Loramir Of Gondor's Journal

OK, so I'm kind of meh on Dan Radcliffe as an actor, but how sweet is this?

So: HBP!

Just got back from the midnight showing. It was awesome! I didn't even know Sumter had that many HP fans diehard enough to go to a midnight showing!

Anyway. It was great! I'd forgotten how great HP movies are. I can't remember the first thing about OotP. I have lots of small nitpicky things and several big things that bothered me, but on the whole it was really good. Funny and still very dark, close enough to the book not to give me a heart attack, suspenseful, well-shot and good cinematography and special effects...

One problem of course is that I haven't read the book in ages, so exactly what is and isn't in the book are a bit hazy at times.

( Thoughts (spoilers!) )

Well, it's nearly 4:30 AM. So, conclusions: definitely very well done. I think it's tied with PoA for my favorite. It was just the right balance of humor and darkness. It would be very easy for it to be too dark and depressing, but it wasn't. It maybe wasn't dark enough, really. You didn't really see just how grim the Voldemort situation was and how much his power had grown, at least not as much as you did in the book. And if you didn't know what happened at the end, it maybe kind of came out of nowhere.

But anyway. I think it struck a good balance overall. The humor wasn't as forced as it has seemed in some of the movies, they did a good job of showing how the gang is growing up...

Anyway, I could probably go on for ages, but I must go to bed! Now I'm looking forward to reading the book - must finish GoF and get through OotP (aka "HP and the Teenage Angst!").

And it's Harry Potter Day once again!

I have to work from 5-10, plus an hour's drive home (can't wait till I move to Columbia), but then me and my brother are going to a midnight showing!

I really wanted to reread the book, because I've only read it once or twice, and once was in a huge rush to find out what happened when it first came out. I can't ever remember who all those Gaunt people are and all the details about Slughorn and and Fenrir Greyback and stuff.

But I got stuck on GoF, possibly my least favorite book, and lost momentum with my re-reading. According to IMDb, though, the Gaunts were dropped anyway. Although weren't they kind of important? But whatever. The reviews sound pretty good and now I'm all fangirly and excited.

I hope they don't ruin the ending. I also hope they can make me care enough about Dumbledore to even care about the ending, because thus far I have hated Michael Gambon as Dumbledore, especially in GoF when he yelled at Harry after his name came out of the Goblet of Fire.

(This reminds me - I ought to go back and reread the journal I was keeping as I read HBP for the first time. I stopped every few chapters to record my reactions. There are lots of capital letters and exclamation marks and question marks and some very large "NOOOOO"s toward the end.)

I wonder if Dan's acting has improved any. I've never been particularly thrilled with him. Rupert, when he gets to do something besides stupid-sidekick-comic-relief stuff, and Emma are pretty good, but Dan's always been rather wooden. I don't hate him, but he's just kind of blah. He seems to have two main emotions - stoic and angry. However, since he's playing Angsty Teenager Harry now, perhaps those will serve him pretty well.

I remember how obsessed I used to be with HP. It's kind of faded over the years, but new movies and things still make me all fangirly!

So we just heard Sparkle, my cat, crying from down the hall. She doesn't make much noise at all unless something's wrong, so I went looking for her. The cries were coming from my brother's room, which she never goes in, so I figured maybe she was stuck in his closet or something. We searched all over his room, and were wondering if she'd maybe crawled inside his box springs - my other brother's box springs has a hole in the bottom cover and she occasionally hides inside it.

But then she meowed some more and finally we found her -- down inside the covered air vent in the floor.

It turned out that the cover had somehow been pried off the vent in my bedroom, and apparently she'd crawled down in that one. But how??? I mean, it's flush with the floor, so it would take some prying to get loose and out of the floor. We have had company - my aunt and uncle, two young cousins, and my aunt's childhood friend and her husband from Washington state...but I really don't think any of them would randomly mess with an air vent. Even the kids - for one thing, the vent in my room is on a very dusty part of the floor behind my bed where even I seldom go. For another, my cousins are veteran cat owners, obsessed with kitties, and very good at cat-proofing things (they've just gotten an indoor kitten) - so I'm fairly sure they'd realize the danger of Sparkle going in an open vent.

