Grint has finally moved past the mugging-for-the-camera stage

I thought that had been severely curtailed in PoA already. I feel kind of bad for Mr. Grint since I feel like that was Chris Columbus' doing.

"You with the rubbery face! Can you play this scene a bit more like a Burlesque comedian from the 30s?! Exactly! Perfect."

I think that's what made my mother fall in mom-love with him. She cannot get enough of Rupert. She likes constantly bewildered boys. It's why she dotes on her son so.

Saw "Harry Potter." Good. Great in parts, but too rushed overall. It needed a few more minutes to let some of the story breathe a bit. I saw it with one of my sisters who has never read the books. She didn't make the connection between Neville being upset in class over the curse with the later scene in which it was disclosed that his parents were tortured with that curse by the Death Eaters. If I hadn't read the book I would have missed that connection too. I think there needed to be a short mention between Harry and Dumbledore in which Harry realizes that he never asked Neville about his parents. The failure to make that point clear to the non-book-reading audience confuses them as to what is going on. Also, the schecule and scoring for the Tri-Wizard Tournament should have been more clearly explained.

Those may be minor quibbles. I want to see the movie again (preferably in a theater where the management understands that a packed house raises the temperature and it needs to adjust to that). Loved the humor. And the Yule Ball was nicely done. The Ron-Hemione argument was well done too. The scene in the graveyard was suitably scary. Not a show for small kids, although there were quite a few at the showing I attended.

Interrupting the Harry Potter talk to just -- *hork!* *gag!* *spit!* -- ugh...sorry...say I just watched Kingdom of Heaven.

You know how Ridley Scott used CGI to map Oliver Reed's face onto someone else when Reed died during the filming of Gladiator? I think the same thing's been done with Scott himself. The man who directed Blade Runner and Alien died, and his agent got a doppelganger to continue to make movies. He figured as long as he had a lot of crap flying around in the air everyone would believe it was really Ridley.

What a freaking train wreck. A pretty train wreck, but man. I feel ill.

Saw P&P today, and the Sarah Silverman movie Jesus Is Love last night. Not much to say (head busy with other things), but I do have one line about each of them:

My gods, Sarah is really shooting for the Lenny Bruce title, isn't she?

Sad about lack of wet Colin Firth, but decent compression of the plot into the required timeline; also, MacFadyen should TOTALLY play Heathcliff one of these days.

Sarah Silverman movie Jesus Is Love

Isn't it Jesus Is Magic? Not that it matters to me, because there is no WAY that will show in Salt Lake.

In other news, Netflix was hit with a class action lawsuit. There is a settlement on it, basically giving current subscribers a free upgrade and ex-subscribers a free month. Details to be found at [link]

Isn't it Jesus Is Magic? Not that it matters to me, because there is no WAY that will show in Salt Lake.

Le oops. You are correct, on both counts.

In other news, Netflix was hit with a class action lawsuit. There is a settlement on it, basically giving current subscribers a free upgrade and ex-subscribers a free month.

I've heard, though, that if you opt for the free upgrade, they will start charging you for that level if you forget to change your membership back before the next billing period.

I first saw Rumble Fish in Dublin, Ireland when it originally came out. I've seen it a couple times since, but was possessed by a need for its lush, narcotic dreaminess and bought the DVD yesterday. It's a recently released special edition with commentary by Coppola and a few docs, including a piece with Stewart Copeland on the innovative, percussive score.

Coppola's commentary isn't fun, or funny really, but it is fascinating. He's still such a filmmaker - really still in love in the medium - and he peppers his comments with intriguing asides about Ingmar Bergmann or D.W. Griffith or Pabst, then he's all mushy about 8 y.o. Sophia Coppola playing Diane Lane's little sister, then he's talking about how his eldest son snuck back onto the lot after Zoetrope went bankrupt to steal back a specific set of lens that Coppola had bought himself, and which he's leaving for his children.

He's just such a lovely guy, so fond of his cast, and the experience of making this movie. Questioning why he didn't make more little movies like this. And the movie itself is just so innovative in many ways - vastly moreso than the story required. But it is its own little dream world, and it's cute watching Suzie Hinton show up in a scene to flirt with Matt Dillon or a young Diana Scarwid.

The first scene alone (after some gorgeous time lapse photography of b/w clouds formations tumbling and rolling) has Lawrence Fishburne, Tom Waits, Matt Dillon, Chris Penn and Nicolas Cage, and Vincent Spano in it. That's some cast. (Whatever happened to Spano? He was so good in Baby It's You.) It's odd looking at Mickey Rourke's young, handsome face before he ruined his looks and then ruined them again with the plastic surgery. He's so good in this movie - really underplaying the character to excellent effect. Similar to his characters in Diner and Body Heat. Shit - it's not easy playing a teen dream juvie Camus.

(I keep thinking about David Lynch's direction of Kyle Machlachan in Dune: "More enigmatic! More charismatic!")

Just got back from Harry Potter. I loved it. Will need to see it again. That is all.