No Country For Old Men

So I finally saw this masterpiece. Kelly and I had planned to see Guillermo Del Toro's (Pan's Labyrinth) latest, The Orphanage, but it stopped playing this weekend so I was like, have you seen No Country For Old Men? She hadn't and it was exciting because I'd just about given up on seeing it in theatres.

Anyway, it was effing amazing. The Coen Brothers have made some of my favorite movies (Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, The Big Lebowski) and they keep getting better. Everyone keeps talking about how it's so violent, but honestly it's not much in comparison to say, a Tarantino flick in which the director obviously finds a great deal of beauty in violence. The most violent bit was at the beginning but after that the violence is relegated to either the discovery of what was a violent scene or shooting scenes. There are some scenes of cleaning of gunshot wounds as well.

Really what got me was the way the story was told. I'm sure a lot of this rests on the Cormac McCarthy novel it's based on, but it was just amazing the way it took all of these storytelling conventions and flipped them on their head. It's steeped in ideas of folklore, in western heroes and villains, and yet the way it handles these conventions and expectations makes the theme of changing times--at least in the view of the protagonists--all the more potent and evident. It was somewhat meta. Not as nearly in self aware a way Atonement, but it was still there.

Also, this guy?


Awesomely creepy.

Go see it. Now.

Reading: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

The Golden Compass

So I went to see The Golden Compass tonight. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. I thought that it was generally quite well cast, but that when writing the screenplay the screenwriters forgot something fairly important: the book is third person close to Lyra the whole time. The first one, anyway. The second book introduces Will, but we really aren't there yet so never mind. Anyway, the scenes without Lyra, which made the movie third person omniscient, felt awkward to me, espcially seeing as they were made up, not in the book, and therefore assumptions. It also didn't help that characters would say things that sounded very awkward but were said to let the viewer know what was going on. One especially artless piece of dialog required Lyra to cry upon being rescued by the Gyptians: "You're Ma Costa! You're Billy's mum!" as though she was only just meeting the woman when they obviously had known each other for some time. I would have been much easier for her to cry "Ma Costa!" in delight and have someone say something later about her being Billy's mum. At any rate, there were several instances of this that just stuck out horribly.

Another problem I had was the fleeting introduction of characters and their sudden attachment to Lyra, and the almost cartoony vilification of the Magisterium (evidently it is a technical ecclesiastical term in the Roman Catholic Church referring to the teaching authority of the church). I mean, that was certainly there in the books, but not to this point of ludicrousness. It actually all reminded me a lot of Ivan's The Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, but to the extreme. The "church people" in the movie were barely under the pretense that they were doing it for the good of humanity. In order to make it more digestible, they changed the feeling of the Magisterium to that of a "big brother" a la Orwell's 1984, or to Stalinist Soviet Union. It felt like a bit of a cop out to me, actually.

Along with this, I won't spoil anything, but they completely cut the last bit of the book out. I suppose they wanted to end on a happy note or something, but without the ending Lord Asriel's character was flat as cardboard. I also think that the ending in the book is a lot more intriguing and would be much more apt to have me come back for more.



Okay, that was the ugly. Now for the good. I thought the girl who played Lyra was pretty much spot on. They have a great, very cool character in Lyra and they didn't let it go to waste. Lyra was well developed, as was Mrs. Coulter and Iorek. Everyone else basically gets their five minutes. Anyway, I'm supposed to be talking about the good, so I'll say that Iorek was completely kick ass. He made me want to have an armored bear of my very own. He's voiced by Ian McKellen so I was getting flashes of Gandalf all over the place. There was one bit where Lyra was crossing a skinny ice bridge and he was behind her and I kept expecting him to go "Fly you fool!" Man, that would have been cool. The fight scenes were also really cool and even portions caused Christine to duck behind her coat though there was literally no blood. She's just a pansy. It was oddly beautiful actually, because when the person died, their daemon would vaporize in a puff of glittering gold. Kelly and I both agreed that Lyra had adorable outfits throughout. I coveted a little knitted bonnet hat she wore in Norway, just in a different color.

Anyway, it was a bit clunky, but overall fairly entertaining. I'm just really picky and it really just didn't blow me away like I'd hoped (but didn't actually think) that it would. I think I was better able to understand and see depth in things because I'd read the books, too. I think they could have done a less ham fisted and artless exploration of the humanistic ideas that are inherent in the books. It also occurs to me that the people who are so frightened of this movie and the books and who wish to censor it are acting exactly how Pullman accuses the Church of acting in His Dark Materials. Like I've said before, if you can't read Pullman without giving up your faith, then maybe you didn't have any to begin with. It's not about how Christianity is evil. It's about the corruption that is bound to occur when flawed humans are given something as powerful, strange, and beautiful as faith.