I'm contemplating whether it's possible that Bella, the puppy, did it (she's a very big puppy, probably close to 35 or 40 pounds now). I'm not sure if she'd have been able to do it or not. I really don't want to be like my dad who blames everything on the cat, but Bella does get into everything and I am biased against her because she has ruined several pairs of shoes and various other possessions. I don't have much patience with her, cute or not. My main concern was, if it was her, it could happen again.

So. Completely baffled. As my brother says, we need the Hardy Boys.

Started screencapping The Sting, which I just watched last night, but I have suddenly become overwhelmingly sleepy. First day at my not-really-new job today - I've started back at my old job in Columbia. Not the greatest job on earth, but I did rather like and am glad to be back.

I have two other sets of caps uploading now, and might cap Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, which I have from Netflix because I'm a dork and I love that movie (left over from my pre-teenage horse obsession). Hopefully I'll get the ones uploading now up tomorrow, but I don't know. I'll try to get them all up the near future, anyway.

So anyway, though it is unheard of for me to go to bed this early, I believe I shall. Good night!

So my dad is currently stuck on the side of the road somewhere south of Fayetteville, NC, with 3 Berkshire pigs in somewhat makeshift trailer.

And his cell phone is dead. So this is wonderful.

Some of my uncle's employees, who are no doubt thrilled, are on their way to get him, but in the meantime we have no news. We also don't know precisely where he is, other than somewhere near a gas station at exit 41 on I-95, where he accidentally put gasoline in my uncle's diesel truck.

So he can't go find a phone, since he can't leave his pigs. IF he's on 95, maybe someone will observe a man in a truck with pigs has broken down and will call the police? We're not really worried (well, I am, because I worry about everything), but we do need to know where he is and he probably would like some food, seeing as he's been wherever he is since 7:40-ish.

My family always has the weirdest drama.

...and the Dirty Dancing obsession continues. I'm so weird about movies. There's tons of movies that I watch ones and like, even like well enough to buy, and then, out of the blue, there are several that I watch once and get completely obsessed with.

( Movie-related rambling )

Anyway, enough rambling. My DD obsession is still in effect, though now I've got the DVD it'll probably start to fade pretty soon. It's just such a fun, happy movie though, melodramatic abortion sub-plots notwithstanding. And it's a great romance, of course. I love what somebody over at Cinematical said about it: "I love the entire dynamic of the film -- two people who each believe, for utterly different reasons, that the other one is way out of their league, yet they fall in love anyway." *sigh*

And on that note, I'm off to watch the final "Time of My Life" scene one more time :)

My family has decided we should start calling flash drives "information goblets," which is what my dad called one today when he couldn't think of the name. He does this all the time - uses completely random, entirely unrelated words when he can't of the right one. He once called a watermelon a lawnmower, and a plate of sliced tomatoes, umbrellas. This causes much hilarity and many inside jokes.

Off to have dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. Maybe more later.

What exactly did that line mean and why is it so famous?

I finally watched Dirty Dancing, which I'd never seen before. Yes, I know it's a classic, especially of the cheesy fluffy chick flick category, which is my specialty, so it's positively tragic I hadn't seen it.

And of course, I loved it! I'd have maybe preferred if the 80s-ish music hadn't kept interfering with the 60s vibe, but I loved it anyway!

A nice fluffy romantic movie, exactly the kind I like! And with very hot Patrick Swayze! Man, I don't think I've ever seen a Patrick Swayze movie, come to think of it, but wow! The dancing was great and the whole movie was very sexy!

But that "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" line - I don't get it. Why is it famous? Having heard the line a million times with no context, I always imagined maybe somebody was threatening Baby, you know - had her cornered? But in context, it doesn't really seem to make sense. Presumably no one forced Baby to sit in the corner. I guess maybe he meant she shouldn't be ignored, hence the ensuing dance with her? I still don't really get the line, nor see why it's famous.

