Wednesday evening, eyeing my second Cadbury

[cleolinda]

So, full thoughts on Order of the Phoenix, which--like Prisoner of Azkaban--I will go to the mat defending, by the way:

>> First: The Lovely Emily and I were going at eleven, but Sister Girl (who went separately with a friend of her own) said they were going at 10:30, and man, am I glad we followed their lead. We bummed around Wal-Mart for about an hour, and I ended up buying a Cadbury bar (who knew they sold Cadbury at Wal-Mart? Milk chocolate, with almonds; I'd never had Cadbury before. I think? They also had Dove and Lindt, which I love, but I decided to go for the new experience). Actually, I bought two, one for that night and one for today, and together they still cost less than a box of cheap crumbly concession-stand chocolate. Anyway, we got there at ten-thirty and waltzed right in; some years they've made us stand out in the lobby forever. We got seats at the front rail, and Sister Girl and her friend got seats on the back row, and all was right with the world. As for costumes, we had an entire Dumbledore's Army in red t-shirts (actually, they looked more like Dumbledore's Sorority, but what're you gonna do), and two young guys (both dark-haired, one wavy, one straight) in full Gryffindor kit, school robes (!) and all. And then I realized the guy behind them was also with them, and that he had short, straight blond hair combed back and was wearing Slytherin colors, and I burst out laughing at the perfectness of it. In fact, we had a peanut gallery of Mountain Brook high schoolers (at least, according to their t-shirts) down in the lower front section, and when those three guys walked in, the loudest Brookie yelled, "Now THAT is hardcore!" Of course, he's also the one who yelled "TONGUE!" during the big kiss.

>> Trailers, for those of you curious as to what you'll see if you haven't gone yet: there was a much better Golden Compass trailer that included a hot key moment from the end of the book. There was a Dark Is Rising trailer that kept me in a state of permanent cringe, because all I could think was, "I know several dozen people on LJ whose hearts are going to break." The Fred Claus trailer was better than I expected. What else did they show, y'all? I can't remember.

>> Let me clarify my previous statement, "I do not regret a single thing they cut": I like the book. I'm not even saying I wouldn't want to see all those scenes filmed, because I would. I'd love to have a DVD of extra scenes just to sit and watch, if they could spare, uh, a few million dollars for it. But--sing it with me if you know the words--a movie is not a book, and what's satisfying in a 600-page book can be just too damn much in a 2-3 hour movie. You have to look at it this way: a movie is like a meal. Chamber of Secrets, my least favorite movie, is like this giant smorgasbord where you fill up on appetizers and then you realize there's three main courses, and five desserts? Why did there have to be five desserts? And then you go home and throw up, or at the very least go dig up some Alka-Seltzer. Order of the Phoenix is like a fine restaurant where they bring out the first dish, and you say, "Oh. This is... this is kind of small," and they say, "Yes, but there are five more after this." It's planned out so that you still have room for dessert at the end, and maybe even for a mint, and you can go home feeling good, and not vomitous. Except maybe not a mint in this case; I did feel like the ending was kind of abrupt. There were individual scenes where I wished they'd been done a little differently (I wanted the twins' exit to be less impish and more defiant; I wanted Sirius's death to have a different tone to it, somehow--more jarring, maybe? It seemed more gently sad than anything), but c'est la vie. There were no scenes I could think of offhand that I thought would make the movie itself better by including them, as much as I might miss them individually, and there were several moments when I sat back and thought, "We're already to [whichever part] in the story? Oh, thank God." I really like the book scenes at Grimmauld Place with Harry and Sirius and the cleaning and whatnot, but I felt some kind of profound relief at the realization that we weren't going to have to sit through fifteen minutes of it onscreen. A movie is not a staged, full-length reading of a book. And hopefully, a movie isn't so overstuffed that you need a vomitorium afterwards, either.

