Directors

How many of you have a favorite director?  I can't say I do.  In fact, I usually don't know the director of most of the movies I watch.  If I do know the director, I still don't usually recognize any particular style they have or anything.  I mean, I'm not a huge movie buff or anything, so I guess that's pretty normal.  I'm sure if I paid really close attention and watched a bunch of movies by one director, I would start to realize their style.  Maybe I'll start to pay more attention to who directed what and see if I can start to distinguish between styles...  Probably not.

(This post is completely random.  It's just a random thought.)

Oscar Nominations

For those who don't know, today was the day the Academy announced the nominations for the Oscars.  I've never really cared much in the past, but this year was a little different.  1.  Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss in the Hunger Games movie) was announcing the nominations.  And 2. I (along with a lot of other Harry Potter fans) was really hoping the final Harry Potter movie would get some nominations.

I watched the video of Jennifer and the Academy president announcing the "main" nominations when I got home from school.  Before I watched the video, I already knew that Harry Potter was nominated in three categories, and none of these would be mentioned in the video.  I'm a bit dissapointed that Harry Potter didn't get a bigger nomination, but at least it got some.  It's nominated in visual effects, make up, and art direction.  I really hope it wins all three, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Although, some people related to Harry Potter did get nominated for other films.  Gary Oldman (Sirius Black) and Kenneth Branagh (Gildory Lockhart) were both nominated as well as Christopher Columbus who directed the first two movies.  There may have been some others as well that I didn't catch.  I'll definitely be cheering for all of them as well!

Other than that, I haven't really seen many of the movies nominated, so most of it means nothing to me.  There are quite a few that I want to see, but haven't gotten the chance to yet.  I'm sure hearing the Oscar hype for some of these movies will just make me want to see them more.

Dresses and Breaking Dawn

I've had a busy weekend so far.  After school on Friday, Ji, Regina, and I went shopping for Christmas dance dresses.  We stopped to get something to eat, and then went to this house Ji's parents are fixing up.  (This is in a city a little less than an hour away, and they're moving out there when the house is done and stuff.)  We left Ji's car there, and her mom took us to the store where she had us (particularly me for some reason) try on a ton of dresses.  Luckily, I found one, so I have that done with.  I'm not a huge shopping or trying on clothes fan.  Ji's mom was really into it though.  She wanted to see me in every dress, and she kept going to get more.  It felt like I was in that dressing room forever.

Today I went to go see Breaking Dawn with my friend Haley.  I was so excited!  Every showing before ours had sold out, so I was really worried this one would be when we got there, but we managed to get tickets.  I loved the movie so much!  As of right now, I can really only think of one complaint.  For the most part, I thought it was done great.  I'll post a review of it later.

My biggest thing was that the Hunger Games trailer wasn't shown before the movie!  It was supposed to be, but for some reason it wasn't at our theater.  Haley and I were dissapointed because we both really wanted to see it on the big screen.  I hope I get to see it in front of something before the movie's out.

This doesn't really sound like a busy weekend, but it sure feels like it.  I think most of it is because I woke up really earlier this morning.  I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.  Usually, I lay in bed a while anyway, and I eventually go back to sleep.  I didn't do that this time, and I regret it.  I've been so tired today.  Plus, I can't sleep in tomorrow, so I'll start off the week tired.  Thankfully, I only have school two days this week!

Favorite Harry Potter Movie

Over the years my favorite Harry Potter movie has changed numerous times.  For a while, my favorite Harry Potter movie was just the latest one.  As I got a little older, I began to constantly describe Prisoner of Azkaban as my favorite film because I found myself watching it almost every week (compared to every month or so).  I still absolutely love Prisoner of Azkaban and consider it one of my favorites, but over the past few years it's been over shadowed by the last three films.

Even though Prisoner of Azkaban was my favorite, it's also the one I complain about the most.  I mean, where's the Marauder's backstory!?  I think that's the reason it slipped lower on the list.  I love the way the last three films were done, and there weren't any major changes that I got really upset about.  If the Marauder's story was in PoA it would probably still be my top Harry Potter film.

Out of the last three, I think Deathly Hallows Part II is currently my favorite.  I say currently because I don't feel like I've seen it enough to firmly proclaim it as my favorite.  I only saw it twice in theaters, and I definitely need to see it more before saying it's my absolute favorite.  From my two viewings, I think it'll be able to stay at the top after a million and more viewings.  I thought the whole movie was beautiful and brilliant.  Were things cut and changed?  Yes, but none of it was done in a way that ruined the story.  Were things added?  Yes, but I thought they did it really well.  Things were different, but it was still very true to the story J.K. Rowling created.

Although I don't want to inscribe it in concrete yet, I'm fairly confident that Deathly Hallows Part II will be my favorite Harry Potter movie for years to come.  (But I want to say that I love them all so much, and it's very hard to choose between them.)

Harry Potter Books vs. Movies

While you'll find lots of people who have watched and enjoyed every Harry Potter movie without ever reading one of the books, I've never found one person who's actually read the series and picked the movies over the books.  How can you when the books are so great?

Don't get me wrong.  I love the Harry Potter movies.  They're some of my favorite movies in the world.  Deathly Hallows Parts I and II were freaking amazing.  But even they don't quite compare to the awesomeness of the books.  This isn't really just a Harry Potter thing.  I love movies, but I would always pick books over movies.  I like being able to imagine things in my head.  It gives you a certain leeway to decide things on your own.  You have descriptions to go by, but overall, what things look like is all up to you.  Get a group of people who've read Harry Potter, and each one of them will have imagined Hogwarts just a little bit differently.  In the movies, you don't have that option because Hogwarts is given to you right on the screen.  That's not really a bad thing.  I love actually getting to see a version of Hogwarts, but it's not the same as the Hogwarts in my head.