But other than my puzzlement about that line, it was awesome. The sort of movie that leaves you happy, which is the kind I like!

Which, incidentally, is part of why I didn't care for the apparently much-acclaimed Once. I was gypped! All the hype, including the Netflix envelope, went on about the romance - and then the ending was most disappointing. Not sad, but not happily ever after. Yes, I know I'm a baby, but real life is depressing enough. I'll take happy endings in my movies, please!

Once was just a bit too gritty, too slow, too indie, if that makes any sense. There wasn't enough dialog (montages again), too many long disjointed handheld camera bits, etc. The music was not my type, and the film was just too lowkey and blah. It was difficult to stay awake. It wasn't awful. I rather liked the characters, especially the fact that they weren't gorgeous actors, but actually looked like regular people (although I confess, given the choice I'll take super-hot Patrick Swayze over ordinary people any day).

So I liked the characters, but the "falling in love" that IMDb's plot description mentioned seemed more like "gradually growing somewhat fond of each other." There didn't seem to be much chemistry between them although I believe I heard they were together in real life? The music was all so blah (to me, bearing in mind that I have very weird taste in music and am an avid bluegrass fan) that I can't remember any of it at all. No real romance, no action, no suspense - it seemed like nothing happened. Overall: meh.

Anyway, got to get up earlyish to go look at apartments in Columbia with Rachelle. I am quite excited to be independent (ish) again! Next movie up should be Lost In Austen, from Netflix. Might be a while though, due to my YouTube Friends marathon. I'm almost done with season 7 (Monica & Chandler's wedding is coming up!), which is further than I've gotten in any TV show except As Time Goes By, which doesn't count because there's like 10 episodes per season. I'm madly obsessed with Friends, especially Chandler :) More on that later!

Just watched Last Chance Harvey with my mom. I'd been wanting to see it solely because of its stars, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman, and the promise of a love story. It was worth the wait!

( review, if it can be called that, or mostly just rambling )

On the whole, I agree with Ebert, as usual (my one major point of contention with him is Anna and the King, which he gave zero stars). In particular, though, I would like to wholeheartedly agree with his condemnation of "that ancient standby, the Semi-Obligatory Lyrical Interlude." I hate when they fade of into a montage of the happy couple laughing and chatting or kissing or frolicking (? how do you spell that?) in fields of wildflowers or *ahem* laying in meadows staring at each other and sparkling. I didn't find too much fault with the use of it in Last Chance Harvey, though it did irk me slightly (so did Kate being taller than Harvey, which is completely ridiculous - my being annoyed, not her being taller). But it just about killed Twilight for me. All the lovely romance from the book was gone, reduced to...lying in a field. Staring at each other. And sparkling. In general it just seems like laziness. Can't be bothered to actually write dialog or shoot scenes to establish a relationship - nah, we'll just through in a cheesy montage. It's so overdone and so completely shallow. It doesn't develop the characters or their relationship at all and it clearly says (to me, anyway) that the filmmakers just can't be bothered. What? Actual dialog might make their film a bit longer? Well, if it's a good film, people wouldn't mind, if they actually put some effort into it and stopped trying to placate us with montages...sorry, it's one of my pet peeves and I was delighted to see Ebert address it in this review. I was pointing emphatically at my screen and hissing "Yes! Yes! Exactly!" (I'd've shouted instead of hissing, but it's 2 AM...).

So, yes, I really liked Last Chance Harvey. I seem to have a thing for middle-aged romances. I love As Time Goes By, for example. And in Mamma Mia!, Sophie and Sky completely annoy me, while I love Donna and Sam. Odd. But I guess I love about them what I love about Last Chance Harvey, that sense of hope, maybe.

Anyway, in closing, I would just like to reaffirm my adoration of Emma Thompson. She is seriously awesome. I believe she is my favorite modern actress. She's certainly the one I would most like to meet in person. She always seems to so down to earth and normal and friendly. And funny! Her commentary for Sense & Sensibility was hilarious at times, though also very insightful and interesting.