>> I already know that I won't get my wish, but please, please, please let screenwriter Michael Goldenberg come back instead of Steve Kloves. (Can they work together, at least?) Hermione is still weighted as being a little more prominent than Ron, but the trio's interactions are so much looser and fresher and realer; Ron doesn't have to mug anymore, but is still funny; Goldenberg added the simple word "James" to the book line "Nice one!" (more on that in a bit), and thus managed to evoke an entire relationship's baggage in a three-word line of dialogue; he streamlined everything so beautifully, and managed to make what was kept in make sense. Bring him back.

>> I hear that director David Yates is already coming back for HBP. Thank God.

>> Luna was perfect. Scary perfect. I mean, what were the odds of some fangirl showing up to an open audition, saying "No one understands Luna the way I do," and being right?

>> The other new folks: how great was Tonks? I know she wasn't there much, but when she was there, she was awesome. And you know, Kingsley Shacklebolt wasn't exactly the way I'd imagined him, but "You have to admit... he has style " brought the house down. As for Bellatrix and Umbridge, there's not much I can say about their awesome awfulness that hasn't already been said a hundred times over.

>> You know, they still don't give Alan Rickman much to do, but damn if he doesn't earn his keep. "Obviously." I do get mad, though, that Snape is really such a horrible teacher. Which is the point, of course. But in the movie you get this general juxtaposition of Harry teaching the kids how to do things they've never understood how to do before, coaching them on wand movements and various mental approaches, and Snape's just all like, "Occlumency! GO!"

>> As much as I enjoyed Completely Out of Character Shouty Dumbledore in GOF for its own hilarity, it was nice to see that OOTP!Dumbledore hewed more closely to the one in the book--mysterious and avoidant and, by the end, sad.

>> You know how good this movie was? It made me like Grawp.

>> That said, I don't know that the score did much for me, and I loved the previous two soundtracks. I'd have to listen to it on its own, I guess.

>> Commence Pimp Mack Sirius squee... now.

>> Speaking of which, I actually didn't mind way they did Sirius in the fireplace in GOF, but of the two, yeah, the OOTP version has a lot of elegance to it. I think I was just imagining a disembodied, flesh-and-blood head appearing in the fire, which was why logs-and-embers Sirius seemed like a better idea at the time.

>> I actually really like that Cho became the DA traitor, and (per a discussion with emerald_skies and ter369), here's why: Making Cho the traitor has a really tragic aspect to it. When Hermione goes over all of Cho's conflicting emotions, we're very subtly given a perfect motive for a betrayal: Cho's mother's job at the Ministry is being threatened, and if your parents' livelihoods have ever been in question, you'll know that this can also extend to whether you can afford to go to certain schools or not. It's not just about Cho's loyalty to her mother vs. her loyalty to Harry, a boy she doesn't even know that well; her existence at Hogwarts itself could theoretically be at risk. That's all tucked into that one little throwaway line. So the DA is busted and disbanded--and then we find out that Cho didn't even betray them voluntarily; they had to dose her up with the rest of the Veritaserum before she cracked. And now, all this has come between her and Harry before they even really got started--and you see Harry react to Snape mentioning the Veritaserum, so he knows what they did to Cho, and how long Cho must have held out. As ter369 points out, this can now inform the way his relationship with Ginny in HBP will develop in a way that Cho's random best friend being the traitor doesn't: he's going to do the Spider-Man thing and tell Ginny they can't be together because he won't want to put Ginny in the same dangerous position Cho was.

As for why they needed Cho in the first place if they knew the kids were using the Room of Requirement: how were they going to get the Room to open, if they didn't have a subdued DA member to make the door appear?

>> Wait, where did Lily go in the occlumency scene? I ask only because I know that she was in the original version of the scene as filmed--at least one image of her (with pigtails, no less) is online.