Of course, we could also get into the changes that were made in the movies.  The movies could never fit in all of the tiny details we get in the books.  (Or apparently big details like the Marauders' backstory.)  In the movies, we didn't get Archie and his nightgown, Remus rushing to Shell Cottage to announce Teddy's birth, or any of Winky's story.  None of these things a really important to the plot, but they help make the books special.

The Harry Potter movies will always be special to me and some of my favorite movies.  They're wonderfully made, and I love almost every single actor in them.  The books just happen to be a bit more magical.  I like that they give us small little details sometimes, and that they allow us to imagine things on our own.  These things make it seem a bit more real and allow us to make the Harry Potter universe our own in some ways.  None of us experience the books in quite the same way.

Harry Potter Pick Me Up

Do you have books that you constantly find your self picking up whenever you want to feel better?  I do.  Harry Potter.  I can't even tell you the number of times I've picked one of the books up and have instantly felt better.

I think I've mentioned this somewhere online before, but my sister and I used to play this game whenever we had severe weather.  (She's not a Harry Potter fan, but I practically forced her to play with me.)  One of us would open a Harry Potter book to a random page and read a quote, and the other would have to guess which character had said it.  Regina, having never read the books, had a lot harder time with this than I did.  After a while, she'd get frustrated and start giving me one word quotes becuase she didn't want me to guess them.  This game always helped me keep my mind off the severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings/watches.

Harry Potter's cheered me up in a lot of other ways as well.  I always do something related to Harry Potter when I'm feeling down.  It doesn't even have to be one of the books.  I may listen to wizard rock, watch one of the movies, read fanfiction, or anything else that's related to Harry Potter.  When I'm feeling really low, I definitely pick up one of the books because nothing will ever beat them, but there are many other ways Harry Potter helps me at other times as well.

How do you make yourself feel better during scary, sad, etc. times?  Do you have a book (or books) that always makes you feel better?

Changes in the Harry Potter Movies

It's considered a given that when a book is adapted into a movie, things about it are going to change.  Certain things that work great in books don't work as well in movies and vice versa.  Still, fans are always going to wish that certain things had made it into the movie, even if they think the movie was awesome overall.

I love the Harry Potter movies, but that doesn't mean there aren't things about them I'd change.  For every single movie, there's at least one thing I'd have loved to see be kept in from the book.  In this post, I'm going to choice one thing I wish had been in each movie.

I think Sorcerer's Stone is the hardest for me since I actually saw the movie before I read the book.  Because of this, it's often hard for me to remember things that were in the book but not the movie.  I have a similar problem with Chamber of Secrets.  I was just so young when these movies came out that it's hard for me to distingush between the books and movies no matter how many times a read or watch them.  Plus, there aren't huge differences between those two books and movies I don't think, at least compared to the rest of the books and movies.

I think I'm going to choose Peeves for Sorcerer's Stone.  Technically, Peeves would work for every movie, but they'd actually filmed scenes with Peeves and then decided to cut them.  I would absolutely love to see that footage.  Peeves would have been great.

For Chamber of Secrets, I'd have to say all of the Valentine's Day stuff.  I completely understand why all of that was cut, but it still would have been really amusing to watch.

Prisoner of Azkaban is one of my favorite Harry Potter movies, but I also have the most problems with it (which completely makes sense).  How can they have not talked about the Marauders backstory!?  To me that seems incredibly important.  You have no idea how many times I've had to explain all of that to people who haven't read the books.  It's basically impossible for people who haven't read the books to understand all of that.  They don't have a clue why Harry's patronus is a stag, why Sirius and Wormtail are animagi, or who made the Marauders Map and why Sirius and Remus know all about it.  I don't understand why they thought leaving all of that out was a good idea.  That's the number one thing I'd change in all of the movies.

Goblet of Fire is my least favorite Harry Potter book, and I don't have many complaints about things they changed in the movie.  They only thing I can really think of is Rita Skeeter being an animagus.  That would have been cool to see.  S.P.E.W. would have been cool too.  More houselves is never a bad thing.  In fact, forget the animagus thing.  I just want to see Dobby and Winky.

Order of the Phoenix had a lot cut from it of course, but the one thing I would have loved to see is Snape's Worst Memory in it's entirety (or at least more than they gave us).  We didn't even get to see Lily, and we find out later that she was the whole reason it was his worst  memory.  I really wish they could have given us more.

To just prove to you even more how much I love house elves, the biggest thing I would have liked to see in Half Blood Prince is Dobby and Kreacher interaction.  They basically gave us this when they added Dobby into the Grimauld Place scene with Kreacher, but I still would have loved to see them tailing Draco together in Half Blood Prince.

It's hard to think of something for Deathly Hallows Part 1.  It would have been nice to see Lily's letter and the picture of baby Harry.  (Babies are always awesome.)  There wasn't anything huge that I was upset to see cut out though.  (Unless I'm forgetting something, which wouldn't surprise me.)  They also didn't talk much about all of the Dumbledore stuff.

There were a ton of changes in Deathly Hallows Part 2, but I was perfectly fine with most of them.  I would have loved to see Percy make up with his family, but I can understand that being cut.  One thing that slightly annoyed me was the fact that Teddy was never even mentioned.  That's not entirely true since Harry mentions him when talking to (Resurection Stone) Remus in the Forbidden Forest, but since non-book readers don't know about Teddy, this just seems completely random.  I would have loved to see the scene where Remus shows up at Shell Cottage after Teddy is born.

What are some things you wish had been in the Harry Potter movies?