What a Week

I will add my small voice to the thousands of others paying tribute to Alan Rickman this week.


He was an actor of profound talent, who inspired millions with his performances and will be sorely missed.


Among his many other fine performances, I have particularly cherished him as the sexy and flawed Harry in Love Actually,  as one of Jane Austen's most appealing leading men, Colonel Brandon, in Sense and Sensibilty,   as the deliciously evil Sherif of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and  of course,  as a magnificent and heart-rending Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films. But I realize that I have barely scratched the surface of his great catalog of performances.  Up next for me will be A Little Chaos, his recent directorial effort that by many accounts was underrated and excellent,  Close My Eyes, from 1991, which looks to be a squeemishingly interesting tale of incest,  Truly Madly Deeply, a romantic fantasy that seems perfect for me and which I am not quite sure how I missed seeing before! and probably Galaxy Quest, haha - which I haven't seen in years and have a feeling I'll enjoy a lot right now.

I am grateful for the talent this man graced our earth with, for a short time.

The Best British Actors are Hogwarts Professors

ABC Family has been showing a Harry Potter marathon on tv. This brings several things to mind, the first of which is that every. single. stinkin'. commercial. on ABC Family's Harry Potter Marathon is CHRISTMAS related. So irritating. Come on people -- not only is it not December yet, it's not even Thanksgiving. Have a little respect. And, seriously, how can you not get burned out on Christmas when you celebrate it for 6 solid weeks?


Secondly, and maybe more important for the post I'm about to write, is that while watching all these movies it is washing over me that pretty much every major British actor is a Hogwarts professor. I would bet that the Hogwarts professors collectively represent the most impressive assemblage of talent ever. Add in other miscellaneous grown-ups in the Harry Potter movies, and I'm sure of it.


Now, this is not a piece of insight that has gone unnoticed by others. So what can I add to the blogosphere on this point? You guessed it. I just really can't help myself when it comes to ranking things, so here I go with The very best Hogwarts professors as portrayed by the very best British actors.


1. Alan Rickman as Severus Snape. Not only is he amazingly funny and sexy and entertaining in this role, but he just really "gets" the character of Snape. Rickman has embodied the evilness and pain so thoroughly I can hardly remember the way I imagined this character in my mind before Rickman took it over. He is and will always be Snape.



2. Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn. Mesmerizing. I can't seem to tear my eyes from Slughorn anytime he is onscreen -- which is, unfortunately far too seldom. His performance is touching and funny, charming and vulnerable; its not even that he makes Slughorn likeable, but just so damned compelling. He makes me love Slughorn in a way I never thought I would.


3. Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagal. She has it all. Great accent. Distance. Harshness masking a deep level of care. Brusk and brilliant, McGonagal has to be one of the best Harry Potter characters ever. And Smith is, as always, just flawless in her acting.

4. David Thewlis as Professor Lupin. As with Rickman/Snape, Thewlis inhabits this role in a very special way. He makes Lupin extremely appealing and sympathetic with a tremendous warm charm. I long for more of him in the movies -- but the character is unfortunately underutilized.



5.  Richard Harris as Dumbledore I. By far the better of the two Dumbledores, Harris has the lightness and wisdom down in this fleeting flitting sort of role. I don't think the physical requirements of Dumbledore are really possible for a human actor -- old and frail but light and sprightly, long and skinny, quick and sharp. Harris comes as close as you can get.

6. Emma Thompson as Sybill Trelawney. This is one of those rare cases when an actor makes the role better on screen than it ever was in the book. Emma Thompson is perfection as a sparkly, huge-eyed, nervous mystic. She is brilliant.





7. Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid. Coltrane's best contribution to Hagrid is his voice. I hear him every time I think of Hagrid or read Rowling's words. Coltrane has the innocent monster thing in droves. Hagrid is one of the best things about Harry Potter and seeing him brought to life so well is priceless.