>> "Nice one, James!" was such a wonderful bit of screenwriting economy. It expressed everything that was going on in that relationship, and Radcliffe shot Oldman this wonderful look right after--as artemis_archer said in the comments, "like he realized something about Sirius that he hadn't before and it was so sad." And no, I don't think that Harry = James is all there was to his relationship with Sirius, because there was a lot at play there--both of them needing a family, Harry in particular needing some kind of mentor-father (particularly after Dumbledore began to distance himself), Sirius seeing not only James but himself in Harry (where "running away to the Potters' " equals "practically being adopted by the Weasleys," for example), Sirius wanting to recapture the Three Musketeers vibe of his youth, and so on. There are a lot of little love stories in the HP books, many of them more parental or brotherly instead of romantic, and I think Sirius and Harry is one of them, but I think Sirius and James is another, and "Nice one, James!" was the moment when Harry realized how they overlapped, and how Sirius might not be living--might not be able to live--in the present.

>> You know when I cried? Not when Sirius died. When Harry said, "And I feel sorry for you." That whole scene, which had so much awful potential to be just another stereotypical Behold Power of Love type thing, was done so well. I actually found that so much more affecting than Sirius's death (which is a sign, like I said up top, that it could have been done... differently), because first you have Voldemort and Dumbledore in an epic throwdown, but then Voldemort realizes, I guess, that he can't defeat Dumbledore one-on-one by pure physical force, so he possesses Harry. And Dumbledore can't do anything but watch, with tears in his eyes, while Harry has to fight Voldemort from the inside (which is expanded a lot from the scene in the book), and I realized just how bad Half-Blood Prince is going to mess me up. I reread the last fifty pages or so of OOTP in order to check how much of the movie scene was actually on the page, and it occurs to me that Dumbledore and Harry are another little love story in the series. I am definitely not wearing mascara for Half-Blood Prince.

Comments

[paradise-loved.livejournal.com]

"Nice one, James!" could have been directly out of canon, it was that accurate to the characters.

What did you think of the omition of the howler and Petunia - and a lot of the explanation at the Dursleys? I was not so much disappointed but actually a little surprised! It's interesting to see what they've cut from the movies, because we know, now, that it might not have that great of an effect in the books.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

It's interesting--I'd forgotten that that scene was in OOTP--OOTP and HBP blur together for me a lot; sadly (in terms of what it says about me), it's probably because they haven't been made into movies yet.

I have this new theory that the last book is going to open with Harry refusing to go home to the Dursleys, and Petunia tracking him down (much to her own horror, to venture into the wizarding world) and explain to him exactly why he has to come back to the Dursleys'--i.e., all the loose ends we've been wondering about, like was Petunia a squib or all those other theories out there. So the thing is, the Dursley howler might have been part of an important storyline without it actually being necessary to this particular movie.

[whisperwords.livejournal.com]

full thoughts on Order of the Phoenix, which--like Prisoner of Azkaban--I will go to the mat defending, by the way

Same here! I thought this was AMAZING. And the change from Steve Kloves to a new writer was actually palpable in its differences. They weren't GLARING, they were streamlined, but they were differences nonetheless and they were incredible.

I am pretty convinced that the same people that are ranting and raging against OotP are the same people who called PoA the "worst movie" up to this point. The people who are so stubborn and unwilling to realize that you CANNOT fit everything from a book of even 200 pages into a good-length film without seriously sacrificing the entertainment aspect of it all, let alone one that's 500+ pages long. Your restaurant analogy is spot-on. I thought this movie was absolutely astounding, and I can't wait to see it again and again.

[live-in-morocco.livejournal.com]

you hit the nail right on the head. i have a friend that lives and breathes all things harry potter and she hated this movie and POA because they cut so much out, and she loves sorcerer's stone and chamber of secrets because they were so loyal. you just can't logistically include everything from the later, longer books.

[stillxmyxheart.livejournal.com]

Dude, the possession scene was amazing. Like you, that affected me a lot more than Sirius's death did. I probably would've cried had the theater been less full and I hadn't had two strangers (younger than me, no less) on either side of me. I did get teary-eyed though.

In fact, I think I agree with this entire post. Especially about the new screenwriter.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

This icon has killed me.

