Movie Round-Up: July 17th, 2009

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:

This actually opened Wednesday, and its going to be huge.  Millions of people will see it, and I’ve seen quite a few good reviews of it already.  I’ve seen the other ones in the theater, so it is quite likely I’ll make the trek to the local multi-plex in order to plunk down my hard earned dollars for this one as well.  However, now that I’ve seen how the books end, and knowing that they’ve decided to split the last book into two movies, I’m just not as excited as I once was for these movies.  Perhaps the movies will end better.

(500) Days of Summer:

Opening in very few theaters and opposite Harry Potter means that this movie will probably not be noticed by many people, and that’s a shame.  (500) Days of Summer is a brilliant comedy that is not a love story.  Its a film about a break up, all from the point of view of the guy.  I was lucky enough to catch a free screening of this film and I absolutely loved it.  I’d almost consider going and buying tickets for it even if I don’t see it again just to support the filmmakers.  If this one happens to be showing at a theater near you, I highly recommend it.

Ptolemy’s Gate

Every once in a while, something you intend to do gets away from you.  Back in 2006, I picked up and read The Amulet of Samarkand and I really enjoyed it.  Like a grim and gritty version of other books about magic with a kid for a main character, it just felt more… real… than things like the Harry Potter books.  Later that year I did read the second book in the series, The Golem’s Eye, and I enjoyed it as well.  I even picked up the third book, but somehow, for some reason, I never got around to reading it.

Well, I finally did.  Ptolemy’s Gate is the final third of the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud.  In this tale we find ourselves back with Nathaniel, a few years older and stronger, but perhaps not wiser.  He’s kept poor Bartimaeus enslaved and trapped on Earth so that his essence has become quite weak.  Meanwhile, Kitty has gone into hiding and taken up learning magic because she desperately wants to talk to Bartimaeus and the only way she can think to do so is to learn to summon him herself.  War rages in the Americas and the commoners of England are beginning to get out of control.  The magicians are losing their grip…

And I won’t go any further, because it would spoil everything.  This book makes for a perfect end to the trilogy, wrapping everything up quite satisfactorily… for me as the reader, some of the characters don’t make out so well in the end.  The three books together make up 1500 pages of excellent storytelling.  I look forward to new works from Mr. Stroud in the future.

The Real Harry Potter

Back in 1986, or it may have been 1987, I didn’t realize that a simple trip to the local video store was going to introduce me to one of the most widely known names in the world today.  In fact, I didn’t even realize that such a momentous thing had occurred until my brother told me about the recent developments earlier this week.

You see… my brothers and I, as kids (who am I kidding? nothing has changed really as we grew up), liked to watch really awful movies.  The Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror section of the video store was the best.  And in 1986, a little movie called Troll was released.  It is the story about a boy named Harry Potter (Junior, his father is also Harry Potter), who learns to use magic to fight a troll who is attempting to take over the world, or at least to turn it into a place full of magical creatures.

The only reason this has come up is that it seems the original writer and director of Troll, John Carl Buechler, wants to remake his film, with a larger budget (£20 million) and according to various sources Warner Bros. is trying to stop him from infringing on their copyright.  The question is, can you copyright something you did not create first?

Its not as if this is some random director trying to make waves by making a film with a character named Harry Potter.  This is a man wishing to remake a film he made 22 years ago and utilize the same character names he used 22 years ago, 4 years prior to the 1990 bolt of inspiration that J.K. Rowling claims began her endeavour of the now more well known use of the name.

As far as I know, Buechler has made no attempt to sue Ms. Rowling, to force her to change the name, nor to ask for any monetary compensation, he only claims that since he used the name first in a copyrighted work, but didn’t copyright the name specifically, it places the name “Harry Potter” in the public domain where anyone can use it.

Who is going to win?  Personally, I feel that Buechler is right, at least in the case of his movie.  He used the name first and should be allowed to continue to use the name in remakes of that work.  But we’ll have to wait and see what the courts decide if Warner Bros. continues to head down that path.

All in all, it makes me paranoid about the things that I write.  Now I’ll probably have to make sure I google every name I make up just to make sure that no one else made it up first.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

No spoilers here, so don’t worry. All in all, a decent book and a fitting end. I was satisfied, and as long as Mrs. Rowling doesn’t write any more books in this world she has crafted, it is a very nice collection that feels complete.

However…

Since the Order of the Phoenix, I’ve seriously felt like she should just have been honest and titled one of her books Harry Potter and the Boring Chunks of Exposition. Up through Goblet of Fire, J.K. was pretty good about keeping the action, the story, moving, only stopping once in a while to fill in a gap here and there. It is something that tends to happen in any book that tries to keep secrets from the audience, since you have to omit certain things to retain the mystery, there will come a point where you have to show that it has been figured out. How uncomfortable or odd that telling is usually depends on the type of information hidden and how much. In the Potter books, entire characters are essentially hidden from the reader, and trying to get that much information back to the reader is hard. J.K. Rowling, by Order of the Phoenix, just started resorting to “the lecture”, which is to say you suddenly (or not so suddenly) get an entire chapter of one character explaining things to another character. In many other books this is usually avoided by having the unknown information spread out among a handful of characters who meet up and share, the back and forth of it and the fact that many characters are also finding out stuff too involves the reader much more deeply than when one character just dumps fifteen pages of backstory on another.

