Showing posts with label Harry Potter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harry Potter. Show all posts

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and March Madness Sunday

I am watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
“Kinda. Watching it, Tupac and Biggie and the NCAA games while cooking.”
169 others are also watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on GetGlue.com
I’m definitely late to the bandwagon when it comes to the Harry Potter movies.  I have only ever seen the 1st movie in theaters.  I bought the final book on the strentgh of reading someone else’s copy of the book before it.
While I imagine this movie would have been amazing to seen on the large screen.  The only parts that capture my interest are the ball, the flashbacks, the Cedric-Harry moments and the heartwrenching scene when Cedric’s father keens over his son’s dead body.
I was cooking while this was going on.  Sundays are usually when I make things like stews and beans.  I made beans and cornbread.
The Tupac/Biggie documentary was interesting enough.  Rather than focusing on how both men died only, it delves into who they were. 
March Madness is in full swing. Right now the teams competing are ones that I’m not as engaged in. I check in now and again to see the scores.
I imagine that ABC Family, which aired this movie, decided that it was an appropriate one for March Madness, being that it is about competition.

I am watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Kinda. Watching it, Tupac and Biggie and the NCAA games while cooking.”



I’m definitely late to the bandwagon when it comes to the Harry Potter movies.  I have only ever seen the 1st movie in theaters.  I bought the final book on the strentgh of reading someone else’s copy of the book before it.

While I imagine this movie would have been amazing to seen on the large screen.  The only parts that capture my interest are the ball, the flashbacks, the Cedric-Harry moments and the heartwrenching scene when Cedric’s father keens over his son’s dead body.

I was cooking while this was going on.  Sundays are usually when I make things like stews and beans.  I made beans and cornbread.

The Tupac/Biggie documentary was interesting enough.  Rather than focusing on how both men died only, it delves into who they were.

March Madness is in full swing. Right now the teams competing are ones that I’m not as engaged in. I check in now and again to see the scores.

I imagine that ABC Family, which aired this movie, decided that it was an appropriate one for March Madness, being that it is about competition.

169 others are also watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on GetGlue.com

Saturday, January 10, 2009

The Winter Season of Masterpiece Theater Classic

I caught the promos for the upcoming offerings for Masterpiece Classic last night during 'Waiting For God.' I was disappointed in it even more than I was in my January 4th blog post concerning the upcoming season.

I am not so much disappointed in the 'Celebration of Dickens,' taking place from February-May. With the exception of 'David Copperfield,' (a version that has future 'Harry Potter' stars Maggie Smith and Daniel Radcliffe-a clear bit of shameless tie-in with the 'Half Blood Prince' movie coming out this year) and 'Oliver Twist,' I am pleased that they are airing adaptations of stories by Dickens that aren't as read nowadays as they might have been in the past. An example being the 'Old Curiousity Shop,' which caused a sensation in its day not unlike the 2007 midnight release of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.' In those days, Dickens published his tales in periodicals in monthly installments and ravenous readers had to be patient as each chapter unfolded at what we would consider now to be a slow and maddening pace. The oft-told story concerning 'Old Curiosity Shop,' is of people rushing to the docks in America as the periodicals were being delivered and asking if 'Little Nell was dead.'

Instead of the umpteeth adaptations of 'Oliver Twist' and 'David Copperfield,' I feel they should have included in their place both 'Bleak House,' (a Dickens adaptation that resuscitated the Masterpiece series recently) and the docudrama that produced in 2002 based on Peter Ackroyd's biography called simply 'Dickens.' Not only was the latter a well done insight into the art and the life of its subject, it also included clips from the film and tv adaptations of his novels, which were used here to also shed some light on certain aspects of his life.

I am disappointed that the upcoming Masterpiece Classic offerings include yet another adaptation of 'Wuthering Heights' and yet another adaptation of 'Sense and Sensibility.' Admittedly, the latter was a part of last year's well received celebration of Jane Austen (known as The Complete Jane Austen), which also resuscitated the Masterpiece franchise in 2008 and so I understand wanting to go with a winner. However, I don't understand the need to air yet another adaptation of 'Wuthering Heights.' I cannot imagine that there were not other adaptations that could have been commissioned or that exist out there that PBS could not use for this series that would not be 'more of the same.' Per the PBS site, they work with "producing partners in the UK" to develop content for these "seasons."
Great Britain is a place of quite a bit of diversity and it seems to me that one way to keep Masterpiece "accessible" and exciting would be not to again, "show more of the same."

There are clearly no stories about 'Hong Kong' between 1912-1997 or of India in the 1840s or of the British colonies in Africa where the protagonist is not Caucasian because:

A) It would mean acknowledging the imperialism of UK's past and
B) it is still a truism that many people will not put themselves in the shoes of someone whose culture is so foreign to them or that they cannot relate to or so it is believed.

I expect I will watch 'Little Dorrit.' According to Wikipedia, the actor that potrayed Charles Dickens in the 2002 docudrama 'Dickens' (Anton Lesser), will be in this version of 'Little Dorrit.' He was very good in the former and as an avid Dickens fan, I expect he will be as good in the latter. It is something to look forward to I suppose.

Review: The Tale of the Dark Crystal

The Tale of the Dark Crystal by Donna Bass My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews