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

The Top Five Hottest Scenes Ever Filmed, if by "Hot" you mean; sexy, sad, powerful, poignant and full of longing

In a recent post, I claimed that the "Book Scene" from Remains of the Day was the hottest scene ever put on film. I got to thinking about other really incredible love scenes. Scenes that are completely and fundamentally engaging. Scenes full of longing and desire. Scenes that are sexy but not in the easy way. Scenes involving complex relationships. Scenes of deeply moving humanity.

I'm sure I'll think of others that need to be on the list, but, for now, here is my list of the Five Hottest Scenes Ever Filmed.

#5. Harry Potter and Hermione Dancing.
Don't give me that look. This scene is amazing. The main thing that makes it amazing is the song: Nick Cave's O Children. Wow. I'd never heard of Nick Cave. and I think there's a whole group of people who had never heard of him either. I understand that some of his die-hard fans hate the Harry-Potter-given surge of fame, feeling that we don't somehow deserve to know him. We didn't fight for it and we weren't there at the beginning. I get that. But I think I'm cool enough to deserve this song. The amazing thing is that for one moment Harry Potter got to be cool enough to deserve this song. 

This is a love scene because Hermione is full of brokenhearted longing, but not for Harry. The mood of this song is perfect for that odd other-worldly wizardy place and quest. It is dark and soulful and perfect at expressing one of the best scenes of friendship I've ever seen.

Since Warner Brothers seems to be removing all these clips from youtube and claiming copyright infringement, I may not be able to post it. But you know which one I mean. I found this clip, which seems to be raw footage and not directly from the film, so it doesn't have the same style and mood, but at least you can hear the song and get the general idea.

#4 Margaret Hale and John Thornton Balcony Scene in North and South
I wanted to include something from Margaret Hale and Mr. Thornton but had a hard time deciding which vignette. Of course the scene at the train station is more satisfying ultimately, because it is the resolution of their great attraction. But this one is more powerful and heady. There is an angry mob. Thornton and Margaret still do not know one another or where they stand. Her act of rushing out to his side on the balcony reads, to the initiated, as a powerful declaration of love, yet she herself doesn't see it that way. She sees it as an act of humanity. When they are grabbing each other, jostling on the balcony, that level of touch is so strong a statement for the period. His hand, almost in her hair after the rock hits her, to the savvy viewer is so intimate.  The scene represents the height of confusion for these characters trying to figure out who the other is and see if they even like each other, or maybe love each other. Or whether their bodies know more than their own minds do about what they should be.

#3 Jane and Mr. Rochester beneath a tree in Jane Eyre
When I first read Jane Eyre as a girl in high school, I remember being blown away by this scene. I was stunned that a dried up old Victorian book could contain anything like this. The revelation that there was this kind of modern feeling, intensity and passion in classic literature was so unexpected, shocking and exciting that it unleashed an enduring interest in classics. These performances move me to tears in one of my favorite scenes of all time.

#2 Ruth and Harry say goodbye in Spooks Season 5

I have not even seen the full episode of Spooks from which this comes. I've seen, seasons 7, 8 and 1-3 in that order so I know I haven't "gotten to" the good stuff between Harry and Ruth yet.  (Doing any reading about the series leads immediately to "Harry and Ruth" tags, so its impossible to be completely unaware of their continually thwarted love if you are a Spooks fan).

My first exposure to them together was in season 8 when, under tragic and deeply distressing circumstances, Ruth rejoined the team. The marvelous acting of Nicola Walker and Peter Firth told me immediately that these characters had History. Now, with these earlier seasons for my evenings viewing, I am finding myself really drawn to Ruth - her brilliance and quirkiness; she's cute as hell, funny and always brings the team to reality and sanity. I just couldn't wait for their relationship to unfold so helped myself now by plunging in headlong to the Youtube wealth of video on these two. This scene is stunning! Even if you don't know the full back story -- which I don't --,  even if you know nothing about them, it would be hard to stay unmoved by these performances. I don't think I've seen anything more touching and heartbreaking than this goodbye, not to mention, just plain old sexy. Look how close the camera is... how you can hear Harry breathing when they kiss. A truly awesome scene.

#1 The Book Scene

http://lostinbritishtv.blogspot.com/2011/06/hottest-scene-ever-filmed.html


The Top Five Hottest Scenes Ever Filmed, if by "Hot" you mean; sexy, sad, powerful, poignant and full of longing. LostinBritishTV