ANYWAY, this couch is really hot and I've been up late the last few nights, so I believe I will go to bed.

My LJ has been overhauled! I've gone through and retagged everything so the tagging more or less makes sense. I've fixed the icon posts, as the tables I'd originally used didn't work in the new layout. Screencap posts now have the gallery graphics from my site instead of tiny previews. I have a lovely new P&P mood theme - I must make an effort to use a bigger variety of moods instead of "cheerful" all the time.

So anyway, it should now be easier to find screencaps, as they are all tagged. I don't have enough icons to bother with classifying them much, so they're not tagged by specific movie or subject, really. The "squee" tag applies to rather fangirly posts, LOL, mostly to do with Walk the Line.

I've realized, reading back through my journal, that I should post more. Even if no one else reads it, I find it interesting to remember things I'd forgotten about from several years ago...

I have just indulged my rather varying taste in movies by watching two extremely different ones back to back: Empire Records and Sense & Sensibility (1995).

The first is an old favorite from my high school days, which I still love due its general insanity and the considerable hotness of Anthony LaPaglia. I was looking for a mood theme for my journal and found where someone had made an Empire Records one, which made me realize I hadn't seen it in years.

I decided to watch S&S after watching the new and less satisfying one last night. This has definitely confirmed my preference for the 1995 version over the 2008 one. Also, I watched it with the audio commentary by Emma Thompson and Lindsay Moran, the producer, which has only served to massively increase my admiration for Emma Thompson. She really is hilarious! Her behind-the-scenes stories about the day Alan Rickman's horse had gas and fainting sheep were wonderful, as were her more serious thoughts about the film and discussion of the process of writing and filming it.

One thing she mentioned quite a lot was how much she wanted to make sure it was funny and ironic, which is what I really like about that film. The humor really gives it more depth and appeal - without it, the newer one seems so blah. It also reinforced my opinion that Alan Rickman is the infinitely better of the two Cols. Brandon. With him you could really see the love and longing and pain and all that, which I just never could with David Morrissey.

Incidentally, after hearing Emma talk about them in the commentary, I went to watch the deleted scenes from S&S. I was highly amused to realize the DVD menu for the deleted scenes from S&S contains two scenes - "True Love's Kiss," and "Mrs. Dashwood Converts Elinor." The first is Elinor & Edward's kiss, which was cut because it didn't fit either the characters or the point in the film where it would have gone. It was rather awkward and I think the film is better off without it. The other one, however, contains Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor talking in the garden after hearing that Edward is married. As it turns out, Mrs. D is not converting Elinor, but comforting her. I keep imagining the misunderstanding that resulted in that typo! You'd think someone would have caught it before they released the DVD!

Last night I watched the new(ish) version of Sense & Sensibility. My ultimate verdict: meh. Parts of it I liked and parts of it I didn't. Overall I don't think it can compare to the 1995 Ang Lee version with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. Perhaps one shouldn't try to compare, but when both films tell the same story, it's almost impossible not to.

( Review )

So, again, my final verdict is: meh. It was not bad. It just wasn't particularly good. If the 1995 version didn't exist, this one might have been good, but compared to that version, it just falls flat.

Also, I thought for the DVD they could have taken out the credits and the "Next time" preview bits and just done it as if it were a movie, like they did with the 1995 P&P. I found that a bit annoying, especially the preview bits.

I was amused just now to see ghostlybohemia had made an icon of the cover of the edition of Jane Austen's Persuasion that I have...which is truly horrendous. So I commented to tell her about my equally (if not more) horrendous edition of Pride & Prejudice, and she expressed a desire to see it.

So I've scanned both the front and back covers. The back cover is rather plain, but I had to scan it, you see, because if I told you what the back cover copy is, you seriously wouldn't believe me.

