these last two weeks have been the ACTUAL WORST, btw, thank god for break

[elapses]

I was like, moderately kind of apathetic about the Harry Potter release in a of-course-I'm-still-going-to-see-it kind of way until this morning in my bio lecture (omg it was like, an actual lecture, which was apparently way more than I could take slightly hungover on the Friday before fall break, because I ACTUALLY COULD NOT MAKE MYSELF PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT HE WAS SAYING) when all the sudden, for no reason, I was hit with a crushing wave of neeeeeeeeed to see it.


hp
I walked out of the movie theater all "I liked that!!!!" but idk now that it has settled in I kind of wish I were watching it AGAIN, RIGHT NOW, FOREVER ON REPEAT. Actually really though: I've never seen a HP movie twice in theaters but I think I might have to with this one, because I kind of... had all this leftover Kloves anxiety from the sixth movie and I think it unnecessarily put me on edge through a lot of it. Ron is just. Kind of my favorite?! And the Ron material here is more delicate than the book 6 Ron material, WHICH HE COMPLETELY FUCKED UP. But he did okay, so I guess what I want is to go back and watch it now that I know that, so I can feel less tense about things.

UMM CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW PRETTY EMMA WATSON IS?! Oh my god, girl. Also she managed to pack some really great wardrobe items for herself in that magical bag of hers, she looked so darling the whole time. There used to be this lj icon though, a really long time ago, with a picture of PoA-era Hermione and a caption that was something like "with every movie Hermione's hair is a little straighter and the part of me that's still clinging to canon... dies a little" (or something) and I could not stop thinking about it because man THEY BARELY EVEN CURL HER HAIR NOW. But-- I always do my nails while I'm studying, it's something about keeping my hands occupied. Sometimes you just gotta mess with the Sleakeazy's while you're doing your research, I GET IT GIRL.

OTHER THINGS THAT WERE PRETTY: this mooooooooovie. All the vistas!!!!!! They took such advantage of them not being at Hogwarts, jeeeeeeeeesus. That bit in the middle when they were walking and not apparating -- wow. It really emphasized how much time that period took up.

I actually didn't cry when Dobby died but I totally teared up at the opening bit with the cuts of the trio-- that was suuuuuuuch a good storytelling choice, I am not over it. I will never be over it!!!

HOW DARLING WAS THE SCENE WHERE HARRY AND HERMIONE DANCED?!!!!? And the bit with Ron and Hermione at the piano, I don't know why I loved that so much but I diiiiiiiiid, omg his face. And her face after the thing about the heart. And hahaha Harry's little joke after that. And Harry and Ron's scene at the burrow!!!! God the trio is great.

What else do I have to saaaaaay, I don't know. I've never been hugely on the "HOW DARE THEY LEAVE _________ OUT" team because... what are they supposed to do, they're condensing 600some pages into two hours, but the way this flowed kind of made me wish they had split all the books in two. Of course they couldn't, that would be ridiculous, but there were so few cuts here and even the parts you might wonder about translating to film well really, really came across.

I DON'T KNOW, I REALLY LIKED IT, I GUESS THAT'S ALL.

fnl
This is an excerpt from this review of last week's episode:

I'm so disappointed by the way in which Julie's current storyline is unfolding that it actually made me angry to watch her portions of the episode this week. We've known ever since "head TA" Derek Bishop was introduced that the two would end up sleeping with one another and I haven't been too enamored of their interactions to date. It's possibly due to the lackluster energy of the actor playing Derek, who isn't quite a charming as he needs to be in order to pull off such a rote plot.

But the fact that we learned this week that Derek is actually married (to a woman who is on a sabbatical, posing questions as to whether she's a grad student or a professor) and Julie jumped into bed with him without stopping to think that she is willing to have sex with a married man made me question this plotline as a whole. Julie has made mistakes before, but her lack of judgment and her seemingly willingness not to question the situation (and to fall for Derek's cheesy lines about he and his wife not "really" being married) had me scratching my head. Yes, Julie is attempting to seize the moment and she's not fitting in at all at school but I'm hoping the speed with which she extricated herself from Derek's bed the morning after points towards some realization that she made a mistake.

