Guest Post: The show must go on

This lovely little piece was written by my friend Jess Everett. One of the few sad things about being a new father is the fact that I haven't had many opportunities to go to the cinema - first world problems and all that, right? But there is something special about being in an enclosed space with smelly strangers, as Jess explains below.

As an aside, Jess has one of the best speaking voices known to man. Just saying.

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Attending the movies is a communal experience and some movies were just meant to be seen in the theatre. Much like music aficionados who claim the only way to really know a band is to see them live, or sports fans who travel continents not only for the joy of cheering on their team but also to experience being part of the crowd, when you go to a theatre and watch a movie you become part of something.

Inspiring films move us more when watched with others. The dread in a horror movie becomes more real as the person behind you gasps and screams. Jokes are more enjoyable when others are laughing with you. And epic moments are more memorable when you high-five the stranger next you (this actually happened to me during the first screening of Attack of The Clones. Apparently the gentleman really enjoyed a good Yoda fight).

Movies are a defining moment for generations. Anyone who experienced the first Star Wars trilogy in the theatre has an immediate connection. Growing up and watching every Harry Potter movie, waiting in anticipation for the next Lord of the Rings, and knowing every song lyric to The Lion King are moments that connect us all.

We all remember our first movie. The thrill of watching the screen light up and seeing larger than imaginable characters flood your view. The goosebumps that leave you feeling nervous and excited, and the joy of having your very own popcorn and sneaking ninja cuddles*with your movie date.

Although cinemas have been pricing themselves out of relevancy for years, I will continue to make the sacrifice as long as I can afford it. Why? Because for me there is nothing like a night out at the movies.

*The phrase “ninja cuddle” and its adorable relevance to movie theatre watching is borrowed from the film loving @8bitbatman

Ode to Dolores Umbridge

I love villains in movies and literature. I have always thought a bad guy says a lot about a film’s protagonist and to a certain extent that film’s writers and directors. A poor villain can render a story meaningless in my eye.

I don’t think the Harry Potter series, book or film, gets a proper bonafide superstar villain until Dolores Umbridge strolls into town with her cats and her pink outfit. Now don’t get me wrong, I think Snape, the Dursley and Wormtail are note-worthy, but it was only until this pint-size puff of pink evil comes along when I realised how lacking those other villains were.

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Order of the Phoenix is my least favourite Harry Potter book. It’s the book that I found hardest to get through and I just didn’t think it was as enjoyable as the rest. One of the biggest reasons for this was Dolores Umbridge – she just rubbed me the wrong way. 

I found Dolores Umbridge a lot more unsettling that the chief big-bad, Voldemort. Her main goal wasn't the stereotypical 'rule the world' arch; her main ambition was to suppress the soul in order to achieve conformity from young people. To Umbridge creativity, curiosity and resourcefulness in a student are a sin and this makes me shudder. The extent to which she goes about draining those sins away from students was just horrific to read.

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Conversely, watching Dolores Umbridge in the film version of Order of the Pheonix is a joy and all of the credit for that goes to Imelda Staunton who is beyond brilliant in this movie. I have to say it again, she is bloody brilliant in Order of the Phoenix.    

Now the fact that I couldn’t stand to read Phoenix because of Umbridge isn’t a slight on Rowling, in my opinion it is a compliment but what Imelda does to that character is root her in the real world.

Back when I was in secondary school there was a group of friends who were so nasty and were such bullies but they walked around like their shit didn’t stink. They were so far up the teachers’ ass and got away with causing so much chaos that it is incredible to think about it now so many years on. What made them insufferable for me was how they interacted with people, especially the folks they bullied – they used charm and sweetness. They were super nice on the surface – all Ps and Qs and smiles and kisses and high pitched greetings (think Alicia Silverstone’s Clueless). Pure fakeness.

Now I have seen this type of fakeness in a more subtly form within the work place but Imelda’s take on Umbridge brings back the anger that I had for those unique bullies back in school. Staunton got under my skin (see what I did there) so much that I forgot that it was an actor playing a character and believed Dolores to be an actual person. When an actor can make you feel-it-in-your-gut then they have done a remarkable thing.

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By the end of the film I wanted Umbridge to suffer. I felt the same loathing that Harry and co felt and I realised that I haven’t come close to feeling the same way about Voldemort – not in the films anyway.  Umbridge, in one film, shows more menace, ability to cause horror and gave me more of a sense of dread than Voldemort does in the whole series. I mean no disrespect to Ralph Fiennes who I feel does a good job but I think what Umbridge shows is how woefully underdeveloped the big V is.

When the horsey human creatures get a hold of Umbridge in the end of Phoenix  I wanted them to rip her to pieces – I wanted to see blood everywhere. Tarantino style. The fact that I feel that way about a children’s film is the biggest compliment I can pay Imelda Staunton and The Order of the Phoenix. She is nothing short of a wonder in this film.

              The High Chocolate Professor, TeddyBear 

Are the Harry Potter films important?

There is a conversation that I have had for years within my hip-hop circle. How important are record sales. Now the purist will tell you initial sales figures are not important at all. If an album is good enough it will eventually find an audience and live on for years to come. The classic example of this is Nas' ‘Illnatic’, an album which would have been considered a commercial flop on its release but is a piece of work that is still influential to this day.

