Book Report: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Torgo approves

(Of course you shouldn't read this if you haven't read the book but intend to.)

Some of us (ahem) end up like Harry Potter with a wife and kids and it takes a week to read a 750-page book.

Sometimes I hate the media. I avoided reading reviews of this book, but of course I kept seeing headlines. The one that stuck out in my mind was "A fitting end for Harry Potter." That says it all, really. You know it's a happy ending. You know, more or less, how it'll be.

But then, J.K. Rowling has never shown herself to be a risk-taking writer. That's my complaint with this book (and the series as a whole). Her prose is awkward, forced, and clumsy. She has a brilliant imagination, regardless of how much she borrows liberally from other fantasy tales, but too often, especially in the beginning and end of each book (also, here in the tedious middle passages where months need to pass but no action exists to fill them), it's as though she knows she just has to write to a point but has no ability to get there with style.

Someone said to me, "After all, this is a children's book," but that's silly. Children's books can be written with zeal and flourish. See Dr. Suess.

That aside, this is a fitting end for Harry Potter. Many people needed to die to make the stakes real and the action visceral, and they do. (Honestly, I was happy at some points that the cast was getting thinner -- to remember all these characters in the years between books, especially when one reads the book so quickly, is daunting.) Good must win, and it does. Dumbledore, despite being dead, and his pensieve must clog the final chapters with frustratingly slow "explain it all" sidestories - Deus ex Machina, Potter-style.

There's a great deal of fun, action, even some romance. It's awfully violent, and I foresee it being a movie that really is in no way good for kids. But it's a gripping read, more so than book 5, certainly. Probably more than 6. I don't really remember 6.

I'm happy with it.

Movie Review: Higher Learning

Higher Learning: Torgo approves

I wish I'd watched this movie when it came out in 1995. Aside from getting the chance to see a bunch of actors I'd like later in their careers, like Omar Epps and Michael Rapaport, a bunch of people I generally enjoy, like Ice Cube and Busta Rhymes, and then just some pretty people, like Tyra Banks and Jennifer Connelly, it's like watching what happens at most colleges around the country (including mine) but in exaggerated, cartoonish tones.

There are loads of problems with the movie. The biggest is how it begins with important portrayals of institutional racism and the danger of date rape, then takes everything much too far.

Michael Rapaport is an outsider, a loner with dangerous tendencies, but his becoming a murderous neo-Nazi feels trite.

Jennifer Connelly is the wise, lesbian women's group leader. Ok, that's fine. But her blind pursuit of Kristy Swanson (and her simultaneous pursual of random sensitive white guy) feels a little degrading.

If you put that aside, it's a good movie.

There are some sickly funny scenes. These usually involve Ice Cube, who just looks to be having a good time. Also, most of the neo-Nazis are played by Jewish actors. That can't be coincidental, and it adds an interesting depth to their portrayals of white supremacists.

Movie Review: Jason's Lyric

Jason's Lyric: Torgo approves

This movie is one of the reasons Netflix is great. It's not one of the best movies of all time. It's a good movie. But being a good movie from the mid-90's, it would likely never be found on a movie store shelf. Netflix has it.

That's about all I have here.

Movie Review: Time Bandits

Time Bandits: Torgo disapproves

This movie hasn't aged well. Also going against it is Terry Gilliam's seams-out style. It all feels like a movie that should be on MST3k.

That's unfortunate because there are a number of good things going on. There is the Monty Python troupe. There's a rather clever story idea. And there's Terry Gilliam's imagination.

I remember liking Twelve Monkeys, and I thought Fear and Loathing was terrific. I think these larger-scale productions just aren't his best work.

Lost in La Mancha was great, because it was a chance to see Gilliam approach the movie.

Even if I hadn't seen that, though, I think Time Bandits would suffer because it's so transparent. I never got sucked into the story because the visuals and effects were so clearly sets and miniatures, matte paintings and fake rocks. I could hear Gilliam telling the extras in crazy costumes to just wiggle your hook hand around and run that way.

Even though George Lucas showed he's a terrible director with the latter Star Wars trilogy, in the very first movie, from 1977, his vision was larger than his budget or the technology. That movie makes you believe you're on another planet even though it's the African desert.

Time Bandits also reminds me of something E. Ethelbert Miller said in a poetry workshop about a poem that mentions a cell phone. He said to be wary of images that time stamp your work, things that may seem hopelessly outdated 5 or 10 years from now. Think of how your work will appear to audiences for decades to come.