And so, here it is, in all it's horribleness:

( Mom's fishing for husbands - but the girls are hunting for love... )

Yes, I actually paid for this, in a real bookstore! It was the cheapest edition at Waldenbooks. I think it was $2.99 or $3.99. I was going to get a slightly prettier one, but this one was so incredibly hilarious I had to buy it.

As if Mr. Darcy would ever wear a purple coat and turquoise waistcoat...

I've been dying to see this movie ever since I missed it in theaters, so I finally got it the other day from Netflix. Definitely a new addition to my long list of favorite movies! It was incredibly good! I loved the 40s setting, the story, the characters - it was just great, and really well done. It was beautifully shot - the scenery and colors were beautiful. The actors were really good too! Nicole Kidman was perfect, and the kid who played Nullah, Brandon Walters, was amazing for a 13 year old who's never acted before! And man, Hugh Jackman is incredibly hot...

So, anyway, here's a TON of caps from Australia. Seriously, this is the most I've ever done for a movie - nearly 4000:



Over here at the gallery!

I was looking for Pleasantville caps a while ago and was surprised not to be able to find many good ones. It's such a pretty movie! So anyway, I capped it myself.



Get them here!

More caps! These are from Shall We Dance, the American version starring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, and Susan Sarandon. I love this movie - Richard Gere is awesome!



Get them here!

I've got several sets of caps to post, including two I just capped and two I found on my computer and realized I never posted. So here's An Affair to Remember, starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.

I love this movie, despite the total sappiness, or more likely, because of it. It took me a while to get used to Cary Grant's odd accent and speech, but having watched a large number of his movies, I don't notice it any more.

I could do without the heartwarming bits with the children, but Nicky and Terry's relationship on the ship is great - Grant and Kerr have great chemistry and they're very funny together. Cary Grant is a great comedian, which really shows here - the comedy elevates the movie above the totally sentimental melodrama it might have been.



Get them here!

There has got to be something wrong with Nicholas Sparks. Does he just spend his days thinking of ways for people to die??

Honestly. The Notebook I can just about enjoy, because at least Noah & Allie got to spend a whole lifetime together and grow old before they died (mysteriously at the same time, apparently due to the transcendent power of love or something). But the rest of his books/movies I just don't like.

I just watched Nights In Rodanthe, which was reasonably good but very predictable. Personally, I just can't really get into the story when I *know* someone's going to die. This is why I only watch the first half of Titanic. And while I had not read Nights In Rodanthe, since I knew it was by Nicholas Sparks, obviously somebody was going to die. I was amazed when they survived the storm in Rodanthe, so after that I just sat there wondering, "Well, they survived that, now how is one or both of them going to die?" Was his plane going to crash? Would she get in a car accident? Would they get together only to realize one of them had a terminal illness? Maybe he caught a fatal South American disease while visiting his son in Ecuador!

But seriously, there has got to be something pathologically wrong with someone who writes some of the most romantic, moving love stories and then every time, kills one or both of the characters. Even more bizarre to me is that people voluntarily read his books knowing how it will inevitably end. I mean, having a good cry every now and then is one thing, I suppose, but reading his books just seems masochistic.

I am a major proponent of the Romantic Nonsense genre of literature. I don't want murder mysteries, deep symbolism, apocalyptic disasters, dysfunctional families, terminal illnesses, car accidents, tragic secrets, etc (though there are a few exceptions to this). If I wanted those things, I'd read the newspaper. If I'm going to spend my time reading a book (or watching a movie), I want an escape from real life and, darn it, I want a happy ending!

Possibly this is why I did not enjoy being an English major. All these books with "literary merit" almost all happen to also be incredibly depressing. So do all the movies that get nominated for Best Picture. This is why I was watching Mamma Mia and Enchanted while everyone else was raving about No Country for Old Men and Atonement.

Another movie I couldn't find many caps for. The Lindsay Lohan version of The Parent Trap is still one of my favorite movies, despite the fact that I am now twice the age of the main character!

My obsessive capping resulted in a ton of caps for this movie, so hopefully someone can put them to good use!



Get them here!