Hello, peoples of the internet

[cleolinda]

I am a little tired right now.

@cleolinda: I did not sleep at all last night. Just lay there hoping Bad Cat was making That Rustling Sound.

@SuperCricket: @cleolinda and that's how Cleolinda found out she had a heffalump infestation.

Speaking of Twitter: please do not contact me there if you currently are or are pretending to be on hard drugs. Thank you.

@NASA_Hubble: Helium walks into a bar. Bartender says "We don't take kindly to Noble Gasses here." Helium doesn't react.

You know, as Mark gets ever further into Harry Potter, I began to wonder why I never did Order of the Phoenix in Fifteen Minutes. What the hell was going on at the time? So I went back and checked some dates.

Goblet of Fire came out in November 2005. I remember this because we had a cold midnight showing (yay scarves!) instead of a hot summer one.

For whatever reason, I didn't get around to doing that one until... April 2007? Damn. I think I was still taking classes through 2006 (I never finished my MFA), and of course spent the first half of 2005 taking classes and writing the Fifteen Minutes book. So I was monumentally exhausted when GOF came out, it looks like, and once I missed it, it was hard to get the momentum back. Eventually I did, but it took a while.

Order of the Phoenix then came out in... 2007. Okay, this is starting to make sense. July 2007, to be precise--which is, as you notice, quite logically after April 2007. I bet I was trying to catch up on GOF so I could then do OOTP when it was fresh. But I let that one slip by, too.

I sat here and thought about it and tried to remember what my deal was, and--this is so, so stupid, and I don't want to discourage anyone from giving their honest opinion, but--a couple of people got upset about a line (of mine, not the movie's) to the effect of (MARK, SERIOUSLY, DON'T READ THIS) Harry saying to Sirius, "Remind me why I'm going to be so upset when you bite it?" As in, HOW DARE I be so--flippant? dismissive? snarky? something--about a beloved fictional character and his impending death. A death they found out about when Order of the Phoenix was published four years before they were sitting there reading the GOF parody and were still grieving. I guess I'd thought the mourning period was over, but there you are. So here I am, a month or two after people getting upset, faced with the movie in which Sirius actually dies, and while I'm not sure what was actually going on in my life at that point, I distinctly remember thinking, "Knowing how ornery people are about this, still, four years later, I really do not want to deal with trying to make this funny right now."

The correct response, of course, would have been <---HATERS TO THE LEFT, but I hadn't finished my degree in bitchcraft at the time, either.

But people asked why I never wrote that one up, and as far as I can remember, that's why: because I have a desperate need to make everyone happy all of the time.

Speaking of which: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Behind the Scenes Photos.

Completely Similar Directors Darren Aronofsky and David Slade Vying for Wolverine 2. ...what? David Slade came out of Eclipse with his cred intact, as far as I'm concerned, so not only could you do worse than class up a big-budget X-Men movie, you could not do worse than the first Wolverine. It's kind of a win-win situation. But... Aronofsky? Really? I mean... that is... what? I know I'm like the only person who liked The Fountain (in which Hugh Jackman was fantastic, by the way. CONNECTIONS), but... what? Am I going to be traumatized by this? Was that Black Swan trailer his Mutant Natalie Portman tryout? I don't even know.  

Related: PREVIEW: Archie's 'Twilight' Parody, Part 2! Sigh.

Better: Jackson Rathbone: New TV gig. 

trailer_spot: Tamara Drewe, 127 Hours, Housemaid, Fair Game, Case 39.

Jeremy Renner in 'Mission: Impossible', Only It Might Not Be Called 'Mission: Impossible.' Well, that seems... pointful.

7th Doctor Possibly Hobbit's Radagast the Brown, Which Means Something if You're a Nerd. That would be most of us here, yes.

John Cusack Playing Poe in 'The Raven.'

First Official 'Arthur' Images. Note: Not related to Arthurian legend in any way. Except, wait, wasn't Helen Mirren in Excalibur? Only tangentially related, then.

Official Site, Clip for Devil. AKA "The Movie Trailer Everyone Laughed at When M. Night Shyamalan's Name Appeared."

Hark, a Vagrant: Nancy Drew comic.