Time Bandits is clearly from 1981.

Prequel, Sequel and Me: Epilogue

No chaos yesterday.

Prequel must have liked having a belly full of cantaloupe. (I can't figure out why. M-N and I both dislike the stuff. But he polished off an entire cantaloupe in a couple of days.) He slept until moments before she got home.

Sequel slept most of the time, getting up about 30 minutes before she got home. While he slept, I had him on my chest, so I didn't want to move much.

I had my laptop, which meant work, mindless surfing, then watching some of Live Earth online.

No one I wanted to see was playing, so I watched some of the Pussycat Dolls. They were terrible. They're a bizarre sight. Aside from the cameraperson who was stationed behind them doing only ass close-ups (and the director often cutting back to that shot), they're lousy dancers. I thought they were burlesque dancers originally. Plus, I'm 99% they lip-synched. So there is no excuse for their awful dancing. They were all out of time and a couple of them looked like they were having seizures, while others just looked bored.

That's my Live Earth report.

Prequel, Sequel and Me

Today is 7/7/07, a good day to get married b/c it's easy to remember. Plus, I guess, it's supposed to be lucky. And people can say, "We got married on the day Al Gore threw that big concert." To which people will respond, "Who? What? Was that before the ice caps melted and the fields turned to dust and the bees disappeared and Radiohead started to suck?"

Of course, it will be just before the first three things, but many years after the last.

I'm home with Prequel and Sequel but no Mom. She's out doing a prenatal visit with a client. She's on maternity leave, which means she's working full time but not actually helping deliver any babies until September (or maybe late August).

Monday night was the first time I was left alone with Sequel. It went well for about and hour and a half. Then the crying started.

We were supposed to try out the bottle the day before, but we forgot, then it was too late. On Monday, he wasn't up for new experiences and just wanted Mom.

Still, even though he cried for about 45 minutes, I felt much better about it than the first time I was left alone with Prequel. He, too, cried and cried. But I was hopelessly clueless then.

Monday was just an interview, so that was a short visit. Prenatals go longer, so I'm writing this while both boys are sleeping. They can't possibly sleep the entire time she's gone, so chaos is on the horizon.

Book Report: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

The Death of Ivan Ilyich: Torgo approves

I'm a sucker for novellas. I remember reading short novels in junior high and high school, things like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet, and Cannery Row, not thinking of them as "Literature."

Then I read Kate Chopin's The Awakening in an English class and realized that short novels could be regarded as respectable, serious works. Then came many others, like Of Mice and Men.

I don't know what bias I believed existed towards novellas. Maybe it's because so many classics felt so interminably long. Plus, I was maybe 15. I didn't know a whole lot.

Anyway, back to Tolstoy. I've mentioned before how much I enjoy Russian authors. Tolstoy had been a wall to me, though. I'd tried War and Peace a couple of times, never getting out of the first chapter. M-N read and liked Anna Karenina, but I could never figure out how to pronounce the title, so, therefore, I didn't read it.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a novella. I skipped Ronald Blythe's introduction because it was about half as long as Tolstoy's book and I knew it could only make me not want to read the book. (That was a good call: I began reading it after finishing the book and Blythe makes a 100-page story sound like War and Peace.)

This is a good book. The entire book is vastly simpler than the first two pages of War and Peace. It's not even a Grapes of Wrath to Cannery Row analogy. It's more like a Grapes of Wrath to the back of a box of Honey Nut Cheerios comparison.

I don't want to Blythe the story by jabbering on, so let me just say I recommend it. And it takes about 3 train trips, tops, to finish.

Small Fry Files, part VII

Beaker is very popular in our household. This is a cute one.

Small Fry Favorites, part VI

This one makes me laugh every time. Animal. He's the best.

Small Fry Favorites, part V

I find myself singing this at work, on my bike, everywhere.

If you need someone who can count to 12, I'm your guy.

Small Fry Favorites, part IV

I remember this one as being a little creepy when I was a kid. Small Fry loves it.

Small Fry's Favorites, part III

Then there are Sesame Street classics.

Small Fry's Favorites, part II

Here's another.

Small Fry's Favorites

When we want to get something done on the computer (or, "poo-tuh," as the boy says), we open a browser with something for him to watch. Here's one of his favorites.