA boringball), I enjoyed the show and the free hat that was given to the first 20,000 fans. I didn’t have to prove I was a fan, though I would gladly have done so, including oscillatory motion back and forth with a firm and steady whirring, if they had required it. Starbucks coffee was $5.00 a pop, regardless of drink ordered, and in typical worshipful fashion, I gave the priest of the Temple of the Coffee Mermaid $10 for two frappucinos. We also spent time at the residential swimming hole, which is outfitted with two water slides and plenty of seating. I’m now convinced that any brothers would be fully satisfied doing nothing but competing with each other in splash contests covering length, height, and distance, in perpetuity. In fact, heaven may just be an eternally open community pool. We weren’t too sure the fifteen year old female lifeguards could come close to saving any of us, were we placed in a drowning scenario, but when it came to a trade-off between safety and cute jailbait in bikinis, it’s obvious pool management went with the latter.
I learned how to play Dominoes, which is something I’ve meant to learn for about fifteen years, ever since I received a set of nicely lathed black and whites back when I was ten. It’s not unlike poker, which combines a luck of the draw scenario with skills and strategems that rely on your ability to count, which puts me into the same running as Harpo Marx. I can honk a clown horn like a champ, but my numerical combination abilities aren’t so hot. But like poker, chance does play into Dominoes, and statistically speaking, you’re bound to get decent bones once in a while, and when you get them, it’s not difficult to win.
Visiting my brother also has its liquid libation benefits. He brews his own beer, and he had a fine stock of Strawberry Wheat that was quite a pleasant antidote to the heat. Coupled with bottled Guinness, some K Cider, and A&W Cream Soda, I am happy to report I was never in need. I even managed to get in a cigar smoke with my older brother, along with some scotch. Citizen Satisfied! Of course, all that is secondary to the best part, which was spending time with the family. You know it’s a successful visit when voices are raised at a particularly high-strung game of Spades.
We got to see X-Men 3 on Sunday, so I’ll post a review tomorrow. See you tomorrow.

Drunk Driving

jelewis8 — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 04:11:14 +0000

Rain glints down, it’s three am
Time to get a drink again
I’ve been sucking back dry bottles and bottles of
old times, like whiskey with that old
burning sensation, like cutting up onions
with a dull knife blade.
Cuts not so deep you can’t feel the wound.
I pour myself another shot and nod at the night
waitress, hoping she’ll smile at me and
give me a knowing glance. I like her hair, it makes
me think of safety, but it’s not her hair that
snags me, but the way she bustles back to
my table, being the only customer has its advantages
since there’s no one else here and there’s nowhere else
to go and she’s got no one else to talk to
and she’s just run out of cigarette breaks and I must
have that look on my face says I’m here to stay
’til her shift is done. Might as well, she might
be saying to herself. The long ones never tip well.
God I wish I smoked. It would make these long nights
bearable. But what about life says things gotta be
so? When you’re jacked or loaded or both you
get a sense of time floating along like a tiny
river, you only gotta dip your hand in to feel the flow
but you can stay outside of it as long as you
keep your balance and watch that bank it’s slippery
easy to fall in
easy to remember
especially looking back, you see all that water comin’
at you like a wall of memories
Funny how time runs back to front. Funny how we’re always
scraping, paddling, trying to swim to the stuff we
left behind.
Bottles of whiskey floating on the surface.
I take another slug and slap down a C-note, give the waitress
another nod–you deserve it, lady–and get the hell out of there.
It’s a dark wet night out, and I feel like driving.