8. Brendan Gleeson as Mad Eye Moody. Mad Eye is a very strange sort of fellow. Not exactly cool, not exactly likeable, definitely scary and hard to understand. Gleeson manages to bring all of that to the forefront and deal well with the duality of not even really being Mad Eye, but an impostor. His performance is funny and powerful. Excellent.

9. Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge. It is hard to even write the word "Umbridge" without a shudder. So much evil and cruelty packed into one tiny little sugarcoated body. Staunton is perfectly hateable.


 
10. Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart. Branagh's take on Lockhart was not what I was expecting; I had something totally different in mind when I read the book. His idea was better. Much better. Such smarmyness. Such glibness. So smooth and ridiculous. Exceptionally well done!

11. Michael Gambon as Dumbledore II. I am a big fan of Michael Gambon. Just not a big fan of him as Dumbledore. That said, his performances in these movies are wonderful. They just don't convey "Dumbledore" to me. Still, they do convey a very impressive wizard who I have actually come to like a great deal anyway (if that makes sense).


12. Warwick Davis as Filius Flitwick. The movie-makers did a strange thing to Warwick Davis & Flitwick -- they made him old; then they made him young. They even made him a choir director. Davis is exceptional because in all of these different iterations he is good! and enjoyable to watch.


13. Gemma Jones as Madam Pomfrey. Great actress! Pretty minimal role. Poppy never really gets to shine in the movies, though Gemma is so lovely and engaging, when she is around she always sparkles.




14. Zoe Wanamaker as Madam Hooch. Even these really small parts like Hooch and Sprout get great performances in the movies. Wanamaker is exactly how I pictured Madam Hooch. She embodies butch gym teacher -- I guess that exists even in the wizarding world.

15. Miriam Margolyes as Professor Sprout. And finally Professor Sprout. Not a whole lot for Margolyes to do; but glad she is here to round out the team.

The Five Best Things About Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.

A short time ago I posted my thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. After watching it a second time, I found a few more things to love, so I decided to update my list and make it an "even" Five Things I Loved About Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The first three I already mentioned in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows is Excellent, but the Ending is A Little Disappointing

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1. Neville Longbottom became a god. Seriously, this kid gets some great moments and it means so much having seen where he came from in this series. So proud of Neville!

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 2. Alan Rickman demonstrates extraordinary acting talent. His gift is stunning. The voice, the timing, the emotion. I will never be able to think of Snape without seeing Rickman's performance in my head. His acting was magical. 

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3. Professor McGonagall makes one excellent badass. Nuff said.

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4. Michael Gambon redeemed himself completely as Dumbledore. So the thing is, Dumbledore, as written in the books, is a quirky, brilliant, light, sparkly, childlike, secretive, sweet and deep character. In the first two Harry Potter movies, I thought  Richard Harris was great at expressing these qualities. Michael Gambon is a fantastic actor, but when he took over the role in the third movie after the death of Harris, I don't think he really understood Dumbledore. I didn't like where he took him. In some scenes he was downright intense and angry -- something Dumbledore just isn't. Here, Gambon, in the sequence at Kings' Cross and in the pensieve, finally brings the kind of Dumbledore I've been longing for from him. 

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 5. Ciaran Hinds as Aberforth Dubledore. He so effectively suggested the sibling relationship between Aberforth and Albus, I was half convinced through most of the movie that Michael Gambon was playing both roles. Nice work.

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6. Jim Broadbent. OK, I know he only gets about 30 seconds of screen time in this  movie, but whenever he is in the field of view I am mesmerized. He makes Professor Slughorn one of my all time favorite Potter characters.

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7. Just deserving a brief mention (yes, I see that I am up to 7 now; I am not very good at holding myself to my rules), is Helena Bonham Carter's Hermione on Polyjuice Potion as Belatrix. She was hilarious.

Unfortunately the ending of this movie is still a let down. From the beginning of the movie, up to about the point where Neville confronts Voldemort, this is a wonderful film, but then it just starts to feel disappointing. Too much attention is placed on powerful special effects and spectacle and the underlying human, er wizard, story gets lost.

