they found the funny! they found the funny! oh man this movie was so good. and i was so happy that it made me laugh this time.
let’s be honest here the first harry potter movie kind of sucked ass. they were trying so hard to do everything that was in the book that they kind of forgot to have any fun with it. or experiment with slightly different angles on it or anything. and so it was boring and long and even vaguely poorly filmed what with the whole inability to change light effects gradually thus giving people migraines in the theatre. but this one, oh man. i laughed so much more. considering i laughed maybe once the first time and although maybe i was laughing a lot in this one at inappropriate times. such as when lucias malfoy tells Harry that he’ll meet a “sticky end.” and my mind flashed to this report i heard on the radio last week about a truck that overturned that was carrying glue and how the clean-up crew was attempting to remove the glue from the highway and i was like, “sticky! harry potter! glue! sticky! hwee hwee eee heee!” you see what i’m saying? totally inappropriate and possibly unrelated. but whatever it was still so much better.
even though their voices are kind of changing and they do look a little old to be 12 year olds, (i mean, look how young they were in the first one! crap!. and possibly they’re shifting the ron-Hermoine (and just look at her! she’s so cute!) hook up to a harry-hermoine hook up. that’s just my opinion, mind. (well and also erica’s) but you know how in the books the implication between ron and hermoine’s interactions is that they really like each other too much whereas her and harry can be a bit more open because they’re just friends? well in the movie at the end when she goes to hug harry and ron. her hug with a harry is a trifle TOO much. it goes on just a little too long and the joy in their faces while they get to hug is a little bit more than just friends. besides that at the beginning when she finds him in diagon alley and you expect them to hug but she doesn’t? it seemed like the hesitent tension was there between them. i don’t know. it was odd. and you’ve got to kind of wonder since we know j.k. rowling has written the last chapter of the seventh book and thus the ending for each character is clear, you’ve got to wonder, right, whether they know already in the filming process what’s going to happen since she is giving advice on set for certain things too. i mean…she already told hagrid what happens to him.
my brain totally works overtime at the movies doesn’t it? ah well.
some parts of course were just gross. but they all did a really good job i thought. although watching harris sometimes was kind of sad, and near the end i was pretty sure that some of the angles they were doing and way they were filming his final scene with harry were due to the fact that they had to hide that it was some stand in actor and not really richard harris anymore.
on the whole though my opinion: harry potter 2 is super 8 great and i want to see it again already!
p.s. i forgot to mention that kennth branagh as gilderoy lockheart was really a huge hammy goodness too.
Hmmm….I’m not so sure about your interp. of the Harry/Hermione thing. If they really meant that, then why did they do that whole awkward Ron/Hermione no-hug thing? I felt a lot more romantic tension there than in the harry/hermione diagon alley meeting. Plus, at at the end hug, I think they were trying to show how Harry and Hermione are just friends (and thus don’t think twice about hugging, because it doesn’t mean anything), but Ron and Hermione are wary of hugging, because it’s much more sexual for them.
Personally, I didn’t like this 2nd movie as much. Even though they cut a lot out, I think they tried to leave too much in. As a result, I felt very hurried through the movie. Rather than allowing time for character development, things just happened happened happened happened. We learned this, we learned that, this thing went on, that thing went on, etc. etc. etc. I almost felt like there was a hand prodding me forward through the plot, instead of the plot sucking me in.
ha! you know what’s funny was that erica and i were worried about you seeing it while we were watching it due to the whole spider thing, and we were going to warn you before you saw it just in case. but here you have already gone and seen it with no warning. but apprently they did not phase you, spider-afeared boy.
and also, yeah certainly you can argue my opinion on the whole romance thing. i mean i totally TOTALLY think the book is setting up the ron hermoine thing. but….i dunno the movie to me just seemed a little different. but i think too my ability to distance myself from what i THOUGHT was true in the books to what the movie is now showing me is due to the fact that i haven’t read the books since right before the 1st one came out. which was a deliberate action on my part considering how much i disliked the first one due to the (at that point) all too recent reiteration of my affection for the books. and you i think have read them more recently than me, so maybe that too is why we have different opinions on this. i just dunno. it’s wierd, isn’t it, how depending on when you come to the movies and the books how heavily your opinion of them is altered? fascinating.
I was pretty worried about the spiders, too. But Aragor (or whatever the huge spider’s name was) didn’t scare me too badly. Seeing the TEEMING MASSES OF SPIDERS wasn’t very fun, though. But I’m trying not to think about it.
yeah watching all those fuzzy bodies stampede thru the forest….no good. no good at all.
perhaps aragorn from LoTR? hwee. don’t mind me i have no idea what the spider’s name was either.
i hated the whole spiders thing, which i did think was a LoTR ripoff on rowlings’s part. (please don’t hit me.)
i’m with you on the plot thing jacob. for example, hermione becoming a cat was funny in the book, where there was room for stuff to happen not directly related to furthering the plot, but I thought could have been cut from the movie. even as they cut the deathday party, which I was sad about but felt made it a more logical film.