Family Ties and Writing Updates

jelewis8 — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 10:42:45 +0000

I got a phone call on my cell yesterday. My brother James has come back from his six months in Iraq. It was totally worth the minutes used to hear the news. I haven’t been worried about him–I don’t really worry about much. But I was just a bit unnerved at times knowing he was close to battle zones. It’s a scary situation to be in, I’m sure. It’s somewhat so for those who are waiting back home. I feel as if a weight has been lifted from me. Now that he’s back, bad things can happen to me and somehow it will all be okay.
Today (Friday) is the big day. I came close to finishing Book 1 yesterday, but I decided to hold off and writing the finishing touches tomorrow. It seems more fitting to end on a Friday, as if there’s a bit more magical juju in the end of the week flourish. I somehow hit my stride Wednesday evening, and I ended up writing around 7,000 words in under three and a half hours. That’s probably a record for me.
I’ll let you know how I feel when it’s all done. Naturally, even once I’m finished writing, the work isn’t done. I have to format it and make sure I haven’t made any major errors in logic, especially in timelines, since I do a bit of switching back and forth between stories, I want to make sure I haven’t misplaced someone in the wrong time, or given someone a vital piece of information before they’re supposed to have it. Mostly it will be minor editing. Then there’s formatting for printing, which I’ll explain more about in another post.
For now, I feel like hitting the hay now and waking up early to complete this sucker. I’m feeling good. How about you?

Knowing Thyself

jelewis8 — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 19:44:05 +0000

Inspired by a post by Ambra Nykol, Greg Piper writes of the uncertainty he’s faced, both in the past and currently, of how to be focused in his writing, and perhaps more importantly, how to define the genre in which he sees himself and his work. The questions he (essentially) poses to himself are ones I’ve often asked myself: What is my purpose in blogging? Who am I trying to reach? What do I stand for?
It isn’t uncommon for bloggers, and indeed all writers, to experience the occasional questioning, if not of the faith, so to speak, but of the goal. Inspiration and talent and motivation are all vital to the continued vibrance of a particular writer, yet without the essential knowing why, execution of one’s labours can quickly become a tangled, confused, directionless morass.
After the start of the new year, I made at least one public (ie, blogging) announcement, in which I explained my intention to take Fringe in a somewhat new “direction”; longer, more conversational pieces, continued and perhaps even increased frequency of film reviews, and a focus on the personal, social, and cultural, rather than the political. Politics wearied me in 2004. Not that I wanted to divorce myself entirely from that playing field, but I wanted to do more than just post links and rants about various news items, political talking points, or the latest information about what a creep so-and-so is. It ran its course around the end of October, and I had begun to reshape Fringe fairly soon after the election.
I wonder if I have ever clearly defined myself. My first ever post here stated the following:

Look for the oddly appealing here. I can only hope I’ll find it, along with you. Also, please excuse any site screwups. I’m still trying to figure out layout dealies, and I’ve got to consider what new sections to add as I go along (I’m thinking some school writings, maybe some poetry. Who knows. I’d also like to be politically active (and by that I mean opinionated). If you’re liberal and can’t stand a dose of strong medicine, you may want to avoid this. I will try and warn you if I’m about to go off. Or maybe I won’t, and just let you read and be offended. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Forgetting the parenthetical errors in the above paragraph, I now realize I started Fringe with the least idea of what it would be, or what it would become. Indeed, I so quickly jumped into the political realm that I nearly left my fiction, my critical essays, and poetry behind. That first year was politics all the way.
Is my purpose here a defined thing? Part of me thinks that my goal is to just have a voice. But that’s not enough. I suppose I have the luxury of maintaining a little distance from myself in that respect. Keeps me always searching, always striving for the best of myself. And it keeps traffic light. As much as I enjoy having readers, I don’t know that I want the responsibility or the care that comes with extreme popularity. Not that I wouldn’t try to do my best, given more traffic. But truly, this is only a hobby, a side sport that keeps my mind and writing sharp.
As for Greg, who is looking to make journalism and blogging part of his daily career, it’s a slightly different story. He’s managed to secure a niche market and his readership has slowly but surely climbed up the ladder of success and web traffic. He may be troubled by questions of focus, but I think he’s got the right blend of fluff and serious stuff. And he has sage wisdom that applies to anyone, whether blogger or just amateur writer for fun: Know thyself.