I'm unhappy that Snape is never publicly vindicated. And that no one is around to witness Voldemort's downfall. Even the duel between Molly Weasley and Belatrix LeStrange felt flat and unexciting. Further, we wanted to see some house elves fighting!

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is Excellent but the Ending is A Little Disappointing.

Just went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 yesterday. Overall I enjoyed it, but have to agree with my 12 year old's assessment: it was really good, but I was a little disappointed. Please take care about the SPOILERS that follow.

(By the way, after seeing the movie a second time, I added to my list of great things about the movie, in
The Five Best Things About Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)
 

The best things for me about the movie were: (1) the very cool performance of Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom. One of the high points of the last novel was the way Neville transformed and became a leader at Hogwarts. Lewis' performance was perfect - exactly what he needed to be and all the better for being unexpected from this, excuse me, but previously rather geeky kid. He looks great covered in blood. He's confident, excessively brave and loyal. Neville rocks.

(2)The performance of Alan Rickman as Snape. This is nothing new; he is always amazing, but in this final installment, he gets a chance to really show full dimensions to Snape -- everything we have been denied before -- and he does it perfectly. The scene where Snape is cradling Lily's body and mourning [yes, I know, not in the book], gives me shivers. One of the highlights of my reading the book had been the poignant friendship and sad unrequited love between Lily and Snape. I have been looking forward, for a long time, to seeing their relationship play out in vignettes in the pensieve. Although not really a "couple," Snape and Lily are one of the best couples ever and I wish there could have been even more time in the movie devoted to this story. I was so glad to enjoy the superior skill of Rickman to flesh out that relationship. I looked forward to this the most about the movie and I was not disappointed.

(3) The performance of Maggie Smith as Professor McGonagall. It was wonderful to see almost all the Hogwarts' Professors get at least a brief screen moment to reprise their roles. And was thrilled that Maggie Smith was able to show her powerful wizardry skill and duel with Snape. She makes a really cool badass. My only regret is that my favorite exchange in the book, between Harry and McGonagall was not included in the movie.

"We shall secure the school against He Who Must Not Be Named while you search for this - this object."
"Is that possible."
"I think so," said Professor McGonagall dryly, "we teachers are rather good at magic, you know."

Being a great fan of the books, I always notice when the Potter movies depart from them. But I also completely understand this. I find it more interesting to think about why the writers and director may have made the choices they did (such as to eliminate the scene with the Carrows in Ravenclaw Tower or the absence of the house elves from the final battles) rather than nitpick about what they could have done better. It has to be incredibly hard to adapt a powerfully loved (and very long) book to the screen and they usually do a wonderful job of making difficult choices and making it work. But in this installment I was disappointed by the ending and its departure from the book in one key point.

As it is written, the final duel plays out between Harry and Voldemort in the great hall in a very public way -- with death eaters, professors, students, and members of the Order of the Phoenix all around. The movie chose to make this final duel more of a private confrontation between Voldemort and Harry. I think it was a mistake. One of the best parts of the book is when Harry starts calling Voldemort by his birth name after the horcruxes are destroyed and Harry knows he has the upper hand.

"You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you."
"You dare ---"
"Yes, I dare," said Harry. "I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle."

In this scene Harry takes a great liberty and gives a great insult. It needs to be public.

The point of this duel should be to establish how the wand lore mattered, to show publicly that "Tom" is now just a man - a mortal, and that he could be killed; it should establish, publicly, how Dumbledore died and it should vindicate Snape's memory.

Moreover, I think it was important for this scene to (for the sake of wizarding future) allow Harry's actions to unfold in front of witnesses so that no one holds Harry up as a demi-God, to let the community allow him be just a man too at the end of all this. The book's portrayal of that last final confrontation was already perfect. I regret that I wasn't able to see it filmed.

My younger son asked: "do you think anyone else will make a Harry Potter movie." So sad. He and I both felt robbed of the proper climax for this series. I'll have to read that section of the book aloud to establish its place back in our memories.


"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is Excellent But the Ending is Disappointing."  LostinBritishTV