(Currently listening to Curtis Mayfield's Roots)
I noticed a bunch of gray hairs while brushing my teeth tonight, and I wonder if I'm hallucinating, stressing myself too much, or actually just aging, or some combination thereof. I guess as long as the hair is still there, Keith Hernandez can go back to being a sexist idiot. Speaking of which, I made it to a mets game with my Family - and they lost, which sucked, but I suppose i was due after seeing a walk off win in '04 (albeit against the then abysmal Detroit Tigers and then Pedro Martinez's 10 strikeout complete game shutout of the first place Braves in '05. EJ and Dubba made my weekend, but I'm still pretending to be anonymous, so no further discussion of any of that.
Union stuff is picking up, which is good. And i won't talk about that here either yet. I would instead like to conclude by making a couple of declarative statements about popular music and harry potter films.
1. The Numero Group may have been credited with exploding the myth of a soul meritocracy - with some justification but Curtis Mayfield's post-impressions work still sounds unique and visionary.
2. Bobby Bland's "Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City" may be the best song Jay-Z ever sampled (other suggestions besides "I Want You Back?") and the original is more interesting and haunting than his version.
3. I like the new spoon album more than i liked the last two. "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb," and "Don't You Evah" in particular are a lot more interesting than any other rock album i've heard in the last couple of months.
4. Billy Corrigan, what the fuck? Mellon Collie seems less excessive now, strangely, less dissapointing - and for me in '96 it was a huge dissappointment after Siamese Dream, far to self indulgent to ever be successfully experimental. Zero still sounds like a piece of shit. But Zeitgeist is cynicism of the worst sort, exploitative, vacuous, pretentious, occasionally seductive - because we want another Gish, we want another "Cherub Rock" or video for "Rocket," but this is not social criticism so much as self-aggrandisement.
5. I think The Order Of The Phoenix, flawed as it is, is my favorite book in the series. The film is good too, though not as good as Y Tu Potter of Men um i mean Prisoner of Azkaban. But i wonder how much we lose (Spanish Baggage Handler Strike, etc.) of the novel's nods to fascisms both Thatcherian and Bushic in the shortened screenplay even with all that does make it in. Also, i found the final line strangely moving not as a demarcation of alterity between "us" and "them," (the politics of the two most recent films seem to complicate such easy classifications and oppositions) but rather as a (probably much too easy and easily universal) reminder of what might be the point of fighting for social justice even when it gets tough and seems futile. I'm dorking out and this requires more careful wording than im capable of at 1:46 AM, so i'll leave you with that and instead go to sleep dreading the eventual onset of male pattern baldness and wondering how iTunes could be dumb enought to claim that Melissa Auf Der Mar was part of the Smashing Pumpkins' "original lineup.".
I was disappointed by the new movie, although I don't know that I liked the book as much as you did. I think they did some very clever condensing of the plot, most notably using the discovery of Dumbledore's Army to break up Harry and Cho, but that they went overboard in certain places, particularly in skimping on Neville and Ginny's growing skills and Neville's emotional development. I'm particularly disappointed by the latter because of how much I enjoyed the innovation in the Goblet of Fire movie where Neville comes in late after dancing all night. I need to read Half-Blood Prince again.
ReplyDeleteAnyway. I share your memories of that Mets game. There has not been enough baseball in my summer, full as it has been with getting (and soon to be starting) a new job, crazy running-around travel, etc. I miss you.
I appreciated that they were trying to make a shorter film, in part because of the rather smelly dude sitting next who kept saying stupid shit like "dumbledore is the MAN" after every time Kingsley Schacklebot opened his mouth (which, granted, was only once in the entire film).
ReplyDeletePanning to Ginny's distraught face every time Cho and Harry spoke to eachother was a nice touch. And there was a little Neville stuff around Bellatrix killing his parents, but i agree not enough, particularly since we now know that the kid playing him can act.
I also continue to be frustrated by the blase politics of house elf labor exploitation, and I am still waiting for Hermione to form Unite-House Elf Revolutionary Emancipation or the Society for Elvish Indpendence and Unity (SEIU.)