weekend stuff
Jun. 21st, 2004 02:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kodalaiSo, it's been a busy weekend.
On Friday we went out to celebrate my mum's birthday. I won't go into detail except that my sunfish had these very interesting side dish thingies. They had some italian name I can't remember, but they were apparently a bastard child of potato, pasta, and rice flour. They were very disturbing to eat, since my brain couldn't decide whether to file them under "potato" or "pasta" but I can't help but think that they would make the world's greatest comfort food. I shudder to think of the carb content.
Saturday night we went out to see a play, Gilbert and Sullivan, or two -- Trial by Jury and The Sorcerer. I enjoyed the second much more than the first, but it was an adventure all the same.
Gorgeous weather today. I mean, really. Even by CA standards -- no smog.
Today I went to see Harry Potter again, this time with mother and father (both of whom were interested in seeing it) in tow. Father has never read the books. It was very interesting to hear about the movie from the point of view of someone who didn't know the story already. He guessed early on that Sirius would be innocent, but thought that the guilty one would be Lupin -- actually, he came up with the theory that Lupin's lycanthropy (he guessed that early on too) didn't actually turn him into a wolf, but into a murdering monster who would betray his friends. It was a pretty neat theory.
I consoled him afterwards that Rowling always did that -- spent a book building up foreshadowing to one villain, then pulling another out of the woodwork at the last moment. He commented somewhat defensively that if he had seen Black's name in print, he would have easily made the connection between "Sirius" and the dog we saw throughout the movie. Probably he would have. I would have guessed that Lupin was a werewolf much earlier on in the book if I hadn't just read Watership Down and had rabbits on the brain. ^^;
Looking at it from this perspective, I could see how they built Lupin up in such an ambiguous way (Speaking of, Lupin is *tall!* Either that or Gary Oldman and Alan Rickman are really short, but migod, Sirius barely came up to Remus' collarbone! Okay, done now.) And taking that, combined with the theory that Cuaron used lycanthropy as a metaphor for homosexuality -- well, it put all his long, private chats with Harry in a new light. Taking a young, orphaned boy under his wing, cultivating his trust, getting Harry to look up to and admire him so much -- if Lupin had turned out to be a bad guy in the end, it could have had some very ugly overtones.
To finish off a critical review much more thoughtful than Ebert's, there were a few things I think they could have/should have shaved to make room for a few more lines of dialogue to bring out some plot points that would have patched together a lot of the holes to make a stronger whole. I.e, that Remus, Sirius, James and Peter were actually Moony, Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail -- that they had written the map themselves -- that they were all animagi, for heaven's sake! -- that Peter killed thirteen innocent bystanders when he faked his own death -- that Snape was making the potion for Lupin. (The only mention of the potion came out of nowhere.)
Still, they got all the important points in there -- Daniel Radcliffe being very cute and Harryish, gorgeous Scottish scenery, gorgeous flashing white Patronuses, Hermione decking Malfoy, Harry falling through the sleet off his broom (eep!) Snape's oh-so-deadly drawl ("Page three-hundred and ninety-fourr") and most importantly, handsome men groping each other in the guise of werewolfy translations. Can't complain.
Tomorrow at 10 (well, today at 10) my prospective student is coming over to try the first Japanese lesson. Eek! I hope he decides to continue them, I hope I hope! This is my only source of income this summer!
So, with that in mind, good night!
On Friday we went out to celebrate my mum's birthday. I won't go into detail except that my sunfish had these very interesting side dish thingies. They had some italian name I can't remember, but they were apparently a bastard child of potato, pasta, and rice flour. They were very disturbing to eat, since my brain couldn't decide whether to file them under "potato" or "pasta" but I can't help but think that they would make the world's greatest comfort food. I shudder to think of the carb content.
Saturday night we went out to see a play, Gilbert and Sullivan, or two -- Trial by Jury and The Sorcerer. I enjoyed the second much more than the first, but it was an adventure all the same.
Gorgeous weather today. I mean, really. Even by CA standards -- no smog.
Today I went to see Harry Potter again, this time with mother and father (both of whom were interested in seeing it) in tow. Father has never read the books. It was very interesting to hear about the movie from the point of view of someone who didn't know the story already. He guessed early on that Sirius would be innocent, but thought that the guilty one would be Lupin -- actually, he came up with the theory that Lupin's lycanthropy (he guessed that early on too) didn't actually turn him into a wolf, but into a murdering monster who would betray his friends. It was a pretty neat theory.
I consoled him afterwards that Rowling always did that -- spent a book building up foreshadowing to one villain, then pulling another out of the woodwork at the last moment. He commented somewhat defensively that if he had seen Black's name in print, he would have easily made the connection between "Sirius" and the dog we saw throughout the movie. Probably he would have. I would have guessed that Lupin was a werewolf much earlier on in the book if I hadn't just read Watership Down and had rabbits on the brain. ^^;
Looking at it from this perspective, I could see how they built Lupin up in such an ambiguous way (Speaking of, Lupin is *tall!* Either that or Gary Oldman and Alan Rickman are really short, but migod, Sirius barely came up to Remus' collarbone! Okay, done now.) And taking that, combined with the theory that Cuaron used lycanthropy as a metaphor for homosexuality -- well, it put all his long, private chats with Harry in a new light. Taking a young, orphaned boy under his wing, cultivating his trust, getting Harry to look up to and admire him so much -- if Lupin had turned out to be a bad guy in the end, it could have had some very ugly overtones.
To finish off a critical review much more thoughtful than Ebert's, there were a few things I think they could have/should have shaved to make room for a few more lines of dialogue to bring out some plot points that would have patched together a lot of the holes to make a stronger whole. I.e, that Remus, Sirius, James and Peter were actually Moony, Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail -- that they had written the map themselves -- that they were all animagi, for heaven's sake! -- that Peter killed thirteen innocent bystanders when he faked his own death -- that Snape was making the potion for Lupin. (The only mention of the potion came out of nowhere.)
Still, they got all the important points in there -- Daniel Radcliffe being very cute and Harryish, gorgeous Scottish scenery, gorgeous flashing white Patronuses, Hermione decking Malfoy, Harry falling through the sleet off his broom (eep!) Snape's oh-so-deadly drawl ("Page three-hundred and ninety-fourr") and most importantly, handsome men groping each other in the guise of werewolfy translations. Can't complain.
Tomorrow at 10 (well, today at 10) my prospective student is coming over to try the first Japanese lesson. Eek! I hope he decides to continue them, I hope I hope! This is my only source of income this summer!
So, with that in mind, good night!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 09:45 am (UTC)My theory is actually that lycanthropy=AIDS, since I tend to think of Sirius as gay too, esp. in Book 5, and he's not a werewolf. Lycanthropy is so clearly a disease (a dangerous one, that other people hate and are afraid of, not entirely without cause), I hate to see it equated with plain ol' homosexuality.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 09:49 am (UTC)Fits with the chronic/worsening illness, too.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 10:46 am (UTC)(On a second viewing, I saw the dog/wolf fight towards the end as having a very sexual element--all that embracing and talking about true hearts immediately prior didn't help, either. Not that I'm complaining...)
T'was gnocchi. V. yummy.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 11:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 10:35 am (UTC)Good luck with the lesson!!
no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 10:38 pm (UTC)