Part one: Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince (the movie). I've read each of the books (up to #6, at least), and Christopher has not. So each time we go to one of the movies we start de-briefing conversations with me asking him if it all made sense. Happily, unlike after HP#5, this time when we left Christopher didn't feel like the movie had left him out in the cold. But he did comment that it felt like a movie entirely aimed at getting us to the next movie.
For me, the movie spent too much time on niceties, and skimped on too many serious background plot points from the book. Of course, Christopher hasn't read the books and so he wasn't bothered by those. Yes, it was fun to see Harry, Ron and Hermione (and everyone else) looking older and dealing with late-teen issues (like dating). Yes, it was emotional in many of the same ways that the book was. But, I wanted to see more of what seemed really important when I was reading the book. And, well, I also felt like the movie was simply a placeholder before the next one. Overall rating: B+
Part Two: If you've been paying attention, you know that I broke a chunk off of one of my molars, yesterday. No major pain, thankfully, but a relatively constant ache and some spikes of pain when I drank anything too cold.
This morning, I called my dentist and was able to get in on one of their Emergency Slots around lunchtime. I contacted my work to let them know I wasn't coming in in the morning, and did a couple of hours' worth of work before heading over to St Paul to the dentist. (By the way, I highly recommend the folks at the St Paul Dental Center. My hometown dentist recommended them years ago, and I've come to really like them.)
My dentist was great. He reassured me that the break was about as "good" as it could have been--clean and even. Since Emergency Slots are only about 20 minutes long, he simply put a filling over the back of my tooth and explained that I probably shouldn't put off getting that tooth crowned any longer. So as I left I scheduled two more appointments: One for the "fitting" and a temporary "placeholder" crown; One for the official crown.
Here's hoping that both the final Harry Potter movie(s) and my new crown will be worth the work, the wait, and the money.
2 comments:
Given the length of the book vs what they can stuff into a movie I would say maybe you are being a tad unfair. :) I actually thought it was really well done--but I hated the first 2 movies, which I felt like were exactly the books. It probably also helps that I do not retain plot points very well so I could not remember what was or was not in the book vs the movie.
I am re-reading the series right now because, hooray!, the final book is FINALLY out in paperback and I refuse to read them in hardback. Not only is it $$$ but hello, ridiculously heavy and awkward in bed?! I just started book 4 today....
Laura -- Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the movie. But the movies are obviously aimed at people who have read the books.
Christopher hasn't read any of them, and the last couple of movies have left him confused and feeling like he is missing something. Which, in essence, he is.
I still plan to see the final movie(s) though, as well as rereading all the books. :-)
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