Entry tags:
- arcades,
- bemani,
- bemani folk,
- computers,
- d&d,
- droc,
- harry potter,
- movies,
- tacoma,
- work
Weekend Update
Oops, I guess I went to sleep last night without updating. I thought I had, weird. Friday at work, I was a bad girl and ducked out of yet another all-hands meeting, to go down to the IT guys and beg someone to make my laptop work for remote VPN stuff. They were all like "Bah, we are very very busy, file a ticket and we'll get back to you in a couple of days," and I said "Can't I just plug it in and show you the error I got since I already installed all the stuff and I'm just getting a weird message or two?" So they gave me a cable modem to plug it into, I booted it up, showed them one message which turned out to be that I needed to uninstall Norton, and the second was some arcane Lotus Notes problem, but the IT guy typed a few random incantations into it and it magically worked. I think I wasted a total of maybe half an hour of his time, so I guess I do feel a little bad, but it wasn't like I had some huge hours-and-hours-long issue to work through.
After work we had D&D at Cory's house. We now ACTUALLY have one session remaining. As in, our final boss to fight is in the floor above the room we're at. We've worked our way up the outside tower thing, found the ethereal plane portal, went up the other side, had a few fights, and are now there. We were going to do the shopping thing, since Cory got turned to stone (for like the third time -- honestly, he had sprung a prismatic spray trap early on and got turned to stone but Justin decided that'd be lame so instead he just got hit with a lot of damage by a ray. Then later, we had prismatic spray cast on the party and AGAIN Cory got hit by the "turned to stone" ray and AGAIN failed his save) but Josh decided to Miracle him back since I didn't have Stone to Flesh memorized, and so in theory we'll just plow through, next session. Though next session might not be until mid-December at this rate thanks to travel.
Today I meant to do some shopping and then go visiting people, but I was exhausted and slept until 2pm. Oops. So instead, I got up, called![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oren, went and picked him up around 4ish, and we drove down to Tacoma.
First I stopped by Narrows because the In The Groove nationals qualifying tourney was going on and I just wanted to stop by and say hello to people. I didn't see many people I knew --darknote and toastercookie and Jedi and Shakespeare by the 5th mix, and cynic573 behind the table, and bobsyouruncle and crackoon getting ready to actually compete, and keevon over by the Beatmania III machine. There were bunches of other people there, but I didn't know who they were. I played a game of Beatmania so I could play 20 November just in case, and I also played a game of Drummania for the hell of it. Oren played a game of Initial D, and in the meantime Jeff had called me, so I called him back and we headed even further south down to Lakewood.
We got todamienroc and wooko's place, and they were there, as was Pete, and Julianne. Wooko took Pete home for some reason or another, and Jeff and Julianne and Oren and I went to grab pre-HP dinner; we ended up at Applebee's. It wasn't too bad. islandergirlro and Brien caught up with us to give us movie tickets at Applebee's, and then we all ended up at the theater a bit later, and we saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I'll talk about that in a second.
After the movie we came back and watched a 5-minute episode of some weird anime (Magical Play?) with "The 2-D vs. 3-D fight!", and then I suggested we watch the Simpsons softball episode, which was of course vastly entertaining, and then we all headed home. Whee.
Tomorrow I might go try to play IIDX at that new arcade thing, or maybe stop by Illusionz or such, but more likely I will just go shopping for my trip and maybe start packing. I will make sure to play 20 November on some Bemani game one way or the other, though.
I guess I'll LJ-cut in case people haven't seen the movie, but is it really possible to spoil it?
So, I expected it to be a pretty dark movie. I mean, pretty consistently dark, since book 4 was very dark and forboding a lot of the time and all. But it actually was more often a bucket of laughs. There were like, a few scenes, mostly when Harry's having his Voldemort nightmares, that were dark -- but everything else was pretty much lighthearted, or action-packed and drawn-out-suspense-like. I guess they were really focusing on the tournament, but some of the actual trial scenes felt really drawn out to me. I dunno. I mean, I really *like* the dialogue and the jokes and the funny scenes, but it just wasn't quite what I was expecting.
CEDRIC DIGGORY IS GORGEOUS. No, really. I don't read any HP fan sites, obviously, but in the theater, when he first appeared on screen, you could actually hear a few girls in the audience saying "Oooooh." It's a shame he pretty much appears in this movie and dies, eh?
