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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
darkthirty's InsaneJournal:
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| Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 | | 8:25 pm |
| | Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 | | 7:03 am |
Danny Boyle's Sunshine JKRs remarks
I've come to appreciate the films of Danny Boyle as a kind of muscular poetry, like Heaney or Hughes or Dickey. Sunshine is no exception - the tension between characters is extraordinary, and the film, in spite of its slightly unpromising storyline, is so beautiful at times it reminds us of the uncompromising bigness of the universe itself. I give it 8.5.
I like JKRs ramblings. It's anodyne for a fandom that is so embedded it's almost co-dependent. | | Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 | | 12:15 pm |
Deathly Hallows - Ariana, Wandering in the Wild, Luna and The Three Brothers, and a Rant | | Saturday, July 21st, 2007 | | 11:31 am |
Deathly Hallows (I loved it) | | Saturday, July 14th, 2007 | | 5:02 pm |
What could possibly get me howling?
Frank and Alice being told their son had died, and reacting, just a little. | | 8:21 am |
The House of Gaunt
So, I'm halfway through a commentary on OotP movie, but am also spending time at the hospital with my son, so I've not finished it yet. However, I reread one of my favourite chapters in the whole HP series today, and I was really impressed.
In The House of Gaunt, Rowling has truly let her hatred of abuse and imprisonment free reign - we are about to see what is perhaps the meanest and nastiest family in the books to date. It comes after the first success in potions, thanks to the strange textbook, when Harry learns the name of the note-maker (the handwriting looks feminine, says Hermione) and before the contaminated Quidditch tryouts. It's the first lesson in Dumbledore's plan - this chapter devoted to the most ill luck of Gaunt. Morfin doesn't appear to speak anything but Parseltongue, aside from a single monosyllabic word later on. The chapter takes it's tone from the start of Spinner's End earlier in the book, but goes in an altogether different direction. The House of Gaunt arrives quickly where it needs to be, is ordered as a memory, and all the important elements of the encounter are laid out for us even before Dumbledore goes over the encounter with Harry. Rowling had this particular scene very clear in her mind, it seemed to me - the overheard comments of the riders, the reaction of Ogden to the Gaunt lifestyle, it almost reads like a human interest magazine article.
it's my favourite chapter because it is shocking in a different way than Rowling has allowed herself to be until then, and it demonstrates some of her deepest convictions.
I wonder how Yates will manage Sectumsempra, and this scene - you almost don't want a child friendly film anymore... | | Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 | | 11:15 am |
Carnivale, Spellbound, Order of the Phoenix Carnivale is unwatchable. There's a new cool, and it's High Definition banality. What is it with HBO originals, like this and Deadwood - all chrome, no substance whatsoever? The same mentality that created the PotC travesty, the shallow 300/Sin City stuff, seems to rule their productions. I'd rather watch the Honeymooners, a more intelligent show, or On the Buses. Bits of it crept into the first season of Battlestar Galactica too, though later seasons overcome some of this negative influence. Americans make great documentaries about school, did you know that? - OT:Our Town ( 9) and Spellbound, for example. I really liked Spellbound ( 8.5), enjoyed it through and through. Nupur was the least showy, though I loved the pessimist April too. All the kids were interesting. Well, midnight tickets for OotP movie. Reviews seem to be generally great, for those who are book fans, and confused, for those who are not, with some exceptions - a couple reviewers loved the movie as cinema more than previous installments, and they haven't read the books.. The subject matter is now bothering some mainstream critics though, it seems, or at least, confusing them a little, which this condensed version might just encourage. | | Saturday, July 7th, 2007 | | 8:37 pm |
The Battle for Rowling The real battle of Harry Potter isn't what takes place in the books, and we most of us know this, but a battle for defensible, intelligent critical approaches to Rowling's work. | | Thursday, July 5th, 2007 | | 6:47 pm |
bad date sheets, Ratatouille, tweaking, a taste of 2010 If we could be as public, in our general society, with bad date sheets, if we didn't have to hand around these important documents among ourselves like secret manifestos, those of us in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside who provide services for street involved people, including those in the sex trade, it would definitely be a safer place for those sex trade workers. But here, as in most places, the law, and the practise of law, prohibit such endevours, or rather, protect the powerful. Nevertheless, I would like to state, for the record, that these bad date sheets, or these dangerous trick sheets, or whatever they are called in other places, as I am certain some other places have them, make for absolutely horrific reading. Perhaps required reading, at least once in a while, for those who really wish to be informed of their society. Here's a link to an organization that works for the safety of those in the sex trade, and other links can be found there, though the bad date sheet is protected.
