Shakespeare and Potter

[plumtreeblossom]

Because of Commonwealth Shakespeare's very abridged season this year (not their fault; the city forced it), I'm not going to be organizing my traditional big Shakespeare picnic where I go down very early to secure front and center blanket space. The only night I can go is July 29, and I will probably be toast from the T@F run ending the night before. So if I do manage to go, I'll just be sneaking down with any stragglers I can find and squeezing into the crowd.

What I do want to do is see The Publick Theatre's Romeo and Juliet, which runs from July 26 through mid-September. Tickets are $32, but it's well worth it for spending the evening in their beautiful outdoor theatre. I've missed them for the last few seasons and I'd love to see what they do with R&J.

*****

Last night I didn't have any plans, so on the spur of the moment I went after work to see Order of The Phoenix...

A problem with all Potter movies is how much has to be left out. While Goblet of Fire is my so-far favorite of the books, it is my so-far least favorite of the movies because of its total lack of character development of the very important Cedric, Fleur, and Viktor. So I knew going in to OotP that things would be missing. Still, I found it to be the best of the series to date.

It is wonderfully dark and edgy. Certain points are genuinely frightening, for the first time in the series. Daniel Radcliffe is shaping into an excellent young adult actor. Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge deserves a Best Supporting Actress nod. Someone(s) deserves every award in the world for the set design of Umbridge's office.

There was nothing stopping them from making this a 3 hour movie, and I would have happily sat through it. OotP was Percy Weasley's big book, and I'd hoped to see this authoritarian black sheep of the free-spirited Weasley family get some screen development. A viewer would definitely need to have read the book to recognize that the red-haired, lineless young man showing up as Fudge's toady is Percy Weasley, now working for The Man. But at this point it's pretty safe to assume that most viewers have read the book.

Over all though, I enjoyed it very much, and I want to see it again (maybe in IMAX) since I was stuck in a bad seat way up front this time. I give it best-of-series-so far, with my only wish being for more. And that's not a bad thing.

Comments

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

I saw it last night too!

Besides the fact that the Weasley twins now look like they're about 30 years old, the casting was just great. Young Neville is certainly growing up cute as anything. :-) And I love emo, angsty Harry. Poor Ron's had about 3 lines in the whole movie! Luna had a pretty deceht role though. Love her. :-)

And was anyone else upset when all those prophecies came crashing down? I was like, "No! Now those other people will never know their prophecies! you're not the only one who would like to know things about their future, Harry!"

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I had that same reaction to all the broken prophesies! Each one of those was a life. I'm also anal enough to wonder about the ones stored 50 feet up on the shelving. How was someone supposed to find theirs or get to it if it was up there? Maybe they had to use their broomstick.

By the time they make the 7th movie, most of the kids are going to be in their 20s. But 20-somethings play teens all the time, so I don't think it's going to matter much. (as long as they stay on the shooting schedule!)

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

Yes, overall, I think it was a terrible way of storing prophesies. They were so close to the edge and not secure at all. Anyone could knock one over, even accidentally. I would have put them in some sort of safe deposit box system, like they have at the bank.

Okay, now it's pretty clear that we think about these things too much. :-)