[callmesyd.livejournal.com]

A buddy of mine got to see it last evening and, while he didn't talk about the movie in depth out of respect for the other people we were with, I did ask him how Tonks was, because I was going to cry uncontrollably if they messed up my literary girlcrush. He went on for about twenty minutes about how FANTASTIC she was, so I am going to be bouncing around all giddy until I finally get to go and see for myself. YAY TONKS. \o/

Re: "Good one, James!" Oh, that is GENIUS. I hope they bring him back, too, because that's just beautiful.

[enid-keaner.livejournal.com]

Hell YES to Michael Goldenberg coming back! I didn't love this film, but I don't love any of them (or even like any of them except POA), but Goldenberg is like a genius compared to Kloves. Love him.

[live-in-morocco.livejournal.com]

way to sum up all of my thoughts about the movie in one go!

for me, this movie was so good that it made me actually care about sirius. i never felt that attached to him in the books (yes, i am the only one), but he was done so well in this film that i really did feel sad when he fell through the veil. the "nice one, james" was sheer brilliance.

the only thing i was sad about them cutting was seeing neville's parents in st. mungo's, but that's really for my own selfish reasons - i can see why it would be extraneous in the movie. side note: neville? IS SO AWESOME.

fact: evanna lynch is one of the best casting choices in hp history. maybe even THE best.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hee. I kind of wonder if Evanna Lynch is even a real person, or actually some bizarre fleshly incarnation of actual Luna Lovegood. HBC as Bellatrix is up there, though.

[infinitegraces]

Luna was perfect. Scary perfect. I mean, what were the odds of some fangirl showing up to an open audition, saying "No one understands Luna the way I do," and being right?

Evanna PWNED as Luna.

Of course, I think the whole thing PWNED...and have one question.

When will we see "OotP in 15 minutes"?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

In the book, someday. If the book falls through, then online, I guess. I'd rather just enjoy the movie for now.

[lauramcvey.livejournal.com]

*clicks on link*

PIMP MACK SIRIUS SQUEE! But why are they sitting in a Muggle train station?

So . . . his death scene wasn't jarring? I think half of what made it so awful in the book (not writing-awful, sad-awful) was that I wasn't prepared for it. At all. I just sat there, gaping like a fish. And, well, then I cried.

"And I feel sorry for you." Where was that from?

Lily wasn't in the occlumency scene? Dammit. Does Harry at least get to hash it out with Sirius and Lupin?

*is looking forward to seeing it even more*

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Well, if you haven't seen it--you'll understand everything when you do.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

I agree that the writer did a hell of a job streamlining the story, and I also think a shoutout to the editor is called for. Often in action- or effects-heavy movies there’s a tendency to linger over the big setpieces to the detriment of plot and/or character — as my friend Lily puts it, “They could’ve cut 30 seconds from each car chase/explosion/fight scene and used those ___ minutes to slip in some good dialogue” — but there wasn’t a moment in OotP where I thought, Okay, I get it, let’s move on now, shall we?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can definitely agree with that--I've always felt like the editing was one of the reasons Fellowship of the Ring was the best of the three LOTR movies (didn't they have a different editor on every single one?). And the montage at the end, while Harry is possessed, was just stunning.

[prncssaurora.livejournal.com]

Dude, I so agree with everything you said. (Well, except for the thing about Sirius' death - I liked the way they did it, and I was absolutely heartbroken by the shot of Lupin holding Harry back as he yells for Sirius.)

"Nice one, James!" is probably the most tragic line of the whole film. Loved that addition. And the scenes with Harry and Sirius throughout were just awesome. As my friend said afterward, "It's like they were just rubbing it in!" Every time Sirius came on screen, there were little muffled noises of despair all over the theatre, because everyone knew what was going to happen.

Also, didn't I read somewhere that Goldenberg is back for the next film? Or was I just projecting my hopes and dreams?

[theendofallthat.livejournal.com]

Kloves is back. Goldenberg has another project, I think--but that can always fall through...