Oddly, though -- Fleur Delacoeur is NOT that particularly gorgeous or hot or in-your-face. Infact, she's practically a non-character. It really bugged me that they picked this totally gorgeous guy to play Cedric and really used his looks and demeanor perfectly -- and then just sort of had a random French blonde chick as Fleur. Or maybe it's just that I'm not a guy? But I didn't really feel her presence the way you do in the books. They actually seemed to sort of make her out to be this token girl character who has problems in all of the Triwizard events and is a big wuss, and I thought she was a lot stronger than that.
Victor Krum was really quite good, though I am sad they cut the "Hermy-own-ninny" gag.
As usual, the Weasley Twins were one of the highlights of the film; the only thing that I thought was odd this time was that it didn't seem like there were ANY other older students around. So you had these two elder Weasleys and then just a ton of youngsters, for the most part. Ron Weasley was also awesome as per usual. They could make a movie just about the Weasleys at this point and it'd be hilarious.
Neville is getting taller and less pudgy, but more dorky, so I guess it works out. But what's this about him dancing? It was funny but I didn't think that was his character?
Hermione. Ugh. She used to just be a smidgen too cute to be Hermione; in this movie she was just way too pretty to be Hermione, even beyond just the Yule Ball.
And since when are Padma and Parvati Patil both in Gryffindor?
The Myrtle scene annoyed me. I didn't mind her portrayal in the second movie, but this one bugged me. It's not how I imagine her.
The ending is too happy. I mean, there's this DARK DARK DARK scene with Voldemort coming back, and actually I thought that entire sequence was done really, really well -- but then you come back and it ends in light again. I dunno.
There were a lot of things cut out. I did think it was pretty awesome that the first 250 pages of the book took 5 minutes of movie time, but at the same time I feel like we were missing a lot.
After work we had D&D at Cory's house. We now ACTUALLY have one session remaining. As in, our final boss to fight is in the floor above the room we're at. We've worked our way up the outside tower thing, found the ethereal plane portal, went up the other side, had a few fights, and are now there. We were going to do the shopping thing, since Cory got turned to stone (for like the third time -- honestly, he had sprung a prismatic spray trap early on and got turned to stone but Justin decided that'd be lame so instead he just got hit with a lot of damage by a ray. Then later, we had prismatic spray cast on the party and AGAIN Cory got hit by the "turned to stone" ray and AGAIN failed his save) but Josh decided to Miracle him back since I didn't have Stone to Flesh memorized, and so in theory we'll just plow through, next session. Though next session might not be until mid-December at this rate thanks to travel.
Today I meant to do some shopping and then go visiting people, but I was exhausted and slept until 2pm. Oops. So instead, I got up, called
oren, went and picked him up around 4ish, and we drove down to Tacoma.First I stopped by Narrows because the In The Groove nationals qualifying tourney was going on and I just wanted to stop by and say hello to people. I didn't see many people I knew --
darknote and toastercookie and Jedi and Shakespeare by the 5th mix, and cynic573 behind the table, and bobsyouruncle and crackoon getting ready to actually compete, and keevon over by the Beatmania III machine. There were bunches of other people there, but I didn't know who they were. I played a game of Beatmania so I could play 20 November just in case, and I also played a game of Drummania for the hell of it. Oren played a game of Initial D, and in the meantime Jeff had called me, so I called him back and we headed even further south down to Lakewood.We got to
damienroc and wooko's place, and they were there, as was Pete, and Julianne. Wooko took Pete home for some reason or another, and Jeff and Julianne and Oren and I went to grab pre-HP dinner; we ended up at Applebee's. It wasn't too bad. islandergirlro and Brien caught up with us to give us movie tickets at Applebee's, and then we all ended up at the theater a bit later, and we saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I'll talk about that in a second.After the movie we came back and watched a 5-minute episode of some weird anime (Magical Play?) with "The 2-D vs. 3-D fight!", and then I suggested we watch the Simpsons softball episode, which was of course vastly entertaining, and then we all headed home. Whee.
Tomorrow I might go try to play IIDX at that new arcade thing, or maybe stop by Illusionz or such, but more likely I will just go shopping for my trip and maybe start packing. I will make sure to play 20 November on some Bemani game one way or the other, though.
I guess I'll LJ-cut in case people haven't seen the movie, but is it really possible to spoil it?
So, I expected it to be a pretty dark movie. I mean, pretty consistently dark, since book 4 was very dark and forboding a lot of the time and all. But it actually was more often a bucket of laughs. There were like, a few scenes, mostly when Harry's having his Voldemort nightmares, that were dark -- but everything else was pretty much lighthearted, or action-packed and drawn-out-suspense-like. I guess they were really focusing on the tournament, but some of the actual trial scenes felt really drawn out to me. I dunno. I mean, I really *like* the dialogue and the jokes and the funny scenes, but it just wasn't quite what I was expecting.