But what of the blockbuster albums? Do we just disregard them? I still contend to this day that you cannot ignore albums like ‘Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘em’ or ‘To the Extreme’. I am not trying to say that the Harry Potter film series are like the much ridiculed MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice albums, but I do believe that us uppity film critics view them with the same embarrassment.

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I think the Harry Potter films are some of the most important, if not the most important British film series of our time and yes the money they made are a big reason for why I say this. These films made a stupid amount of money – a mind boggling amount. According to Box Office Mojo, the average Harry Potter film made over 345 million dollars when adjusted for inflation. Again, adjusted for inflation, these films made just under 3 billion dollars. I am pretty sure that there are some countries out there that have less money. These figures don't take into account how much money the films made when they came out on DVD/Blu Ray/Digital.

Why does the amount of money a film makes mean that it is important? It is simply really, it is important because a lot of people must have watched it – some even twice. A lot of the audience could have been kids but a hell of a lot of them must have been grown ass adults.

And what I have found out about the Harry Potter films this past year is that they are small part of bigger machine which seems to be growing every year. There are the books, spin-off books, the toys, the video games and now there is a studio tour of the sets. There film are not only feeding the fat cats but they probably have created jobs for hundreds, maybe thousands of normal people in the England in these tough economic times. Importantly these films kicked off the career of many young British actors – damn, it made some of them millionaires.   

And this empire is almost entirely British based. Why does this matter? Every debate I have ever had about British cinema centres around its impotency – the Harry Potter franchise (sorry) dispels this myth. You can have a British idea and create a colossal money making machine out of it right from these small islands and in my opinion that is a powerful message for any young person wanting to go into the industry.

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And speaking of young people, it can’t be underestimated how many of them grew up with Harry Potter, either by book form or via film. I remember my sisters and her friends being fanatical about this fictional wizard and I also remember taking the mick out of them. Here I am almost a decade later only discovering what they knew so many years ago. There is a generation of ride-or-die Potterheads that consider these films to be a huge part of their up-brining. Believe me, I know too many of them. They make Bieblers look like fans of Simon and Garfield (that was that other bloke’s name, right? Or was that a cat?)

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The point is I feel pretty silly disregarding the whole Potter-verse in my younger days. Nobody knows whether we will still be talking about these 8 films in twenty years time. My humble guess is yes, these films will still resonate in the future. 

It is probably not wise to compare these films to the albums of corny hip-hop artist – maybe a better fit would be the Swedish outfit Abba. They are camp and corny as all hell (I don’t think hell is camp, hell is serious but I couldn’t be bothered to think of a better simile) but deep down inside you know they are very good at what they do.

                      'Arry Bear

Harry Potter and the Chocolate Beef

This is my second draft of this article. I felt like the first one wasn’t really honest. The dishonesty in my initial take on Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone actually says a lot about the film and the mentality of 'Potter-heads'.

Philosopher’s Stone is not a good film and believe me it pains me to say it. It isn’t a bad film, I've seen worse, but in my humble opinion it isn’t even close to being a worthy adaptation of what I consider to be a very good book.

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One of the problems I have with Philospher’s Stone is that it isn’t nearly dark enough. Now I know it is aimed at children but frankly so are the books. The imagery presented in the book just don’t translate to the screen. For example, the forest scene where Harry sees Voldermolt drinking the blood of a unicorn is devoid of any horror or tension. In the book, this section is fucking frightening, so much so that it haunted me for weeks (don’t judge me). The same can be said of the finale between Quirrell and Harry – the gasping horror described in the book doesn’t marry with what is shown in the film, which is a real shame.

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Another beef I have with the film is the special effects. Now I admit this might be an unfair criticism because I am looking at this film with 2013 eyes. The special effects in this film look terrible, so bad at times that you just end up laughing. So bad that I started to play, spot the video-game graphics (with that said, I thought the three headed dog looked alright).

A film such as this was always going to hinge upon how well they handled the extraordinary imagery and predictably they threw money and pinned their hopes on the CGI. I mean, the effects are so bad they make Quidditch appear as preposterous as it actually is (I grew to love Quidditch in the books).

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My biggest problem with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is the acting. Now the film has a legitimate excuse to excuse the bad acting – it’s full of kids. Daniel Radcliff was 11 at the time of shooting for crying out loud, you can’t expect a kid to put in masterful performances. I sometimes got the impression that I was watching a school play which isn’t a bad thing… if it was actually a school play and not a multi-million pound endeavour.

I thought the kid who played Malfoy was actually very good, I hated the SOB (Tom Felton I think he’s called). I also think the film makes an admirable attempt to disguise the bad acting by injecting the film with a stellar adult British cast – best of all Alan Rickman who is bloody good in this.

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If you have read the book, chances are you will ignore the bad in this film and just love the things it gets right. The set design in this film is incredible and pretty much mirrors what I had in my mind while reading the book. You get a warm feeling in your heart when you see Diagon Alley and Hogwarts come to life in this film.

That is why I wrote the first deferential article, making all sorts of excuses for this film.

If you haven’t read the books, then I wouldn’t recommend this film at all. The first time I watched this film I absolutely hated it. It put me off reading the books for years. You don’t understand the nuances, the relationships and the complications in the film unless you read the books. In my opinion, the fact that this film can't stand on its own two makes it even poorer.

But who I’m I to talk? This film made zillions and spawned seven sequels. Thankfully the series had some real hand on heart great films.


                        Master Bear of Slytherin