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Daniel Wolff deconstructs Michael Moore's explanation for withholding footage documenting the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US troops. [via MetaFilter]
Life is good. Serenity, the movie based on Joss Whedon's short-lived TV series Firefly, is slated for release in 2005!
Watching The Wizard of Oz while listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon getting to be old hat? Tired of MST3K? Then, dear reader, it's time to try Wizard People, Brad Neely's "unauthorized re-envisioning" of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
The new Harry Potter movie... in a word: "brilliant!"
With a new director, and a new actor playing Dumbledore, we might have had reason to fear the worst. But, if anything, this third movie captured the spirit of the book even better than the first two, while still standing on its own. The special effects were a notch up, without distracting, and the music was also excellent. The movie couldn't possibly have included everything in the book, so it's pointless to quibble there. If I have any complaints, it's probably about how the "evil" characters were treated; but there's time to flesh them out in the next movie, where it will be more appropriate.
I wonder how long it will take me to see it a second time? Probably less than a week...
David Edelstein captures much of what I liked about the new movie in his review at Slate. (Also, an audio version on Fresh Air.)
Dave Kopel offers a dissenting view in his review at Reason.
Andrew Anthony profiled filmmaker Michael Moore recently in The Guardian:
What I think, after my short time in his company, is that Moore is a man you would not want as an opponent, but also one you'd think twice about calling a friend. Though a talented film-maker and a clever showman, a populist who knows how to play the maverick, he is too often both big-headed and small-minded. In his desire to be seen as the decent man telling truth to power, he is too ready to blame those less powerful than himself for his shortcomings. He was justly revered in the Palais, but out on the street no one had a kind word to say about him. At Cannes, Moore may have been the star but he was not, it seems, the man of the people.
I've been meaning to blog about Michael Bronski's excellent essay in the September 2003 Z Magazine since, well, September or so. With the release of the new Harry Potter movie right around the corner it seems a good time to mention "Queering Harry Potter":
. . . The Harry Potter books are a threat to normally accepted ideas about the social welfare and good mental health of American children. Not because they romanticize witchcraft and wizardry, but because they are subversive in their unremitting attacks on the received wisdom that being "normal" is good, reasonable, and even healthy.
The Harry Potter books are, in a word, queer. As used today, "queer" means "homosexual," but it has larger connotations too. The word also suggests a more generally deviant, nonconformist, renegade identity. . . .
It's well worth a read, and right on the money.
Julian Sanchez makes a similar point in his review for Reason:
While most parents celebrate anything that gets adolescents to put down the remote and pick up a book -- a powerful bit of magic in itself -- others are concerned that the series celebrates the "dark arts." Perhaps parents and teachers who relish unquestioned obedience are right to be concerned about the books, but their focus is misplaced. It is not the magic but the morality of Harry Potter that is subversive.
I'm dying to know whether the movie industry executive who dreamed up this new anti-piracy tactic has actually read the book or script for the latest Potter film...
While you're waiting for the next movie, why not waste some quality time with Potter Puppet Pals?
(Psst! Don't miss this, either.)
or "How I went from emulating Molly Ringwald to lusting after Lindsay Lohan" [via yehoodi]
Stacy Peralta, of Dogtown and Z-Boys fame, has a new one out. This time it's about surfing rather than skateboarding. Riding Giants debuted at Sundance in January and is scheduled for limited theatrical release on July 9th, 2004. I'm so there.
Find reviews and other anime-related information at The Anime Cafe. Especially noteworthy is their Parent's Guide to Anime.
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