I JUST WENT TO THE MOVIES
It's been forever! I normally don't go to things on opening weekend, but I've gradually come to realize that the matinees on opening weekend for non-children's movies are practically empty, so why not?
Eddie Redmayne made a cute awkward dork who really can't make eye contact.
The best thing about all the HP movies is the atmosphere/universe worldbuilding. Like, as a movie it was okay. As an HP period piece set in NYC, it was great. A lot of the stuff that had been written for Pottermore came off online as flat and random, but (as I fully expected) worked on the screen, as part of a story.
The New Salem stuff didn't work as well to me, though. I liked that it did reflect a deeply old-fashioned part of the 1920s (since most 1920s films are set among the rich in a city, they tend to show the decade as a time of new and shiny buildings, styles, and values) and the strain of religious puritanism that we're probably never going to get rid of in America - but I'm pretty sure they'd get a LOT of heckling on the streets, and "freaks" is a much less likely epithet than "loons".
At first I was intrigued by Graves's manipulation of Credence seeming to have sexual overtones, but once it was revealed that he was Grindelwald (and seriously, taking away Colin Farrell and leaving puffy blond Johnny Depp in his place was CRIMINAL) it became deeply :/ :/ :/ because, you know, we already had this problem with Unfortunate Implications with Grindeldore in DH, right? Did you have to do it again?
I thought Queenie was a bit much (and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't let your step-in act as a neckline fill-in, okay), but then thinking about it, it seems possible that, being a Legilimens, maybe at an early age she realized that people liked it and responded better when she was ultra-cute.
It would have been a big improvement if Kowalski had been African-American, though. And it's honestly kind of strange to me that they didn't cast him that way, because this franchise is known to have an issue with being too white and this movie was under extra scrutiny (remember how everyone wanted Nathan Stewart-Jarrett for the lead?) - plus it puts more meaning onto the WASPy bank manager denying his loan and the proscription of magic/no-maj relationships and keeps them from looking like "we wanted to explore these racial issues, but only with white people". Also, he could have been decent looking, too, and we could have not had another gorgeous woman/shlubby man she-sees-his-inner-beauty pairing.
"No-maj" is still a terrible term, should have just kept "Muggles", or, if there really had to be some linguistic drift, "mugs".
I'm deeply intrigued by Leta Lestrange and can't wait to find out more about her.
The sexy house elf singer was the single most disturbing thing about the movie. Who came up with this idea and why? Is she part human? Does that make it better or worse?
Original post: http://chocolatepot.dreamwidth.org/930235.html - comment wherever you please.
Eddie Redmayne made a cute awkward dork who really can't make eye contact.
The best thing about all the HP movies is the atmosphere/universe worldbuilding. Like, as a movie it was okay. As an HP period piece set in NYC, it was great. A lot of the stuff that had been written for Pottermore came off online as flat and random, but (as I fully expected) worked on the screen, as part of a story.
The New Salem stuff didn't work as well to me, though. I liked that it did reflect a deeply old-fashioned part of the 1920s (since most 1920s films are set among the rich in a city, they tend to show the decade as a time of new and shiny buildings, styles, and values) and the strain of religious puritanism that we're probably never going to get rid of in America - but I'm pretty sure they'd get a LOT of heckling on the streets, and "freaks" is a much less likely epithet than "loons".
At first I was intrigued by Graves's manipulation of Credence seeming to have sexual overtones, but once it was revealed that he was Grindelwald (and seriously, taking away Colin Farrell and leaving puffy blond Johnny Depp in his place was CRIMINAL) it became deeply :/ :/ :/ because, you know, we already had this problem with Unfortunate Implications with Grindeldore in DH, right? Did you have to do it again?
I thought Queenie was a bit much (and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't let your step-in act as a neckline fill-in, okay), but then thinking about it, it seems possible that, being a Legilimens, maybe at an early age she realized that people liked it and responded better when she was ultra-cute.
It would have been a big improvement if Kowalski had been African-American, though. And it's honestly kind of strange to me that they didn't cast him that way, because this franchise is known to have an issue with being too white and this movie was under extra scrutiny (remember how everyone wanted Nathan Stewart-Jarrett for the lead?) - plus it puts more meaning onto the WASPy bank manager denying his loan and the proscription of magic/no-maj relationships and keeps them from looking like "we wanted to explore these racial issues, but only with white people". Also, he could have been decent looking, too, and we could have not had another gorgeous woman/shlubby man she-sees-his-inner-beauty pairing.
"No-maj" is still a terrible term, should have just kept "Muggles", or, if there really had to be some linguistic drift, "mugs".
I'm deeply intrigued by Leta Lestrange and can't wait to find out more about her.
The sexy house elf singer was the single most disturbing thing about the movie. Who came up with this idea and why? Is she part human? Does that make it better or worse?
Original post: http://chocolatepot.dreamwidth.org/930235.html - comment wherever you please.