[flamingtoilet.livejournal.com]

*sigh* And here I promised my wife we'd go see it together.

And she's out of town.

Until the 28th.

DAMMIT.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

Cleo, thank you so much for posting more of your thoughts. I'm off to see it again in two hours, with your points about the ending in mind.

I am still iffy about the final line in itself. The shot of the students filling the forest path on the way to the train was lovely, like an army following Harry, reminding me of Sirius' line, "It's your turn now."

.... and Radcliffe shot Oldman this wonderful look right after

I am avoiding all the "Radcliffe can't act" folks on my Flist. It's not quite like responding to a singing voice, which is tough to quantify. DanRad has the formidable task of playing Each Person's Expectations Of Harry, while he can only do one interpretation in fact. This film solidified that it is not pretty to be Harry Potter. There is little joy in being a hero; something the actor caught perfectly in the very canon speech he makes in the Hog's Head.

But, that moment after "James" is one I must look for more carefully. I was busy gasping and caught only a quick flash of Harry's response.


When Harry said, "And I feel sorry for you." That whole scene, which had so much awful potential to be just another stereotypical Behold Power of Love type thing, was done so well. I actually found that so much more affecting than Sirius's death (which is a sign, like I said up top, that it could have been done... differently).....

Harry's line above, that .... I lack the word, because the moment is like the top note of a crescendo, only effective because of what lead to that point. What they showed us, without telling (in Kloves' announce-y kind of writing) is that Harry of the capslock rage and urges to plunge into danger alone, the boy feeling sorry for himself and frustrated at the beginning of Year Five, has realized he's no longer Harry Potter The Pathetic Orphan. He has plunged into the bigger world and the people around him during that horrible possession by Voldemort will not leave him alone again.

Goldenberg is a fantastic writer. This sequence for Harry, the possession and breaking it, is like the stunning verbal and duel showdown between Hook and Pan in the 2002 movie he co-wrote.

I said to a friend last week that the real challenge in dramatizing the finale at the Ministry, is that in most stories Sirius' death would be the clincher. (OMG, the silence choice when Lupin holds Harry meant I heard my audience gasp and, yes, whimper.) But the action keeps building from there. So you have to stage the death of the most beloved person in Harry's life; then Harry goes to kill Bellatrix; Voldemort finally appears after 2+ hours of fearing just his name, Dumbledore arrives and is the fearsome wizard we've only heard of; the wizards are so evenly matched that Voldie goes after Harry as a weapon; followed by the reality of Snape's lecture on torturing the mind. And the filmmakers have the guts to make Harry's emotional realization the capstone in the waves of conflict.

I agree that something was .... ::hand flail-y:: ... about Sirius' death. Re-viewing is necessary for an actual word in that previous sentence.

I completely agree about the music. Meh. I felt the same about GoF's score. Though the music during the battle once the Order arrived is coming back to me, a sign it was an element participating in that scene.

Again, thanks for your thoughts and analysis.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I am actually a big fan of Daniel Radcliffe's acting, and that may be *because* we've seen him make such giant strides of improvement--he seems to me like someone who's really interested in the craftsmanship of acting, and like he's capable of a lot of growth and potential. You can see him actively improving in POA, and he's really, really good in GOF--I still love his reading of the line, "That's... completely mental," when Ron explains how he thought Harry would figure out that Ron was trying to help him. And as with OOTP, it wasn't Cedric's death that made me cry in GOF--it was watching Harry fight Dumbledore for his body.

[aria624.livejournal.com]

I agree with you one every single point, but there are two parts of the book that I would have really liked to see them at least include, it wouldn't have taken more than five minutes of screentime to explain - the first being Ron being made a prefect and not Harry. It would have helped the original dynamic at Grimmauld place continue as Harry went to Hogwarts, him feeling left out and isolated, and also would have explained the scene where he tells down Seamus and the whole common room, and people actually listen to him. The second is Percy. He suddenly appears at Fudge's side holding Cho and Harry when they go to Dumbledore, but he wasn't there at the hearing (or I just missed him) and they never really explain his disowning of the Weasleys and all that. I think that might have added to the impact of what was clearly supposed to be a "OMG that's Percy!" shot.

Imelda Staunton blew my mind. Umbridge is one of my favorite characters in the book, and she did her SO much justice. And yes, Evanna Lynch was incredible. Nargles, heeee.

I really really like Cho as the one who betrays the DA, it makes it much more serious. I also really like the scene where Filch was taking down the portraits in the Grand Stairway. I thought that was rather genius.

I miss the Creevey brothers though! Who is Nigel? WHY isn't he Dennis or Colin Creevey!?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember Nigel as being a little first-year who wants Ron to get Harry's autograph in the GOF movie--is it right when Ron's dress robes arrive?

[unwoundfantasy.livejournal.com]

I only have this to say regarding Tonks:

CLUMSY CANON LOVE.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

I only have this to say regarding Tonks:

CLUMSY CANON LOVE.


She and Sirius must have The Black Family Wink goin' on. Didn't she wink at Harry and then trip? Must check that in second viewing tonight.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I've heard so much badness about the Dark Is Rising. ;_; It's pretty much just using the name to tell an original story. With Americans. Why, God, why?

[keever.livejournal.com]

There is not enough word in the world. Right on. You've pretty much summed up my general feelings, anyway. I'm thinking it'll ultimately rank there with PoA for me, too. And I think the world of PoA.

Goldenberg said recently that the Snape's worst memory scene was filmed as a longer piece, but edited down. So we may see Lily yet (and just generally more) on the DVD. I loved that even as quickly as it all went by, they still managed to sneak in a shot of young Snape cowering in a corner. Awesome.

[arielchan.livejournal.com]

I have to say the Sirius death scene was not what I pictured at all. It was so slow-mo and obvious in the film. In the book it all happened so suddenly... and wasn't the spell Bellatrix hit Sirius with something other than AK in the book? The veil kind of sucking him away was weird for me, because I'd always pictured something suitably unexpected, specfically that he fell back into the archway and just didn't come out the other side. So, yeah. Kinda disappointed in that.

It's funny, because the movies are beginning to seem like spoilers for DH to me now. Since we know JKR approves and disaproves changes and such, what they cut or emphasize really says a lot about how the series will end, i.e. that the mirror Harry got from Sirius won't be important after all or that Ginny's magic skillz will obviously be of consequence.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I said the same thing to someone else, but I honestly wouldn't consider omissions as spoilers. They seem to have this "We'll just deal with that later" approach, from what I've heard, that may land them in deep shit by the time they get to DH and there's no more later. I mean, we know the Grimmauld locket's important, but they left that out too.

[beansalad.livejournal.com]

Cleolinda, can I just say you sumed up everything i thought about OoTP:

">> You know how good this movie was? It made me like Grawp."

I skip Grawp and the giant part in the book, but I actually LOVED Grawp in the movie. "PUT! ME! DOWN!.....NOW!" that was awesome....

"you know when I cried? Not when Sirius died. When Harry said, "And I feel sorry for you." That whole scene"

for SERIOUS! I was more ANGRY when Sirius was killed, I was just sitting there so pissed off. When harry was fighting voldemort from within I was sitting on the edge of my seat with tears in my eyes muttering to myself "go harry come on! You can do it!" even though I totally knew that he was, I was just so amazed. The end of the movie seemed like a whole new story to me and I couldn't help but get sucked in and forget everything that happens in the rest of the book.


and yes Yates is signed for 6 and 7 :D *squee*

[vaginajones.livejournal.com]

I am so glad I'm not the only one who skips those exact sections in the book!

[cerridwen666.livejournal.com]

Gah, now I'm all teary about Sirius and Dumbledore and I'm rereading HBP right now too! *stomps foot* I'm totally going to see the movie again tomorrow. I swear this one is going down as my favorite of the movies.

