Movie Day

We didn’t really do much today. Went to church this morning and they talked about the Civil Rights movement, which was interesting, and this wrestler, Sputnik Monroe, which was much more interesting than I thought it would be. The speaker was a guy I’ve enjoyed talking to a few times (we’ve not been going for a long time, so most of the people I’ve only really talked to a few times…) and I thought he did well. After service, we did the monthly cleanup. I was, after bathroom duty, on window duty in the foyer, which I didn’t mind until I got to cleaning the outsides of the door and saw that there was a huge wasps’ nest up in the awning. No one got stung, but I definitely decided that the windows could wait a week until they could get the nest taken care of. :)

After church, my parents came over and watched the kids while Robert and I went to the movies. Without the kids. Let me say that again—it just feels so luxurious. We went to the movies alone, without the kids. It was refreshing to glare at other people besides Harrison when there was unwarranted noise in the audience.

We saw Transformers and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I thought Transforms was ok—plenty of action, lots of fluff. Good summer movie. To be honest, I got kind of bored with the fighting robots by the last 45 minutes of the movies, but I guess since people complained so much about the last movie only having 20 minutes of robot action, Michael Bay felt the need to make up for lost time. I enjoyed it, but I spent the better part of the movie making mental notes of things Robert is going to have to cut from our copy when we get it just so Harrison can watch it.

Rant Alert!!!!

[It really does wear me down that movies targeted to little kids are so inappropriate for little kids. More than that, it exhausts me to think that I’m the only parent who actually enforces the ratings guides. It’s not like I feel the need to shield the kids from every little thing out there—I just think that if you’re going to make kids salivate at the mere mention of your movie, you shouldn’t load it down with vulgar language and sexual innuendo. They grow up too fast as it is—leave that kind of stuff for movies marketed to adults!]

Rant Over!!!

Harry Potter was the better movie, I felt. I have seen several people’s reviews of it who said that it deviated quite a bit from the books, but that they liked it nonetheless. I’ve read all the books, but it’s been a while. When the last book came out last year I ensconced myself on the couch, read it and then started back at the first book and reread the whole series. Seeing the entire story laid out like that really clarified it for me and was very enjoyable. That said, I guess I should have re-read (or at least re-skimmed) Half Blood Prince since I didn’t notice anything terribly amiss. I’m sure there were things that didn’t align perfectly with Rowling’s version, but nothing jumps out at me in the here and now. Perhaps after I go and skim through it I’ll see things that should have been done differently, but I feel like even if I do, I’m still going to like the movie.

A few comments on the actors:

• I really hope the ‘Harry Potter’ kids can keep working after all these movies are done. The more they grow, the better they get and I’d hate for them to not ever get to act in anything else. I mean, yeah, they have buckets of money and could probably not ever work again and still be ok, but how sad would that be if you did all your life’s work during puberty and never had anything that drove you for the rest of your life? I just hate the idea of them being typecast and locked in to those characters for the rest of their lives.
• Speaking of typecast, is Helena Bonham Carter incapable of doing any acting that doesn’t involve lots of black eyeliner and being a freak? I mean, yeah, she’s perfect for Bellatrix, sure, but it just seems that all she ever plays is kooky. Am I missing some role that she’s done that’s not like that? I’d really like to know.

In all, a good day. Now if I can just remember not to mention to the boy that we saw Optimus in all his glory, I’ll be doing ok. That kind of betrayal, I’m afraid, would never be forgiven.