Anne, your point about Fleur bothered me as well. In all the challenges we saw she was the first to fail, and needed rescuing, and tended to sit on the sidelines and cringe helplessly while the manly 14 year-old boy did the saving.

Also, Hermione—who'd previously been very proactive and clearly the smartest and most knowledgable of the main trio of characters—was little more than window dressing in this film. She had no good advice to give, and if she used magic at all, it must have been for a makeover before the dance. Apparently being able to use one's magic wand effectively is now dependent upon having a penis.

Not having read the book, I don't know whether it's Rowling to blame, or the director.

I watched Northfork yesterday. I love me some Polish brothers. (which sounds like something it's not.)

It was such a dreamy, sweet meditation. With a great cast...featuring Robin Sachs aka Ethan Rayne!

It reminded me to re-rent Idaho Falls.

Sigh. I can't really explain why I like their stuff so much. It's clearly a rarely acquired taste. Poor boys.

Northfork was made for 1.2 mil, including James Woods, Darryl Hannah, Nick Nolte, Peter Coyote, Anthony Andrews, Ben Foster and a slew of character actors you'd immediately recognize. Given that Mr. Woods is listed as a producer, I'm betting he paid for the privilege of appearing in the film. Bless him.

And now? Kung Fu Hustle. Guess I'm feelin' kinda surreal.

Saw Jesus is Magic. It was fun. And less offensive than I imagined it would be.

I watched Northfork yesterday. I love me some Polish brothers. (which sounds like something it's not.)

You know, I still don't know whether they're Polish as in the country of Poland, or Polish as in the stuff that makes your silverware shiny. Damned homonyms.

It reminded me to re-rent Idaho Falls.

You'll find it under Twin Falls, Idaho. That movie freaked me out the first time I saw it.

The sum of my movie-seeing has been Yankee Doodle Dandy, in which I discovered that Jimmy Cagney could sing and tap-dance, George M. Cohan wrote a lot more persistently-popular songs than I had guessed, and filmic biography before 1960 was pretty dull and uninvestigative.

I saw Harry Potter and Pride & Prejudice last night. Liked both of them. I ADORE the BBC miniseries version of P&P, so I had to be won over, and I was. Some interesting dramatic choices--I liked the way they portrayed the elder Bennet's relationship very much. Keira Knightly was a lovely, smart, slightly astringent Lizzie.

Loved HP, but I agree with Matt about hemrione in this episode. They had to cut an entire subplot about house elves and her activism ont heir behalf, and her onscreen portrayal suffered as a result.

Re HP: It sucks that Hermione wasn't as strong as she's been, but I am very glad they cut the SPEW stuff.

Re: above: The house-elf subplot of books 4-6 are entirely removable with no ill effect. Any plot devlopment that comes about as a result of the house elf thing is either a) superfluous or b) easily accomplished by other means. A judicious editor would've insisted they be trimmed from the books to improve their flow, but it's clear Rowling's editors are anything but judicious.

She has editors?

I tried to see HP this afternoon but there was a fuse blown in the projector and the movie started without a dialogue track. There was also a birthday party of about 20+ kids who were talking during the beginning of the movie, but when they had to stop it, they were absolutely running amok and the parents were doing little to stop it, so I got my money back and bailed.

I saw Rent. I enjoyed it, their voices were good, the cast being too old didn't bug me. But all the IMPOSSIBLE New York did, ugh.

Fake New York is fine. Impossible New York is crazy making. Avenue A doesn't DO that, feh.