In that respect, Deathly Hallows was the worst book of the series. There probably nearly a dozen chapters of someone dumping information on Harry, only some of which he has figured out on his own and where he hardly participates in the conversation except to repeat back some of the information in the form of questions to prod the other person onward.

I also can honestly say that I wasn’t very surprised. The book consisted almost entirely of telegraphed punches, you can see every twist coming if you are paying attention. Of course, this is, after all, a children’s book, so don’t bring your CSI trained analytical mind with you and you’ll enjoy the book much more.

And just to make sure people don’t think I’m hating on the book, I really did enjoy it, and I gladly recommend this series to anyone. It is worth the read.

Sharper Than A Serpent`s Tooth

My guilty pleasure returned with Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth, another book in the Nightside series by Simon Green. As always, it was a fun little escape with interesting characters and plenty of action. I’ve reviewed this series before, so check out those if you want more details on the books.

As a side note to this review and something someone brought up on a message board I frequent… its a shame that books are getting really huge these days. Even kids books like Harry Potter and the Artemis Fowl books are clocking in at over 300 pages, with many books screaming past 500. There is nothing wrong with long books, in fact sometimes good long book like one of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books is exactly what I need. But its also nice to sit down and blow through a 200 page or less book, get in, get down to the story, and get out. The Nightside books drew me in because they were well written and short. One book, a half dozen hours of reading. Is it because there is less of a market for shorter books? Is it editors demanding thick novels? Or is it authors running wild? No answers here, except that I think one of the ideas I’m working on will be a series of short books, not huge bricks.

Harry Potter

One thing I do that has remained a constant practice in my life has been to avoid situations where I am guaranteed my expectations have exceeded reality. Mostly this comes in with movies and books. Should I happen to not see a movie just as it comes out, or read a book within a couple months of release, and that thing takes off with reports of it being “The best ever!” there is a narrow window of opportunity to see or read it before I’m forced to put it off until the hype blows over. The reason for this is simple… people talk it up so much that it can’t possibly stand up to it.

Harry Potter is one of those things. People were telling me for years that they were simply the best books ever written, utterly fantastic, it would blow me away. So, I didn’t read them. There was so much build up, that I knew it couldn’t possibly be as good as the hype. And it wasn’t. I finally started reading the Harry Potter books a couple months ago. I’ve been reading one of them, then another book or two, then the next Potter book, and so on. I’m almost finished with ‘Goblet of Fire’ now, that’s why I’m writing. The first book… ehh… it was good, no doubt, and for young readers its an excellent book for interesting non-readers. Its short, its light, full of fluff and fun, and to any person over the age of about 18 or so, completely and utterly transparent. The plot, while not bad, was predictable. Yeah, I’d seen the movies, but that didn’t matter, even the things left out of the movie I saw coming. It was not a complicated book. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing, as I said… good for young readers or new readers, bad for anyone who has heard all the hype.

The second book was better. Still a bit predictable, and more fluff than substance, but it was a fun read that I enjoyed. However, still far from being ‘the best ever’.

The third book, moreso… the story growing up as the boy does, becoming more complicated and involved, relationships becoming less simplistic, and overall a much better book.

As I move through the fourth book, I can see it continuing to grow. The story is more complex, more textured, the characters breathe on the page and display more traits like those you find in our own world, and its beginning to lose its predictability.

I look forward to the fifth book. And the sixth, the seventh, and more, if she decides to continue on.

Now that the books are out of the way… lets talk about the fans. I’m reading the UK versions of the books. One, because those are the ones my fiancee owns. And two, because reading the book with the authentic English (or Brittish) vernacular just appeals to me more than having them all sound like a bunch of Americans despite the fact that they are in England. As such, the books I read have covers that most of the people I pass on the street have never seen. Constantly, I am berated by people yelling at me or even grabbing me or my book forcibly, demanding to know how I got ahold of the as of yet unreleased sixth book. Once I explain to them that its an old book, most of them just stomp away, not even apologizing for my sprained wrist or nearly tackling me. Few ask why the book is different, and to those that do, when I try to explain that its the original UK versions, their eyes glaze over like I’ve just tried to explain in depth quantum mechanical theory to them, and they stumble away, dumbfounded by the knowledge that Brittish English and American English aren’t the same, and that people actually write in languages other than American English. Only one person so far has actually carried on a conversation of intelligence and cared about the differences in the books (simple things like that people in the UK call a ‘flashlight’ a ‘torch’ and so on).

I’ve met numerous people who are going to go out Friday night and stay up at book release parties until 12:01am Saturday to buy their copy of the book. Because, obviously, the books bought at that time will be better than the ones the store will be selling all day the next day, at reasonable hours, like after the sun comes up, or even after a lazy brunch.

As it is, my fiancee, a huge Potter fan, but not an insane Potter fan, is actually going to wait until sometime the following week to read it. Her UK copy is being shipped overseas, and while most who order through Amazon will get their books on Saturday if they specified the next day shipping, next day from England means Monday or Tuesday.

Anyway, back to work, or something… Harry and Cedric have just… nah, not going to tell you. Read it yourself. I do recommend the Potter books… but I do not recommend becoming a Potter fanatic.