You know sometimes I forget to think about FNL storylines as storylines-- actually I do that with everything I watch, I like shows best when I can forget that there are people writing them and there is intent behind every choice they make. Because sometimes the best writing is the kind of writing that makes you forget you are reading a story. I know you don't really have that luxury when you are a TV critic, but it was still actually REALLY WEIRD for me to see the way he presented this episode all Vince's storyline: fantastic, moving (it was, though) and Julie's storyline: terrible, undermined the episode. I do not love what they're doing with Julie at all but I hate the words he uses to discuss it, all "but her lack of judgment and her seemingly willingness not to question the situation (and to fall for Derek's cheesy lines about he and his wife not "really" being married) had me scratching my head". Because it's not about her brain, Julie Taylor is not a stupid girl. But she's lonely and she's by herself and she's supposed to be trying new things and she's really, really vulnerable. And Julie has a pretty clear pattern of irrational behavior when she's trying to figure out where she fits in. I don't know, part of me is like "IT'S A GIRL THING, I'M SORRY YOU DON'T GET IT TELEVISIONARY!!!" but I don't know why I feel that way!! It's not like the writers of this episode are even women... and I don't even know why I am defensive of this plotline, IT IS NOT THAT GOOD.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE FEELINGS AND YOU HAVE TO POST ABOUT THEM
Okay you knowwwwww how we all have those ships where we don't like the show that much but the pairing in question just gives us SO MANY FEELINGS so you end up fastforwarding through entire episodes to get to the two minutes in which they interact?!?! I think that has happened to all of us. Anyway back in summer '09 I had the BRILLIANT IDEA that I would edit together all the Trip/T'Pol scenes ever into one avi file. Or at least it seemed brilliant at the time, but now what it means is that whenever goldenmelisande ends up rereading old chatlogs on our (SUPER GREAT) Enterprise personal canon it ultimately ends in "...........okay fine let's just watch Trip/T'Pol: the movie" because it is just TOO CONVENIENT. There are no DVDs to get out, no downloading or fastforwarding to do, it is just right there, always. Damn it.

ANYWAYYYYYYYYY I FUCKING LOVE THEM, augh. So (re-)obsessed with the way their relationship plays on all these themes of xenophobia, and the way his involvement with her matures him!!! At the beginning he is just SUCH AN ASS, sometimes in an endearing way, sometimes not so much.


The first time her engagement situation comes up (in season 1) Trip gets sort of inadvertently dragged into it and basically imposes his world view on everyone and is all "i don't get how this is complicated, you do what you want" and then basically compares arranged marriages to slavery, which uh. GOOD JOB BEING TOLERANT OF OTHER SPECIES' PRACTICES, CHARLES TUCKER.


But augh, the second time (in season 4). This is when she tells him she has to get married, and his fucking FACE in the second cap, oh my god. This time there's so much on the line for him, because he's in love with her, but he still goes to her wedding because he KNOWS she needs him there, and two episodes later he tells her he's proud of what she did. PROUD OF IT!!!! Even though it broke his heart. Because she did what was right and he understood. And it's not like he's a completely different personnnn, it's just that loving her teaches him so much about what and who is important.


This scene is like that too: early Trip is SO mistrustful/wary about Vulcan stoicism, it clearly just makes him super uncomfortable. A lot of their interactions in season 1 are just him trying to provoke an emotional response out of him. Which is pretty twerpy!! But here he isssss, only a little more than two years later and he trusts her enough with his feelings to have a breakdown he's been holding in for MONTHS. Ugh and her faaaaaace when she tries to comfort him, especially in the wake of all the shit she's dealing with then, omg.


I PUT THIS HERE JUST BECAAAUSE, ugh they spend so much time just out of step with each other and here they are fiiiiiiiinally, finally on the same page. I didn't get a good cap of it but this is the first time she ever looks at him during a vulnerable moment rather than staring forward. WHY ARE THEY PERFECT

ANYWAY THAT'S ALL, HAVE SOME ADORBS WORST-VULCAN-EVER FACES FOR YOUR TIME:
(I LOVE HERRRRRR)


ALSO I FEEL BAD BECAUSE THIS IS BELATED NOWWWW, BUTHAPPY BIRTHDAY cambridge, ILU LOADS AND I HOPE YOUR DAY WAS THE LOVELIEST!!!!!!

Comments

[book-babe.livejournal.com]

SO MUCH HARRY POTTER LOVE. also i am with you on the emma watson pretty thing, i legitimately was thinking how pretty she was throughout most of it.

i want to see it againn, i like really need to see it again. but i thought it was visually gorgeous and there really isn't anything i hate about it which is kind of ish a first. but i thought it was done beautifully, both as an hp movie and as like, a film in general, in the sense that there were just like...really good choices made with things, idkkk.

basically: LOVE.

i also have this wonderful appreciation for how they did the scenes with malfoy (and i say that not as a 'sdnfiosdnf tom felton' thing...a few years ago it might have been that), but as a 'i really think his character is fascinating' thing, and there were just these beautiful moments where he only got a second or so of facetime but said SO MUCH, because it was cut/whatever so perfectly and it was just. it made me so happy, because they just captured it, you know?

oh, and snape. i cannot even. so much love.

i really need to see it again.

i have more thoughts but it's 2:49am and i am sleeeepy.

