HP 5

Thursday, December 2, 2010 12:00 PM

NB: The film version of the seventh and final Harry Potter book,  Harry Potter and the Something something, part one,  has opened and I feel duty bound to watch  it.   In preparation for the final film chapters of the Harry Potter Saga, I will watch the six previous films and write about the experience.  There will beSPOILERS !
The fifth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix doesn't make too many big changes in the wizarding world.  Voldemort's power continues to grow, the students at Hogwarts arre divided between loyalty to Dumbledore and aleigence to Voldemort.  

Bellatrix Lestrange

Female characters are often under=developed in the Hrary Potter films.  Despite being Harry's companion since the beginning, Hermione Granger is a mystery. And aside from casting an occasional spell or helping brew a potion, she mostly rolls her eyes and “harrumph-ing” at her male companions. She was born of two muggle parents and respected for her intelligence, 

Even arch villain, Bellatrix Lestrange is given little to do except kill Sirius in the final battle.

A major exception is Dolores Umbridge, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor From the Ministry of Magic. Her public face is a sweet, elementary school teacher in pink. In private, she twitches and quivers with secret passions and ambitions. Stephan King called her “ greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter....” 

Shortly after arriving at Hogwarts she begins to insinuate herself into it administration, eventually replacing Dumbledore as headmaster and turning the school into a totalitarian state, with her installed as chief despot.

Once installed as headmistress, she rules the staff and students of Hogwarts with an iron fist, using her position with the Ministry of Magic to bully and coerce staff and her powers as a witch to subject the students to painful tortures and illegal drugs for interrogation.ses.

She is last seen being dragged off into the woods by a herd of angry centaurs. I hope to see more of this conniving, unconscionable villain. Things are much more interesting when she is around.

Saturday, December 4, 2010 03:00 PM

Insomniac Theater Presents Previews of Coming Attractions

Saturday, December 4, 2010, 6:06 AM

I've been awake for over 24 hours, the longest I've been conscious without special circumstances such as intense pain or intense pleasure. I know my heart is racing without using instruments to check it, my breathing is shallow and my skin is layered in a thin rime of cold perspiration. It is still full dark and I try to convince myself that there is no movement out there beyond the range of the porch lights.

I am at my weakest now, and I clutch my talisman, praying that dawn will come and bring salvation to me for one more day.

In the meantime, I will continue to work on my future posts; the one on Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void is nearly done.  The Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  one has to be finished soon because I watched  Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince  last night so I need to organize my thoughts on that film before I can see the latest HP film.

Then there are the ones from New Orleans,  Salt v. Machete, if I can read my hand written notes, and the personal one about the going through airport security in a wheel chair.

The dogs are barking, something is approaching the perimeter; where is Commander Adams?

Harry Potter and the fall from Grace

Monday, November 29, 2010, 11:16am

NB: The film version of the seventh and final Harry Potter book,  Harry Potter and the Something something, part one,  has opened and I feel duty bound to watch  it.   In preparation for the final film chapters of the Harry Potter Saga, I will watch the six previous films and write about the experience.  There will be SPOILERS !

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, (2005, directed by Mike Newell) , the fourth installment of the Harry Potter franchise, is the darkest so far in the series. Several references to Biblical stories and characters add gravity to the story allowing comparison between events in the wizarding world and mankind's fall and pursuit of grace.

The muggle world doesn't make more than a cameo appearance, beginning with Harry already in the wizarding world. He f irst appears, waking up fr om a troubling dream, in the home of his magical, adoptive family, the Weasleys.

Like his twin from the Bible, Voldemort
brings evil to the wizarding world

Harry's dreams show Voldemort 's efforts to regain his power. Like a messianic figure , Voldemort wants to return to flesh and lead his followers to victory, bringing his apocalypse.Once reborn, his countenance resembles a large snake head.

Lord Voldemort's minions, known as Death Eaters, bear the Dark Mark. The Dark Mark closely resembles the Mark of Cain, placed on Cain by God for murdering Able, his brother. The Mark of Cain served two purposes; to signal Cain's cursed status and as a warning that no one could kill him, he was God's alone.

The senseless killing of Hogwarts student, Cedric Diggery at the film's climax, mirrors the first post-lapsarian sin of murder. By unwittingly helping resurrect Voldemort, Harry has brought about the fall of the peaceful wizarding world. When he brings Cedric's body back to Hogwarts, yelling that Voldemort had fully returned, he is announcing the fall of the wizarding world from its graceful state. The evil he sought to escape in the muggle world and had fought so hard to prevent in the wizarding world has been unleashed.

Ron, Harry, and Hermione ponder their future

Rule 34 picture

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ends with Harry and his friends preparing themselves mentally for the new, darker world that is being born.

The Child Molester

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 09:35 AM

This is the complete version of a post I sent over to Kindertrauma.  The following story is true.  The names have been changed to protect me from libel suits, but you know who you are!

Something so frightening happened to me as a child that for most of my life I  wondered  it was real or not. I was in a strange school's cafeteria with my mother. Instead of the happy, playful atmosphere that I had associated with places like this, it was grim and foreboding.There were other kids and mothers there, but no one I knew.  Mom kept me close to her side and I felt very alone.

Part of my anxiety came from the fact that I had no idea why we were there. The other part was from the look on Mom's face.  She had her “You're in trouble” look on her face.  Had I done something wrong?  Was I going to be punished in this frightening place?  

I was half right, I hadn't done anything wrong, but what I was about to experience was so frightening that it would seem like punishment. I think  Mom was concerned about what we were both about to go through and it showed on her face.

