Robert pointed out something astute in his comment on my last post:

I know you said it was good, but you failed to mention ANYTHING positive about that Harry Potter movie.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it’s easier to criticize. (I keep thinking back to Anton Ego’s words at the end of Ratatouille. Insightful stuff.) Secondly, I really didn’t want to write anything yesterday so I quit shortly after hitting my three hundred words mark. (105 days and there’re still three competitors in the IMBC! Crazy.) Also, it’s a little harder to talk about these later Harry Potter movies without spoiling things. But in the end there’s really no excuse for my omission.

Okay, so: The good stuff from HPatOotP (talk about an unwieldy acronym…):

• Harry reading Snape’s mind in a fit of exasperation. (”Legilimens!“) Pretty amusing. But, most importantly, it explained a lot of why Snape acts the way he does and why he (at least superficially) dislikes Harry in particular.
• Bellatrix Lestrange. I love the newspaper photographs of Azkaban prisoners — that ridiculous, insane screaming is such a cool embellishment for the setting. Bellatrix’s over-the-top crazy/evilness was funny and weird without detracting from the action. Plus that actress has such an interesting face. You know she played Ari in the 2001 Planet of the Apes movie?
• Dumbledore’s defense of Harry at the Ministry of Magic hearing. The subtle machinations of the council to exclude Dumbledore, and his clever anticipation/circumvention of said trickery, was delicious. Plus I’m a big fan of courtroom dramas. This is my fantasy: Law & Order: Wizard’s Council — a resurrection of Trial By Jury, but set in the Harry Potter universe. Sam Waterston and Bebe Neuwirth playing the ADAs (or magical equivalent). Come on, you know you’d watch that.
• Umbridge getting dragged away by angry centaurs. Doesn’t everyone love seeing villains get their comeuppance?

Those’re the highlights. There was the usual CG eyecandy as well… I didn’t care for Hagrid’s giant brother much as a character, but the animation was nifty. And as much as I normally dislike ground combat in movies, the one towards the end with Voldemort and his Death Eaters was pretty cool.

I watched What a Way to Go! (1964) last night. Rat Pack movies aren’t usually my thing, but this one was a lot of fun. Shirley MacLaine, Dick Van Dyke, Gene Kelly, Dean Martin… classic stuff.

I’m about two-thirds through Hyperion ATM. Simmons must be a real dyed-in-the-wool literary type — there are a lot of (often obscure) references to Beowulf and the stories-within-a-story framing and travel themes seem very reminiscent of Heart of Darkness. There’s probably some heavy symbolism with the character archetypes too: The priest, the scholar, the soldier, the poet, the detective, and the diplomat. Where have I seen that combination before?

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