Frankie Goes to Hollywood

More movie watchin's.

Well, I don't have any photos for you today. We haven't done anything very interesting for photographs lately. But did go to the movies today! Thanks to Jan, who volunteered to watch my pnut for a few hours, I managed to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix today. If you know me well, you know that I'm a fan of the books, along with 90% of all other people in the world. I listened to the audiobook of this particular installment, which took something like 17 hours of my life. Luckily the movie did not take that long, although you can see the gargantuan task for a screenwriter to try and condense all of that information into 2 hours and 18 minutes. The movie hit the ground running and kept going, except for one small moment where it seemed to drag (when Sirius and Harry have a little heart-to-heart.) I found myself filling in the film's gaps with my knowledge from the book, and I wonder how someone who hadn't read the book would fare sitting through the fast pace of the film. Director David Yates, who is relatively unknown (until now), certainly likes swooping, overhead camera moves. Overall, though, the film's visual style fit with the dark, angst-ridden tone of the plot. The story did take a few liberties, but they were fairly minor and probably used to condense the plot. The acting was what we've come to expect from the franchise. In other words, the film breaks no new territory, and seemed to lack a little magical 'something', but it was solid and moved at quite a clip, which kept it from being bogged down by all of the plot material squished into the film.

Rant: My biggest complaint about the film and the books is Mrs. Weasley. Why on earth must we always thrust her into the kitchen to prepare food and why on earth was she seen chopping veggies while everyone else sat waiting to eat? Why can't the kids and other adults help? /Rant.

Last night I watched Mel Brooks's History of the World Part I (1981). It's certainly a different kind of humor, with all of the jokes being literal or bad sexual innuendos. The film wasn't anti-narrative, as in it had a plot, but it wasn't traditional. Nothing really united the segments except for a couple of common actors and, well, a horse, which brought the segments together at the end. The Esther Williams diving sequence was fantastic, along with "Jews in Space!" I almost had to wipe a tear when I saw those Star of David spaceships flying through the digital sky.

I also watched Tootsie (1982) last week. Don't ask why, it seemed like a good idea at the time. At least Dustin Hoffman wasn't wearing a fatsuit.