[dramedy.livejournal.com]

I agree with a lot of what you said. I never cried at Sirius's death(I...didn't like him al that much in the books), but here, I was pretty shook. Mostly because I knew I KNEW he was going to get it, and it was brilliant with it's little bits of foreshadowing. and the part where Bellatrix SKIPS and sings, "I killed Sirius Blaaaack!"

DanRad's acting was great. Really terriffic.

...The darker and more twisty the books get, the lighter and straighter Hermione's hair gets, apparently.

[izzy-unkempt.livejournal.com]

I have a million things I'd like to comment but RL will restrict me to this:

I have always been the first to make fun of the trio's acting. And, unlike other movies this summer (...Spiderman) nothing made me cringe. I actually *liked* them. I'm nursing a huge thing for Ron/Rupert Grint now, but mainly because they let him be Ron. Ron defending Harry and just allowing Harry to be angry made me want to cry. He was so quietly and sadly supportive- it was understated and perfect. But Harry- the first detention scene with Umbridge. I'd always imagined him to be defiant and angry, but DanRad had this look that was just...a suddenly realized speechless almost childlike terror. He has learned subtlety, you know? That was one of the scariest, most skin crawling-y moments in the movie for me. (Imelda Staunton was so terrifyingly spot-on as Umbridge).

I also have to say I love the brilliance of the added “James” too….other moments that had that extra bit of emotion for me (and I don’t think these were cannon, but tell me if I’m wrong)- the twins comforting the little boy after his detention and the Umbridge/ McGonagall confrontation. The twins moment was so heartbreaking and human- you don’t get to see that caring side of the twins, really, but it worked so well. And Umbridge is just that more evil in the face of it. And then Minerva stepping down when Umbridge questions their loyalty- it went from funny to frightening so quickly (which now that I think about it happened a lot, though not in a jarring way). Maggie Smith has a similar look of fear to that of Daniel Radcliffe…

Kind of random, but I didn’t care all that much for the woman they cast as Figg. I always imagined her more frazzled than loopy.

Definitely my favorite movie. By far.

[anjenue.livejournal.com]

This review absolutely captured all the eloquent things I wanted to say about this movie but couldn't manage at 3 in the morning. If you go to the mat defending OotP, I will be standing right beside you - which is saying a lot, since I didn't like the book at ALL. I agree with you - the directing and screenwriting was fantastic this time round. Well done to that, WB!

[greenwitch.livejournal.com]

There was a Dark Is Rising trailer that kept me in a state of permanent cringe, because all I could think was, "I know several dozen people on LJ whose hearts are going to break."

Glad my theater didn't show that one... our midnight showing started almost an hour late. Had I seen that trailer, it totally would've done me in for the night *G*

[schnuggleme.livejournal.com]

Your last paragraph just about summed up the part of the movie that completely sucker punched me. Oh. David Yates. Please stay forever.

[cosette-esk.livejournal.com]

You have considerably heightened my hopes for this movie. I'm going to see it tomorrow and I really hope it saves the movies for me. The darker they get the more I like them.

[sunihiroku.livejournal.com]

I have no idea where that image for your icon is from, but I LOVE the text!

[insidethestars.livejournal.com]

I liked the movie, though not as much as GoF. I thought Sirius' death was anticlimatic. I'm upset that they left out the whole McGonagall standing up for Dumbledore thing, the twins charming the pond in the hallway, and Petunia and the howler. Those three omissions were upsetting. Oh, and the fact that the movies still have Harry/Hermione undertones when JKR has stated that Ron/Hermione is canon will continue to piss me off until the end of time.

Luna? Was perfect. She couldn't have been better. Dumbledore was awesome, and Harry and Ron have really grown up into their roles. Neville too.

That's all.

[mehinda.livejournal.com]

I think part of the problem with the Harry/Hermione undertones of the movie is that Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe have such amazing chemistry together on-screen.

But yeah, it's irksome.