We were there to see a movie about two little girls who took candy from a stranger and got into his car.   A fat and greasy man kidnapped two little girls while they played by enticing them with candy. He took them to the woods and after satisfying his monstrous desires, killed them. The ending was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen; the girls' bodies lay, sprawled on the ground, looking like lumps of bloody meat wrapped in children's clothing. The tiny actors were dressed like real murder victims, whose bloody crime scene photographs were used.  The bloodied children's corpses drove home the point that THIS WAS NOT JUST A MOVIE, it was real.

This was why our  mothers were there, to calm the hysterical children after the most frightening experience of our young lives.  Although I am certain many of them had nightmares themselves.

I was never sure if this actually happened or was one of the frightening dreams I was prone to, until I found it by accident on the Internet. My recollections were correct, even down to the clothes the children wore. The movie was called The Child Molester, a public service announcement made by the Highway Safety Foundation in 1964, the year I was born. What I attended with Mom was evidently a traveling roadshow, where the film went from town to town to educate parents and children about the dangers of talking to strangers.

Just what every six-year-old needs to see.

The movie had one major flaw, its purpose was to frighten children away from a phantom terror.  Most children are abused by someone known to them, a relative or trusted family friend.  It makes national news when a stranger does it. When it is Mr. Battles on Linwood Avenue, it barely gets a mention on the local news, so great is the community's shame.

The Child Molester did its job well; forty years later, I am still queasy about taking candy from strangers on the street and I seldom allow myself to be driven to isolated places in the woods by them. If any parents are worried about these things happening to their children, they may want to consider showing it to them.

I found the movie at the Internet Archive, where it can be streamed or downloaded for free.

Blogging Harry Potter

Sunday, November 28, 2010, 12:06 PM

I don't consider myself a huge Harry Potter fan. I have found that the books can be over long, over complicated, and tedious to read. But I couldn't wait to get my hands on the next one.  The movie versions, although epic in length, are stripped down to a bare minimum of plot and move along at a fast pace. The film version of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Something something, part one, has opened and I feel duty bound to watch  it.   In preparation for the final film chapters of the Harry Potter Saga, I will watch the six previous films and write about the experience.  There will be SPOILERS!

I downloaded all six movies from a USENET newsgroup and started re-watching the films during our recent vacation in New Orleans. My plan was to write about each film as I saw them, but didn't have the energy after our long trip.  It was easier to watch the next movie. I ended up watching the first three together, and write about them in one post.

Some of the things I wanted to write about are but couldn't fit in are:

• I do some of my best thinking in the shower.
• Not a lot happens until the end of the first and second movie. The previous 2/3rds are exposition about the characters and location.  The real mystery doesn't present itself until the end, when Harry fights against his nemesis.
• The third movie is beautifully made, using many interesting and stylish effects.  A great example is the glorious montages that depict the changing of seasons.  Sometimes the visual style threatens to overwhelm the movie, but it is totally worth it when you can't sleep.

We first meet our protagonist in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) , directed by Chris Columbus. His further adventures are chronicled 2002's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, also directed by Chris Columbus. The third installment in the Harry Potter franchise is 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, this time directed by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron.

Harry Potter is an orphaned adolescent whose parents were murdered by evil wizard, Lord Voldemort when he was an infant. He divides his time between the nonmagical world of his aunt and uncle and the magical world of his parents. Each film takes place during a single school year and chronicles Harry's growth, both as a wizard and as an adolescent heading for adulthood. The films have a similar three act structure; Harry's relationship to the nonmagical world of “muggles” (non-wizards or non-witches), his life during the school year, and a final segment that is part climactic battle and part epiphany.

Each movie begins in the muggle world, the non magical world, in the home of his abusive, adoptive family, the Dursleys. Harry struggles to fit in with them, but they treat him with contempt, believing him responsible for the death of his mother, sister of Mr. Dursley. Life with the Dursleys is work and and humiliation.  Their dislike of Harry is so great that they bar the windows and padlock the door to his room.

As Harry's strength and maturity grows in the wizarding world, so does his ability to defend himself in the muggle world.This arc is reflected by how he leaves the house; in the first two films, he needs help to leave the house, but in third, he is able to walk out on his own.  

The middle section of each film takes place at Hogwarts, a school for people with magical abilities.  Hogworts is also where Harry makes his friends and meets his enemies.  His greatest enemy is the mysterious Lord Voldemort, the wizard that killed Harry's parents. Voldemort is known as a “dark” or evil wizard who was unsuccessful in his attempt to kill Harry when he was an infant.  He is without physical body in the first three movies, relying on humans to do his evil bidding.

Draco Malfoy and his toadies

Among Harry's mortal enemies is the Malfoy family, whose son Draco also attends Hogwarts. The Malfoys preach racial superiority, based on how the magical talents were inherited. Like white supremacists, they often refer to them and their kind as “pure bloods.” Lucius, the patriarch of the family, uses his position at The Ministry of Magic, the governing arm of the wizarding world, to foment discriminatiuon against half bloods, wizards and witches with one magical parent, and mud bloods, those with two muggle parents.

Near the end of the school year, also the final section of the film, Harry does battle against his enemies, using the tools he picked up inn the middle section.  As the series progresses, Harry's strength and skill also increases.  

Hermione helps Harry save himself

In the first two films, Harry receives aide off-screen; the first is a spell cast by his mother to save him from Voldemort, the second by two magical items that appear, well, magically.  In the third film, Harry is able to save himself by going back in time to save himself when failed to cast a spell correctly.  Even though his loyal friend, Hermione, provided him with the means to travel back in time, it was his increased confidence that allowed him to succeed where he had failed earlier (or failed at the same time? Time travel can be so confusing.).

Thus far, Harry is well on his way down the path of his own bildungsroman,  his journey from adolescent to adult.  I can't wait (maybe I am that big of a Harry Potter fan after all) to see what happens in the next movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Sunday, November 28, 2010, 9:30 pm

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