Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Harry Potter, Art Sale, and Kittehs!


I'm making greeting cards from photos of binks' DVD art and our trip to Sicily (including the steps, left, from Monreale--where my grandmother was born)
for bink's ART SALE

This Friday and Saturday, after Thanksgiving
November 26 & 27
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
On the corner of 28th & Hennepin,
(where the DVD to ART show was)

If you're in town, come by and say hi--I'll be there.
____________

I went to see the new Harry Potter--HP & the Deathly Hallows, Part 1-- this weekend.
It was like one long fanvid, one that drains the color (from the picture and, by extension, life), dunks you in cold wet pain, and leaves you to twist in the wind of overwrought goth music (unnecessary adjective, I know), such as Evanescence.

If you enjoy this sort of thing, it's great!
Really--it's very well done.



It falls in the PWP (plot? What plot?) category, like porn. The porn isn't sex, it's emotional and physical torment.
It's more like illustrations to a story than a story itself:
you already have to know the story and care about the characters to get it. Which I imagine most people who go see it do.

Me? Well, I loved Snape's entrance, in full stride, cape billowing.

And there's a truly lovely moment when the frightened and abandoned Harry and Hermione dance to the radio together.
Did the director mean it as a nod to Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis stealing a dance to the car radio in Witness (dir. Peter Weir)? It's that good!


But Snape's only in the first ten minutes of the movie--mostly it's two plus hours of Harry, Hermione, and Ron (Rupert Grint stole the show) undergoing gloom, fear, loss, near despair ...and torture.

It perfectly illustrates the culture's attitude toward sex and violence that under J. K. Rowling's orders, fan fiction sites are monitored to make sure they don't post pornographic stories because, Rowling says, these books are for children. But graphic torture of beloved characters onscreen is perfectly OK.

The movie is like a close brush with a soul-sucking dementor.
Even though I wasn't particularly moved by the end--it went on so long, it lost its power for me--still, it was depressing on a biological level. After I left the theater, as I walked home in the sleety rain across the Mississippi River, it crossed my mind to throw myself off the bridge. It just seemed like an appropriate response.

But things like this keep me going: INVISIBLE KITTEH!

Via Elle Est Belle

And now I must work. On top of my usual A-list procrastination skills I'd added dawdling, thinking the publisher had given me an extension, but it turns out the book designers need at least a rough ms to work from next month.
Eek! What I have now is a big messy pile of interesting stuff---I feel like the princess in the tower who must spin straw into gold...

6 comments:

momo said...

What gorgeous colors on those steps! I'm planning to stop by the art sale on Saturday after we get back from our T-day travels up north. We are leaving today to miss driving in the blizzard.
Haven't seen the HP movie yet, although my resident fan went with her BFF. It sounds grim! I hope today's sunshine helps melt away the downer energy of the film, and that you find joy in the writing!

Clowncar said...

Witness! Peter Wier! You made my day.

My wife and eldest are big HP fans. Youngest is scared of them, I am mildly interested while not quite understanding what the fuss is all about. Regardless, Mr. Rickman is the best thing in it. He's often the best thing in a movie. In some cases - Costner's Robin Hood, which I recall you mentioning some time back - he is the only good thing in a movie.

Ever seen Truly, Madly, Deeply? Wonderful.

Marz said...

So your grandmother was born on a staircase. Yes, this explains almost everything.

femminismo said...

Rickman is great! Thanks for posting that picture. I am hopeful there is no quiddich (sp?) in this Potter movie???? Please tell me there isn't any. Good thing you enjoy writing as a way of having fun. Keep it up!

fL said...

Thank goodness you've seen HP so I don't have to. Not that I would have done anyway, by about the thrid chapter of the fifth instalment I too had lost the will to live and have avoided all manifestations of the phenomenon where possible ever since. Keeping hold of the signed first editions though.

Fresca said...

MOMO: Thanks. The gloom a physical response to music and visual stimulus... it passed when I did some SILLY WALKS.

CLOWN: I've now watched all of Peter Weir's movies & plan on blogging about them one day...

"Truly Madly Deeply" is one of my favorite movies! Remember the scene with the Neruda poem in it? I should post that.

MARZ: Yes, and such a staircase!
Truly, the city is on a hill and is full of streets of stairs--built before cars, of course.

FISMO: Hallelujah! NO QUIDDICH! This is the good news about the movie.

FRIZZ: Though as a teenager suffering from existential angst, I would have enjoyed this HP, my witnessing of suffering since then has diminished my ability to enjoy suffering served up *for its own sake*.
Signed first editions, eh?