Interesting article on it all HERE.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix = Big Disappointment

But really, what else is new? I knew it would be quite lackluster going in simply because it was only a little over two hours and the book itself is around 700 pages. I've read several reviews on this movie that are not favorable, but the reviewer never seems to have read the book. This is a review from the perspective of someone who has read all the books and loves them.

This is Harry's emo year, something I think he's allowed due to the fact that his childhood was a mess and he witnessed poor Cedric die at the end of Goblet of Fire when he found out for certain that Voldemort was back. Really though, that doesn't make the emo-ness any less funny. I just find it fairly realistic. Anyway, the fifth book was basically about foreshadow and the slow build up of dark power and it was quite dark and eerie. The movie, I think, did manage to capture this. What it did not capture was the nuances of the rest of the book. I mean, Harry Potter is in school. Harry Potter is on the quidditch team. The book is dark, but it's also quite funny. I think that overall Harry Potter is a good deal harder to do than other fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings because the characters are fully developed people that you really care about. The characters in Lord of the Rings were actually developed more in the movies; in the books they were nothing more than archetypes.

So here is my slew of complaints:

1) First off, their Miss Figg was awful. Just really awful! She's supposed to be frantic and angry but instead she's soft spoken and calm. I mean, for goodness sake! She's a squib and the boy she's supposed to be watching after's just been attacked by dementors! That was just awful.

2) Hermione and Ron weren't made Prefects. Are they just writing that out entirely from now on?

3) Quidditch was never even mentioned. Are they done with quidditch entirely as well? Because that had a lot to do with Ron's character in the later books. I mean, where is Ron's character without "Weasley is our King"?

4) Ron had all of four lines.

5) Having Harry and Cho make out in front of the picture of Cedric was unnecessarily gross.

6) What the hell was up with having Cho spill the beans instead of Marietta? And I know it would be horrid to mar Cho's pretty face, but they could have at least kept the bit about Hermione charming the contract everyone in Dumbledore's Army signed to spell out "SNEAK" in pimples if they betrayed the group. That was brill, and I loved Hermione all the more for it. Also, I realize this was a quick way to break Harry and Cho up without having go into all the issues involved with going out with the boy who watched your last boyfriend being killed by a dark lord who many don't even believe has returned, but still. Once it was let out that she only gave out because of veritaserum it kind of ruins it.

7) What was with all the development of Kreacher only to not have him play the pivotal role in the death of Sirius? Also, I could have done with the Sirius's mother's portrait occasionally shouting "Mud-Blood!" and "Blood Traitor!" That would not have been that time consuming.

8) It was nice meeting you for five seconds, Tonks!

9) I really didn't give a shite when Sirius died. Also, why did he die before he fell through the veil? That's not what happened in the book.

10) I think Malfoy spoke once. They're going to have fun with that in the next one when he has a huge part.

11) Why was Ginny acting kind of jealous? She wasn't jealous, she was dating all sorts of fellows by then.

12) Why did they skip out of the kids actually being able to defend themselves in the Department of Mysteries? And why did everyone travel about in smoke? I don't think they can do that. Sure, they can apparate but that was definitely not apparating. I mean, it looked cool but I was kind of looking forward to seeing Death Eater's heads shrinking and such. It made these young witches and wizards who, in two years time will have to be battling full force with that sort, seem helpless.

13) I don't know about everyone else, but I always pictured the Ministry of Magic as pristine and white. Why was it black? And why was there a creep Stalinist portrait of Fudge floating about?

14) Why was Harry actually possessed by Voldemort? The whole point in the book was that he wasn't possessed by Voldemort. He talked about it with Ginny and she was like, "Well did you kill any chickens? Cause that's what happened to me when I was possessed by Voldemort." And he was like, "No." And then he wasn't possessed by Voldemort.

15) Could they try and bit a bit more subtle with the message next time? I prefer to not be beaten over the head with the moral of the movie.

That being said, they did do some things quite well. Umbridge was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. Seriously. And that's including Ralph Fiennes without a nose. I'm also glad they included the twin's bang of an exit, I was quite worried about that. It's wasn't that well done, but I still did smile because it made me remember how it happened in the book, which was absolutely brill. I really think that this would all work better as a miniseries because then it could be four or five hours no big deal. It's a lot to cram into 2 hours and 10 minutes. Too much to make it good.

Finally, I say what heck to the movie theatre. They keep putting in more and more commercials (not trailers, commercials) before the movie yet instead of reducing ticket prices, which you might think would happen, ticket prices go up. We went to a 10:00 showing of Harry Potter. It didn't start until 10:22. Ridiculous.

7 days until Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! *squeals in delight* I really cannot wait!

Listening to: Wilco--Sky Blue Sky