[book-babe.livejournal.com]

also i always forget you get a real break for thanksgiving instead of the three days we do, i am so jealous.

/pointless.

[book-babe.livejournal.com]

also: (i am avoiding sleep) we have been friends for so long, i always forget that. i just went to the lj homepage for the first time in forever and the most recent virtual gift listed is from you...from october 2007 for my eighteenth birthday. dude.

when did we get old.

[ambiguousreason.livejournal.com]

I hate where they've taken Julie's story, because Derek sucks and the plotline is just dumb, and it had so much potential. She's lonely and trying to figure out where she fits and it's hard and I just feel like they could've and should've come up with something better for her. But ugh I love what you said about forgetting these are actual storylines, FNL seems like real life as opposed to a television show more than anything else I watch and that's one of the best things about it.

[manasseh.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you just gotta mess with the Sleakeazy's while you're doing your research, I GET IT GIRL.

lolling so hard omg. But yeaaaaah at the beginning I was like "DAYUMN GURL" and then I felt kind of bad because she was mind-wiping her parents and I was supposed to be sad about that. IDK which pre-title card scene I love more, the one for HBP (I SUPER REALLY LOVE THAT BIT WITH THE PHOTOGRAPHERS) or the one for DH1 (SUCH TIGHT STORYTELLING W2G YATES/KLOVES).

Oh the vistas were amaaaaazing. So many visually interesting places for them to camp! I really loved that, it made the camping seem so much cooler/less intensely boring than I remember. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE? I really dug the spot where Harry and Hermione talked about the snitch and Beedle the Bard.

AHHHH THAT SCENE AT THE BURROW AHHHHHH I LOVE IT. I WAS STUNNED IT HAPPENED AT ALL, THERE WAS SO MUCH RONALD ALL OVER THE PLACE THERE AND I WAS LIKE "DEAR GOD RON HAS SCREENTIME RON HAS SCREENTIME"

but the way this flowed kind of made me wish they had split all the books in two

lol inorite :/

[forthesky.livejournal.com]

THIS IS A RUNNING COMMENTARY OF A COMMENT BECAUSE I WAS ONLY UP TO EPISODE ONE BEFORE, I NEEDED SOMEONE TO SHARE MY THOUGHTS WITH AND YOU ARE MY FNL GO TO PERSON.

Episode 2: I CARE SO MUCH ABOUT THE SHIPS THIS SEASON! Holy crap, Jess/Vince ("I think you're beautiful", DEAD) and Luke/Becky, MY HEART EXPLODED IN THAT SCENE OF THEIRS. Also, MINDY AND BILLY WORRYING ABOUT BECKY WAS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN! "I'm just not used to people noticing." I just watched a Castle episode today that the Derek Bishop guy is in and I was like "wow he's really pretty", but IMMEDIATELY in this I got creepy pedo vibes from him, I AM WORRIED ABOUT JULIE, I have a feeling this is what your entry is about but I'm not reading it until I've watched them. Also omg Tami, I am so proud of the way she gets through to people. TOTALLY SAW YOUR GRANDPA TOO BTW, SO EXCITING.

Episode 3: THIS DRUNK GIRL THING IS REALLY UPSETTING :( Jess is so delightful, I just .... I love her. She's fantastic. PEDO VIBES WAS RIGHT, WIFE???! OMG NO JULIE, BRB CRYING. Also every scene with Vince's mum, I get so nervous, I WANT HER/THEM TO BE OKAY AND NEVER TAKE DRUGS AGAIN.

Episode 4: BECKY AND MINDY, WHAT IS THIS WONDERFULNESS, I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS EVEN REMOTELY AND I AM DYING WITH JOY. BEST STORYLINE OF THE SEASON! I AM IN LOVE! BUT UGH, DEREK, WORST CHARACTER EVERRRRR, GET YOU AND YOUR PEDO FACE AWAY FROM JULIE. Jess's sunshine face is my favourite thing in the world. I AM SO HAPPY FOR LUKE AND BECKY!

I just read your comments and you're totally right. With FNL, except for maybe that ~murder storyline, when people do stupid things it's just ... people doing stupid things, not bad writing, that never ever occurs to me. Obviously the storyline is awful to watch and maybe it wasn't the best direction for them to take, but on the character side it's totally understandable. She's obviously not making the best decisions, yet you can understand why she's making them. I CAN'T BELIEVE THERE'S ONLY LIKE 9 EPISODES LEFT, ALEX, WHAT A VOID WILL BE LEFT WHEN THIS SHOWS ENDS.

