Harry Potter [both]

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="06dd8c02dduajq.jpg"> <div> <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="11" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="11">   <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="11" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="11">       <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="11" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="11">   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="At The Movies With Lutz"><U><IMG SRC="0660b0b0.png" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="up" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="75ba8fc0.jpg" border=0 width="168" height="252" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <IMG SRC="75ca8fa0.jpg" border=0 width="168" height="250" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#003333" FACE="Arial" ><B>Judy & Lutz Perschon</B></FONT>     |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Judy Lutz Perschon"><U>home</U></A></div> <div> <FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >back to</FONT>  <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="At The Movies With Lutz"><U><B>At The Movies With Lutz</B></U></A></div> <div> Harry Potter [both]</div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="2" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="773" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 96 WIDTH="761"><div> Initially I had no interest in Harry Potter movies, but Mike encouraged us to watch them and we did, and the experience was delightful. In amoungst the magic are so many good lessons for children that I could recommend these movies to everyone. If you haven't viewed either, take them out in order. It helps to set the story. But my son Mike is much more prolific and agreed to write a guest review on the movies. It follows hereafter.</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 583 WIDTH="761"><div> <B>Mike's Review: </B>I'm a converted Harry Potter fanboy. Prior to working at an Elementary school, I had no interest in the books whatsoever. I think my brain was making some form of association with Beatrix Potter, who I was never into as a kid. When I took the job, I read the books so I'd understand why every kid in the school was ravenously devouring them, thereby endowing J.K. Rowling with the honor of single-handedly raising the literacy rate in much the same way Roald Dahl once did. I read the first one in a day and half. The rest were raced through in much the same way. </div> <div> Being a fan of the books, I was worried the movies might not live up to their hype. I wasn't disappointed by 2001's "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," but was concerned that the 2nd film might suffer the same fate as many sequels in franchise films. I was glad to have my concerns put to rest when "Chamber of Secrets" was released last November.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> In one word, I would describe the Harry Potter films as 'enchanting,' and not simply because of the magical context. It's because they are created with wide-eyed wonder for people who are growing up, or who never did. The witch-burners of the 21st century nay-say the magic of these films, but what do Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans have to the devil, pray tell? This is a world any child, and many adults would love to live in. If for no other reason than to sample a vomit-flavored jellybean.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> "Chamber of Secrets" takes this enchantment to a Grimm's Brothers level, bringing more shadows to the world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Any scholar of children's literature will tell you that the best children's stories are not only whimsical and playful, but are also scary. This is why the Care Bears will never be anything more than a pastel marketing scheme of the 1980's, while "Where the Wild Things Are" is a classic. Kids like creepy things. I think it's an important phase of childhood to have the living daylights scared out of you, and survive it. The children I've met whose parents sheltered them from visions such as the Basilisk of "Chamber of Secrets" grow up as tentative, retreating individuals. Stories are the way we first experience the great things in life. </div> <div> This is the beauty of the Harry Potter series; as children, we may have suspected that one of our teachers was out to kill us, or that monsters lurked in the furnace room. In Harry Potter, those things are not mere suspicions, but truths. I love Dumbledore likely all the more because I once had a benevolent principal who was grey haired and smoked a pipe. His office smelled like Borkum Riff, and it was not a terrible place to be sent, even when you were in trouble.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> I digress. This was supposed to be a movie review.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Chamber of Secrets surpasses it's predecessor in almost all areas; the special effects are cleaner and easier on the eyes. The Quidditch match of the first film was more a series of blurs than the one we are treated to in Chamber. The young actors have all matured, not only in the octave dropping voices of Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, but in the way they handle their scenes. New characters further expand the world we were introduced to in "Philosopher's Stone." Dobby the House-Elf is second only to Gollum as a fully realized CGI character, and Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy is more frightening than the spiders of the Forbidden Forest. </div> <div> The casting of the Harry Potter films is flawless, the shining point of the second film being Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart. My wife asks me to skip scenes he's in when we're watching the DVD, which is a testament that Branagh was on the money for overall smarminess. </div> <div> I cannot recommend these films enough, and to those of you who disagree...well, I guess you have no interest in flying cars, Whomping Willows, Owls that deliver mail or what amounts to Rugby played on broomsticks. You likely enjoy only films that are "realistic." I get enough realism 24-7, and find Hogwarts a great place to retreat to. As for you realism buffs, I suggest you try a vomit flavored jelly bean. </div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 51 WIDTH="761"><div> Lutz's Rating <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > <img src="HTMLobj-1879/aniGif.gif" border="0" align="bottom" width="21" height="21">   <img src="HTMLobj-1880/aniGif.gif" border="0" align="bottom" width="21" height="21">  </FONT></div> <div> Judy's Rating <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > <img src="HTMLobj-1881/aniGif.gif" border="0" align="bottom" width="21" height="21">   <img src="HTMLobj-1882/aniGif.gif" border="0" align="bottom" width="21" height="21">  </FONT></div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 82 WIDTH="761"><div> Storyline From Yahoo: HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE is an adaptation of the first of J.K. Rowling’s popular children’s novels about Harry Potter, a boy who learns on his eleventh birthday that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own. He is summoned from his life as an unwanted child to become a student at Hogwarts, an English boarding school for wizards. There, he meets several friends who become his closest allies and help him discover the truth about his parents’ mysterious deaths at the hands of a powerful adversary.</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 49 WIDTH="761"><div> Storyline From Yahoo: The follow-up to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone finds young wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) facing new challenges during their second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as they try to discover a dark force that is terrorizing the school. </div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>