I also thought the hermione-ron not-hug was riddled with sexual tension. and so was riddle himself, the little hottie. and lucius malfoy is a babe, no matter what you say. mm…evil old men…
noooooo!!! not your wierd sexual obsession with lucius malfoy on my page! oh hot diggity that is so gross.
tom riddle on the other hand….totally not gross. and small part of oliver wood totally disappointing. we want more wood! more wood!
ahem.
come on, it’s no weirder than my giles obsession.
wait, yes it is. because giles does not bathe in bacon grease and malfoy clearly does.
Speaking of things seeming rushed….what the hell was up with John Cleese (Nearly Headless Nick)!?
Kids: “Hi, Nearly Headless Nick!”
Cleese: “Hi, kids!”
Kids: “Oh no! Nearly Headless Nick has been attacked by the monster!”
Cleese: *makes a face and hangs limp*
Kids: “Hi, Nearly Headless Nick!”
Cleese: “Hi, kids!”
It’s like Cleese was horribly busy with something else and could only come in to film Tuesday April 12th from 2-4 pm, just before his racketball game.
you know what, I bet they did film his deathday party originally or at least had planned to. because I don’t think nick ever has another major part in the books. c’est vrai? not sure. but putting the deathday party in would really be the only reason for shelling out the bucks for john cleese. I know, because when I had him do my last birthday party I was in debt for months.
The spider’s name is Aragog.
I didn’t get any sexual tension from Harry and Hermoine so I think you’re on crack. But then again I just listened to all the books again so maybe I’m biased.
And I couldn’t stop laughing every time Kenneth came on screen. Oh! He was funny.
but wasn’t his scene where all he said was “thank you!” “thanks!” brilliant?
but yeah you’re right the inability for the film to mesh the large amount of characters in the book into a watchable, unrushed movie is pretty pathetic. but….i mean if it was someone acting other than john cleese would we care so much? because honestly even though i really like nearly headless nick in the books, it’s not like he’s my fave character, or even a central character. do you think we just want him to be in it more because john cleese is so great? or is NHN really one of your favorite characters? really his role in the books even is not that important to much of anything related to overarching plot so it doesn’t seem so bizarre that he’s in the movies so little (so far).
no, not bizarre as such, and I’m not complaining. because the character *is* incidental. it’s only bizarre that they used a big expensive star for a small pointless part.
what thanks scene?
ps thank you nuala. more like ara-GAG. because, ew, spiders.
i was going more with A-GOG. cause that’s what i was at all those spiders.
well i think it’s less bizarre that they used big star stupid part and more that they’re just fucking dumb. but that’s just me. =)
the thanks scene at the end when he’s been unpetrified and comes back into the great hall and everyone’s like, “good to have you back nick!” “how ya doing nick?” and he’s like, “thank you!” “thanks, it’s good to be back!” “thanks!” ummm at the time you said it was brilliant how he could do so much with so little so i’m a little confused as to how you’ve forgotten this already. unless it was erica that said that in which case i forgot already and am therefore not an elephant.
it was erica and you are the anti-elephant.
but you know what i’m talking about now right? cause you concurred with erica when she said it.
i know the scene now but i don’t remember our conversation. probably i was just agreeing absent mindedly while dreaming of lucius malfoy.
and i do believe like maybe 30 seconds after we all agreed that john cleese was funny even when given no part, you immediately dived into raptures over how hot lucius the horrible is.
yeah…I am a bed listener.
er!
a *bad* listener.
in fact, the conversation went something like this:
me: didn’t you think john cleese was funny in that last banquet scene? he can do so much with so little dialogue.
kris: yeah.
me: are you listening?
kris: yeah.
me: kristen, look, that guy over there is completely naked, covered in glitter, and assaulting a brazilian midget holding what i believe is a mango.
kris: yeah.
me: midgit?! where?!
mmm mangoes….
kris: lucius malfoy had a midget. a little house midget. mmm, malfoy…
scorn: THAT was not a midgit.
IT IS A MIDGET IF MALFOY SAYS IT IS A MIDGET, WOMAN!
HE NEVER CALLED IT A MIDGIT! JUST YOU DID!
MY MIDGIT MUNCHES MANGOES!
SUCK IT!
p.s. muck my molasses, malfoy!
ok, i THINK i know what he does and does not say a LITTLE better than you. i mean he and I ARE clandestine lovers, duh, hello.
eeeewwwwww.
I think if you haven’t read the books, you would definately feel more of the H/H vibe. There are no hints to H/R in the movies, except perhaps the end. I got way more of an H/H vibe, and has everyone else I know that have only seen the movies. The movies, I think, definately ship H/H – even if that’s not what the books do.
kaka – thank you.
kristen – neener neener neener.
Actually the hugging thing with Hermione was that Emma was embarassed to hug both of them in the movie in front of the crew so they changed the script so that she only had to hug daniel her hermione and ron were supposed to jus be embarrassed about it all thats why she din hug him.