'The Last Exorcism': What Did You Think (of the Ending)? Honestly? Finding out the ending is the first thing that's made me want to see it. Because I have a deep appreciation for the (metaphorically) cracked-out.

Del Toro's 'Mountains of Madness' is Like 'Hellboy' Meets 'The Thing.' 

And finally, in news relating not in the least to movies: They're broadcasting those Russian numbers again. 

Comments

[cupcakery.livejournal.com]

Was I the only person in the internet HP-o-sphere that didn't actually mind when Sirius bit it? In my entry after OotP, I have: "Well, at least he didn't get run over by a Muggle postal truck like Megan was predicting." and "BELLATRIX LESTRANGE, FUCK YEAH!"

[nocowardsoul]

No, I was never much of a Sirius fan.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

I have a weird love for Bellatrix myself. She is just so committed to her insanity, and Helena B-C playing her makes it that much better (HBC *knows* how to bring the crazy. Check out her performance as Ophelia in Hamlet sometime). I love it when she tells her sister "if I had sons, I would be PROUD to sacrifice them for the Drak Lord!" Cra. Zy.

I minded MUCH more about Hedwig and Fred's deaths than Sirius's. I cried my eyes out about those two.

[cupcakery.livejournal.com]

Oh, Hedwig. I was so pissed off about that. I mean, I get the point of it, blah blah symbolic death of childhood, blah blah, but still. That was way harsh, JKR.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Icon love. Mmmm, Jason Isaacs--rowr.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

What impresses me is that she plays crazy/witchy/gothy so often, and yet she manages to play, say, both Bellatrix and Mrs. Lovett so differently. She smiles like a knife. And then, the little touch of incest in the HBP movie--what did she do, kiss Draco's ear? AHHHHHH.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

She is an incredible actor. I've loved her ever since Lady Jane. LOVED her in Sweeny Todd, that moment when you see her realize she's going to have to kill Toby--she's just great.

My favorite moment of hers in HBP was when she did that...like, triumphal march through Hogwarts Hall, bringing it down through fire and dark magic. It was glorious, like Samson or something. And I love that scene in, I think it's OotP, when she emerges from Azkaban kind of shivering and gradually realizing that she's free. And still Crazy.

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

I liked his character, but I always thought he seemed rather doomed and Byronic in the books so I was expecting him to die.

[elsajeni.livejournal.com]

For me, it wasn't even that I was attached to Sirius -- I liked him, but I had kind of guessed he was going to bite it -- but that by that time I was getting to the point of, "Okay, I understand that 'torment the hero' is sort of how the genre works, and I accept that these books would be boring if Harry's life was happy and rainbows all the time, but he is like 15 so could he maybe have ONE WEEK where he doesn't make some mistake that HIDEOUSLY RUINS HIS OWN CHANCES FOR HAPPINESS EVER AGAIN."

[incogra.livejournal.com]

Seriously. Book 7's epilogue should've been 'And then Harry spent the rest of his life in therapy for PTSD. The end.'

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

This.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I understand that you want some of the hero's misfortunes to be attributable to things he himself did, in some sad or terrible irony, because otherwise it's like the universe just hates him and he's always a victim. So Cedric dies because Harry tried to be generous and fair; Sirius dies because Harry didn't look at what he gave him, and because Harry was too impulsive and caring; the Death Eaters figure out which of the seven Harrys is the real one because only Harry uses Expelliarmus instead of Stupefy; and the trio gets caught because Harry is known to be one of the few people who refuses to not use Voldemort's name. Sometimes the things that cause the misfortunes are things he shouldn't have done; sometimes it's someone actually using good things he does against him. So I understand that this is how you want to structure the hero's tribulations, because he shows that he has agency in the world, and when he acts, the world pushes back--things happen to Harry because he is Harry and because of the actions he chooses to take, not because it's just random or coincidental shit that could befall anyone.

But JFC, could we lay off the kid after a while? I don't know if they have wizard therapy, but someone needs to look into getting him some.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I had to talk down my best friend via email and chat for more hours than I care to remember, because she was DEVASTATED by Sirius' death. And no, I didn't entirely agree with her reaction, but her experience was intense enough that I still have a hard time with that scene, because I had to deal with her mourning, and I can't take that lightly.