Saw HP5 tonight. Overall, very good - I thought they did an excellent job of paring down the nearly 800 page book into a 2 hour movie that flowed very well. I wish the director had included a St. Mungo's scene because it's a very meaningful sequence in the book; they did cover the information nicely with a short exchange between Neville and Harry (I also missed Molly vs. the boggart and Kreacher "rescuing" all the Black heirlooms from the trash).
I thought it was really neat how we "flew" through all the newspapers everytime Fudge was putting out more fake news. Also the animation of the thestrals was great (a bit lacking on Grawp and the centaurs; too "CGI-ish" so it's pretty obvious they were drawn in).
Imelda Staunton - LOVE! She was so great as Umbridge. Got the 'hem-hem' down perfectly and the disgusting "Donna Reed on acid" attitude was dead on.
I even thought the previews were great. First up was The Water Horse - a really cute looking story about the origins of the Loch Ness monster starring Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin. Next was The Golden Compass (I think it'll be going by the title "Northern Lights" in the UK) and while there weren't extended sequences (the animation might not be quite finished) it looks kick-ass. There was a 5 second sequence showing Iorek Byrnison causing some damage and it looked good. Then there was 10,000 BC which was also pretty choppy (releasing in 2008) but I'm just not that jazzed about a mammoth hunter movie. Disney is going to poke fun at a genre that's exclusively it's own with Enchanted, which also looks totally cute but also pretty inane, so I will probably wait until the DVD comes out to watch. Then there was Fred Claus (there might have been a sixth review, but it must not have been memorable) which, depending on my Christmas cheer, I might go and see because watching Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti fight with each other, as Fred and Santa Claus respectively, was pretty funny. I hope it's not the kind of comedy where all the good bits are in the preview.
Current book-in-progress: Reading a really good essay in The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter where the author examines the characters' moral development in the novels using a tool developed by a Harvard researcher. Pretty interesting.
Current knitted item: The last HP surprise
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