CEDRIC DIGGORY IS GORGEOUS. No, really. I don't read any HP fan sites, obviously, but in the theater, when he first appeared on screen, you could actually hear a few girls in the audience saying "Oooooh." It's a shame he pretty much appears in this movie and dies, eh?
Oddly, though -- Fleur Delacoeur is NOT that particularly gorgeous or hot or in-your-face. Infact, she's practically a non-character. It really bugged me that they picked this totally gorgeous guy to play Cedric and really used his looks and demeanor perfectly -- and then just sort of had a random French blonde chick as Fleur. Or maybe it's just that I'm not a guy? But I didn't really feel her presence the way you do in the books. They actually seemed to sort of make her out to be this token girl character who has problems in all of the Triwizard events and is a big wuss, and I thought she was a lot stronger than that.
Victor Krum was really quite good, though I am sad they cut the "Hermy-own-ninny" gag.
As usual, the Weasley Twins were one of the highlights of the film; the only thing that I thought was odd this time was that it didn't seem like there were ANY other older students around. So you had these two elder Weasleys and then just a ton of youngsters, for the most part. Ron Weasley was also awesome as per usual. They could make a movie just about the Weasleys at this point and it'd be hilarious.
Neville is getting taller and less pudgy, but more dorky, so I guess it works out. But what's this about him dancing? It was funny but I didn't think that was his character?
Hermione. Ugh. She used to just be a smidgen too cute to be Hermione; in this movie she was just way too pretty to be Hermione, even beyond just the Yule Ball.
And since when are Padma and Parvati Patil both in Gryffindor?
The Myrtle scene annoyed me. I didn't mind her portrayal in the second movie, but this one bugged me. It's not how I imagine her.
The ending is too happy. I mean, there's this DARK DARK DARK scene with Voldemort coming back, and actually I thought that entire sequence was done really, really well -- but then you come back and it ends in light again. I dunno.
There were a lot of things cut out. I did think it was pretty awesome that the first 250 pages of the book took 5 minutes of movie time, but at the same time I feel like we were missing a lot.
no subject
I don't mind Hermione being so pretty. Emma Watson and Hermione have kind of become fused in my mind.
What about the Myrtle scene bugged you?
no subject
I basically thought they had great treatments of certain scenes, a decent job as a whole, but would've appreciated more acting and less visual. Basically, I want an extended version. :p
The girl I ended up seeing it with still thinks the evil characters are the hottest, Volemort himself being quite yummy. :)
no subject
I agree completely on
KennyCedric. ;-)Fluer's incompetence bugged me to no end. I mean, yes, she flubs the second match, but she should be less terrified in the Maze. (I'm trying to contain the angry female in me who wants to shout "why is the girl dead last?!", but that is how JKR wrote it. For a female author, she has some terribly weak & cliche girl characters. *cough*whathappenedtoTonks*cough*)
Hmm, I wonder if we'll see her in a movie of HBP. Bill's role isn't exactly negligible, though I could see his injury cut from the movie if it doesn't play a role in the 7th book.)
Krum was cool. I'm a little sorry we didn't see him play Quidditch, but that would have been a monster-long scene.
Dude, the Weasley twins had a *huge* part. I guess the movie makers (or audience pollers) figured their scenes in PoA were popular. Their bits were cool, but made for a lopsided "characters with lines":"silent extras" ratio.
Neville dancing through me off a bit as well, as Ginny didn't really want to go with him to the ball, but went because it was the only way she could go. I did like the rest of his character development, as it works as a good set-up to the bravery he shows in the next year. (and whoa growth spurt. Was he really a head & a half taller than Radcliffe during filming?)
Hermione: giving her extra lines containing "major plot info" was also annoying. She's muggle-born, and gets all her info from books. Info about wizard culture should come from wizards who have been part of the wizarding world for longer than her & Harry.
Patil twins: annoying change, but not really necessary to point out to non-readers.
Myrtle: Ew! That scene was creepy enough without Myrtle cuddling up to him! The sly vindictiveness did seem to fit her, though. (Oh, and I liked that they added an early clue to the polyjuice potion there. She's knows what the trio did 2nd year, so she has more reason to suspect Harry than Snape does.)
The lightness of the end seemed weird to me, too. Where was Dumbledore's call to arms to gather the "old crowd"?
Oh, and how many non-readers are going to wonder what happened to Barty Jr when the jail break occurs in the next year?
Ralph Fiennes rocks, but he's always better at bad guys.
no subject