Anonymous Notes

I watched the Movie a couple of weekends back and thought I’d write down my thoughts about it sooner but never got down to it.

Anyway here goes.

This movie is more a movie and less book. The classic elements of mirth and rejuvenation in the first half was followed through with a deeper and darker second half. There are added elements of comedy which were not present in the book, but at the same time since it was a pretty long book they had to cut off some parts.

Of all the characters Mad eye moody was a dampner in the middle of an almost perfect cast. My memories of Moody from the book were that of mystery, enigma and above all cool. Moody was the character who was a bit paranoid but came off as very powerful and potent auror and wizard. In the movie Moody is played by Brendan Gleeson who came off a bit more lathargic than I’d like.

SPOILER ALERT.

Apart from that they cut of significant portions from Madame Maxime, Rita Skeeter and they have done away with Ludo Bagman altogether. Also messed up were all the hullabaloo about the Veela’s which made some of the scenes involving the Beaubaxton girls come off as silly rather than charming. And the worst part was when they messed up the final sequence. No Blast ended Skrewts, No puzzles in the Maze.

More stuff that didn’t match up was Harry’s efficiency in handling the first task. And hence Harry’s was not the first contestant to enter the lake on the second task. Also Dobby is completely missing and Neville Longbottom figures out the gillyweed from the book that Moody gave him.

The Quidditch world cup venue was awesome. Although the respective mascots for the teams were not detailed enough. Also in this particular the editing table leaves a bit to be desired. The progression from the camp site to the stadium and back is kinda mixed up. The undertones of hormones has been portrayed amazingly. I can’t remember if Cho and Harry go to Hogsmeade in this book or the next but ther interaction in the movie is kinda limited. The biggest bummer of all was that Harry did not give his Tri-Wizard winnings to the Weasley twins. I’m guessing they left that for the next movie but it was there in this book!!!

The Dragons in the first task and the Merpeople in the second are remarkably and painstakingly done. Moaning Myrtle was played to perfection. The Goblet of fire and how it spew’s out the names of the contestants was again perfect. The Yule Ball scene was also perfect. The play of emotions by Hermione and dastardly indifference by Ron and Harry was perfect. Rita Skeeter’s character played by Miranda Richardson was great.

Overall the treatment of the story as a movie and not as a book adaptation went a long way in making it a better motion picture than any of the previous Harry Potter movies. All in all a must watch for Harry Potter fans.

I decided this weekend to go buy some Books and Movies. For reading I got a lot more Science fiction books which seem to now dominate my bookshelf. But as I browsed through the DVD section at Landmark Forum. I glanced over and on an impulse bought a DVD version of Pride And Prejudice. I must confess that I have not read any classic in recent times. The last I was found reading Black Beauty or Little Women or Tom Sawyer was somewhere in 1996. I somehow had missed out on Pride and Prejudice, maybe it demanded a slightly more mature audience, but mostly because I never got down to it.

Anyway, I have just finished a stretch of 6 hours watching the complete televised version and it was a moving story. I regret having watched Bride and Prejudice which now seems to be a pale spin-off in comparison, but spoiled some of the great moments of this classic for me. I now understand the references made by Meg Ryan in “You”ve got Mail” and “Kate & Leopold” and of course Bridget Jones’s Diary. Anyways It was an exhilarating story and people should go read it if they can”t get a copy of one of the many televised and movie versions of this amazing love story.

Last evening we decided that rather than waste another friday night doing nothing, a few of us guys were gonna go watch a movie. So we went and watched Karam at PVR Bangalore. It was a typical Bollywood with lots of emotion and drama thrown in for good measure which if seen once in 6 months is tolerable . Any way, so we watched the 7:40 pm show and were ambivalent towards the movie afterwards. Then we (Ujjwal, Rishu and myself) decided that the first movie was too mushy for any of us and hence we must watch another Bollywood flick of an unknown nature to improve upon that. Thus, we watched C U at 9 I suggest you read the review here

The first few moments of the movie reminded me of “the zee horror show” which was a low budget horror series uptill a few years back. I have heard it as being referred to as the Zee comedy show pretty often… you get the picture.

Any way, back in our movie, unlike whatever the review suggests it is very badly made B grade flick which has somehow got 3 shows in most A grade cinema”s. How the Gore and sex survived the censor”s snip is beyond me. But what speaks volumes is that people started walking out of the theater merely 5 minutes into the movie. The plot quickly developed (with jumpy steps which I couldn”t quite follow) into a supernatural psycho killer kinda thing with drawings of the Star of David with a circle around it everywhere.

The protagonist had had sex with 1 of the female characters before intermission and proceeded to do so with the other afterwards. The dark gory flavour of the movie came out after the intermission at which point more patrons promptly left the theater. Bad acting along with no sense of timing and massive jumps in reasoning made for a humorous watch for us and other 20 something guys but by now almost all people with families or spouses had left.

By the end of it all we were joking about a sequel named “C U at 10″ which I was sure no-one would pay to see.

What was the director thinking was the thought which stuck with me throughout the movie and I still havn”t figured it out. I have been left with a surrealistic feeling about this movie actually. I can”t beleive that a B grade flick of this kind could go on at so many theaters. How could the producers afford that and arrange that. In the face of the obvious fact that the movie itself was made on a shoestring budget. Parts of it made me wonder if it even had an editor or had they just strewn together whatever cans of reel they shot.

In my opinion this movie at best will be successful as a single X flick which will circulate in vcd form across the breadth of this country nothing more nothing less.