[cambridge.livejournal.com]

AH I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO WATCH IT AGAIN TOO. I was also thinking about how pretty Emma Watson looked, her wardrobe was SO GREAT. and then I remembered she chopped off all her hair WHICH IS A PITY because it looked so great but I guess having the same hairstyle (pretty much) for eleven years would be tiring. THE FILM WAS VERY PRETTY. I was like omg THIS SCREEN IS SO BIG. LOOK AT EVERYTHING!! IMAGINE THIS IN IMAX OR 3-D in the theatre. umm I totally cried when Dobby died, I STARTED CRYING ONCE HE APPEARED. My tears quelled when they were burying him though because lol they were holding a white sheet. AND OMG, I started getting teary eyed when Hermione oblivated her parents. I always thought that was so sad and just seeing it on the screen. UGH.

and omg THANK YOU SO MUCH. LMFAO THAT PICTURE IS SO BEAUTIFUL, YOU ARE TOO KIND!!! ILU LOADS TOO. <333

[goldenmelisande.livejournal.com]

OMG HER (WORST VULCAN EVER) FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE ♥_____♥ especially when she's trying to comfort him about his sister because like, he's saying to her face that he's jealous of her ability to hold in her emotions and he just has NO IDEA how much her emotions have screwed her over. And honestly the most emotionally affecting part of the last scene after Elizabeth is her grabbing for her hand, like, that is the only way she can express how she is feeling/be emotionally open, kind of? And she's just so DESPERATE and ;_______; I LOVE THEM SO MUCH UGH.

also I just will always love that he tells her that he's PROUD of her for MARRYING ANOTHER GUY, like, the change from twerpy selfish S1 Trip to the guy he becomes in S3/4 is so amazing and pronounced. I don't think you can really appreciate him being GREAT without having seen him be a dumbass??? Especially in comparison to Archer, who stays at the exact same level of selfish jerk for the entire series. Because he is the worst.

ALSO K I WAS PLANNING ON JUST WAITING UNTIL DECEMBER TO SEE HP BUT NOW I FEEL LIKE I'M MISSING OUTTTTTTT, damn it. Maybe Casey will go with me...........

[annalouwho.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD, ALEX, YOU ARE SO IN MY BRAIN. Harry Potter excitement just hit me, like, last night. i've just hated Steve Kloves for so long, and Half-Blood Prince was such an unbelievable shitfest, that i've had the lowest expectations for this movie for forever, and i was especially worried that Ron's character was totally going to get fucked over. but today, hearing about the movie and how madly in love with Rupert everyone is now, and rewatching Order of the Phoenix last night (which i know is the only one Steve Kloves didn't write, so maybe that's why it's so good), i'm just feeling really excited now, and i need to see this movie like immediately.

[sleuths.livejournal.com]

HARRY POTTER omg yes. Okay I seriously laughed at this: Sometimes you just gotta mess with the Sleakeazy's while you're doing your research, I GET IT GIRL. SO TRUE. But seriously, Emma's fashion sense is showing through Hermione, and I kinda loved it. But she was looking gorgeous through it all. AND YES, THE VISTAS. I can't waaaaaaaaaaaaaait until high quality caps emerge from it because the picspams will be to die for.

I so feel you on the whole Kloves anxiety thing after the sixth book. Honestly, I just really, really despise how Ron has been portrayed through pretty much all the movies with the exception of the first two (and I have LOTS OF FEELINGS about it since Ron's my favorite character), but WATCH IT AGAIN (OH AND SAME, I've never watched an HP movie more than once in theatres) and yes, EMBRACE THE GREATNESS THAT WAS RON/RUPERT IN THIS MOVIE. Rupert/(Kloves, dare I say it?) did Ron so unbelievably freaking well in this movie, and I walked out happier than I have EVER been, post-Potter movie. FLKAJ;SDADF JUST FANTASTIC.

AND YES THE TRIO IS GREAT

I JUST LOVED EVERYTHING (almost. whatever) EVERYTHING!!!!!

[torigates.livejournal.com]

I felt the exact same way about the movie! I was so determined to be apathetic about it, and then I got SUPER PSYCHED!! and it was so good!!! I'm so glad, I need to see it again immediately!!

I never saw all of Enterprise, but I was SO INTO Trip/T'Pol! they were delightful. Too bad the rest of the show was pretty crummy.

[veils.livejournal.com]

EMMA WATSON WAS THE MOST ATTRACTIVE THING IN THAT FILM. And she was competing with freaking breathtaking landscapes, man.

I really do think they did a great job with it overall, I got really tense around some parts because I just... didn't know what to expect (I WONDERED ABOUT THE HARRY/HERMIONE ~VISION~ MAKING OUT, NGL) but it was only small nitpicky things I can't even remember anymore because it's turned into one big emotion blur so. Whatever. I forgot my point. YOU ARE STILL THE ONLY PERSON ON MY FLIST TO POST A REACTION TO DH.