http://www.livingincommunity.ca/
Ratatouille is lots of fun, not at all offensive, and genuinely entertaining - it's a family classic, no doubt about that. Can I give this a 9? Yes, I can, and I do.
I have seen and heard some really pronounced and crazy tweaking in the alleys lately, as if the heat of the day had kept people inside, and the cool evening drew them out. Watching the worst cases of crack intolerance, like the man on fire, or the dancing multi-voiced man and/or woman who've been active recently, who each speak in a hundred crazy voices all mixed up together, I realize that they demonstrate, in some ways, the results of any kind of addiction - whether that addiction is to power or privacy or wealth or position. I think many many in this world repeat to themselves their "truths", or rather, their automatic, recieved ideas, their self definition ad nauseum, which keeps them centred and ostensibly safe, but really just keeps them boring and constricted. This is a mantra as clear as that pointed out by Cheever in that great story that Laurie Anderson based a song (Forgetting) for Philip Glass' pop album on. The person repeating to themselves the words of merit like a robot broken.
And at lunch, I walked by Andy Livingstone park, an artificial surface soccer field near GM Place, and the Japanese under 20s were practising, which isn't particularly notable, except that all the streets around were crawling with police cars. Andy L park is two blocks from Hastings Street, drug central in Vancouver, and one block from Chinatown. What is really unusual is that the police are arresting dealers. Holy cats. What a show!
We can only marvel at what lies ahead, as doomsday... as 2010 approaches... | | Thursday, June 21st, 2007 | | 3:10 pm |
| | Monday, June 18th, 2007 | | 5:46 pm |
two different things 1 - I have, in spite of myself, slipped utterly into HP fan mode. Will we go to the IMAX? I'm thinking yes...
2 - The history of people is, to a large extent, the history simply of wars, genocide, and torture
2a - Who actually volunteers to double cap downed enemies? How is that for them?
| | Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 | | 5:50 pm |
vancouver spending money stupidly Does this make sense at all? Don't they realize it makes them look like idiots? Educating seniors not to get hit by cars? Serious WTF factor here. | | Friday, June 8th, 2007 | | 6:58 pm |
another personality meme and another "of course" | | 9:16 am |
dragon
I love dragons . | | Thursday, June 7th, 2007 | | 5:04 pm |
condemned poster For those who live in Vancouver | | 11:08 am |
Britten's Billy Budd
I'm not a particular fan of Britten, in fact, I find him altogether too brassy and one dimensional most of the time, but the last Act of Billy Budd is entirely moving and beautiful, as if the man found a theme and context that truly suited his formality. | | Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 | | 1:02 pm |
Firefly/Serenity meme ( firefly meme ) Gosh, I'm so predictable. | | Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 | | 10:34 am |
OK, weirdness pie chart, plus the abominable theme park Does anyone else think that the HP theme park is going to be abominable? | | Monday, June 4th, 2007 | | 6:34 pm |
Tim Hortons Why do I get satisfaction imagining this girl eventually hooking up with someone from the reserve? | | Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 | | 8:46 pm |
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End informed by the existentialism of Sartre! if you say so... This is laughable, when it isn't simply ridiculous. Gosh, it sounds like they didn't even blush, either. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/features/?id=2323&p=l.htmPerhaps someone made a dare. Boxofficemojo sure fell for it. |
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