Thursday, November 13, 2003

Subject | "Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban"

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Mood |

Because Augusto is a big leech and he's bribing me: apparently he's being a DJ for something. Uh-huh. It's AzN music, so beware. http://66.90.86.43:1337/listen.pls

At any rate, I felt it was a good time to blog. After all, I have a Spanish quiz tomorrow, but who cares? Yo tengo la confianza en sí mismo.

Yes, that's the one I got right on today's Spanish vocab game. *dances around*

These are almost funny. Governator.

[Okay, the rest of this entry is about the HP trailer, so run away while you can. I blogged for HP in the first place :P ]

At rate, I checked my AIM messages earlier today to see that I had recieved four messages from Christina, much to my surprise. I felt so loved. At any rate, I checked the message to see some rather screaming IM's about the Harry Potter #3 trailer.

Which you can pick up here, btw.

Perhaps it was because I had acquired so very *little* sleep the night before, but somehow my heart was not bursting with enthusiasm. In fact, I wasn't at all interested. You have to remember that I own the previous two movies, which, um, well, yes. That pretty much sums up the movies right there.

Plus, I remember watching the Chamber of Secrets trailer.. I've got it on my computer right now, and I've got to say, though I was vaguely interested, it really played rather pathetically. I mean, the two minute trailer went through THE ENTIRE BOOK.

[start replay of trailer]

"Oh, look, Golum on crack. Oh, no Harry, don't go back to Hogwarts. Oh look, there's Harry, at Hogwarts! Oh, look, the chamber of secrets opened. (How do I know? Why, because all the characters are saying so! Repeatedly!) Oh, yes, the chamber has a monster in it. (How do I know? Why, because all the characters are saying so! Repeatedly!) Oh, look, Harry's writing in a diary and it's talking back to him! Oh look, Harry went in the chamber! Oh look, spiders! (Fuzzy ones from 8-Legged Freaks!) Oh look, right there, teenage boy telling Harry to match his power against that of Slytherin! Oh look, Harry picks up the sword and brandishes it in recompensense for what he doesn't have! OH LOOk, CHEESY LINE FROM RUPERT GRINT TO END THE TRAILER SINCE WE DON'T THINK WE TOLD YOU ENOUGH YET!"

[end replay]

Yes, so even though I knew that there's a much better director for my favorite of the Harry Potter books this time (Alfonso Cuaron), I really wasn't that... well, happy about it. (I don't want to get into movie one.) Was still planning on seeing it opening day and all, but really, my heart was just not going thump-thump.

Well, now, I've watched this trailer three billion times now, and I've got to say, I actually understand what Emma Watson meant when she discussed Cuaron and said, ".. Alfonso's done some amazing things with camera angles and camera shots. And this one is much more flowy. I don't know. You can just tell the difference."

Oh, you sure as hell can. I'm not even upset about Oliver Wood not being in the movie anymore.

The trailer is amazing. Really, it is, and I'm not even saying this because Christina was singing hymns about Rickman's hips. No, the trailer is really amazing - it's scary, really. There are perhaps only three actually spoken lines in the entire trailer, and yet the entire essence of the movie is really just thrown at my head. No silly lines from house elves, no "Oooh, something's going to happen and whoop! there it is" - it's all gone. When I was little, I always thought that directors pretty much didn't do anything except tell the actors to smile or frown and order cameras around (really little, people), but - WOW.

It really is smooth. It really is "flowy". I've no experience with cinematography, but it looks GREAT. The trailer itself is smoothly connected by the eerie music of the Hogwarts choir (with enormous toads, I believe), singing "Something Wicked this way comes". The BG music is still definitely John Williams, which is great, but it no longer seems too dramatic for the cheesiness of the movie, which was a problem with movies 1 & 2. I can't even say how glad I am - Prisoner of Azkaban has always been my favorite of the Harry Potter books, in particular because I was heartbroken to find out what happened to Harry's parents and in turn, Sirius Black. This movie really looks fantastic, and I keep playing it in the background now - oh god, the eeriness of the Hogwarts express, sitting on the train tracks, unmoving with the steam blowing towards the front. The sound of a swoop of wings over Sirius' stone cell. Alan Rickman in a god-awful dress. It's great.

Ah yes, if you watch the trailer, please keep a sharp eye out for the apparatus in the upper right hand corner at EXACTLY 1:01 -- it's only there for a split second, I would pause if I were you. :P

Anyway. WHOOSH. Back to homework. But really, what a great interruption and good hope for the future :)

Posted by Kylara @ 12:05 AM PST

Saturday, November 1, 2003

Subject | "Blogging, or rather, lack thereof"

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Mood |

There has been a significant lack of blogging lately, and this is because of many varied and unusually boring reasons. They include lack of time, lack of sanity, lack of creative insanity, and lack of will.

After all, one needs will to blog. I am blogging now, driven by the desire to fill the small void left by my not blogging. Hence, why I am blogging.

I am tired. I am glad that it's raining, because perhaps now the thrice-damned California fires will die, already.

Barely any trick-or-treaters, probably because of the rain. I didn't dress up at school, but I did dress up since I was going to a party later.. one that I would write about if my eyes weren't closing at this very instant. T_T I need sleep. At any rate, I wore a black transparent sheath over a short black skirt, a white shirt, and a transparent long sleeved white shirt over that shirt.

I doubt any of you will get this. :P I was a quote. On my back, I had a sign taped reading, "Do You See In Black And White Or In Shades of Gray?"

That's a thing I used to be very into about 7th or 8th grade or so, and although it's very awkwardly worded, I rather like its meaning :) It was also the best thing I could come up with on short notice (Kristin threatened to dress me up in a junior firefighter uniform). Some of the people who made plans for Halloween at school came up with really good costumes; I loved the Mario Bros. pair (they looked so funny, if not the least bit Italian), and I never got to see Jason, who apparently dressed up as a Ralph's Market Striker (with picketing sign, name badge and everything). Oh, and the girl I saw dressed as lust looked like a ... well, ain't that hard. Hmm.

Oh, yeah, I ran for CSF secretary. There are two secretaries, so I was either second or first ^.^ I'm glad I won, I nagged all my CSF friends to vote for me.. it really gives me something to do. :O There were so many seniors running, I think their vote got split :P only one other junior was running - a friend of mine - but I think I bugged more people than her, hence my win. ^^; At any rate, I'm corresponding secretary.. so yay, more work for me. How I love my life.

Well, at least I get Key Club hours for doing the bulletin. ^.^

These last couple - three, ten - weeks, have been terrible. So terrible I don't even have the energy to blog about it. There are good points - my grade in history went up again, my Spanish grade is going up more - and then there are the really bad points that sort of block out everything else like a big black bug. I.e., Calculus.

We won't talk about that.

But, it's a three day weekend, and next day is a four day weekend, thank goodness. At any rate, I'll finish this Halloween entry off with the description of the best biology class I've had this year yet:

Childress was looking for his lecture notes, which we desperately did not want him to find (surprise, surprise). So, myself, being the bloodthirsty child that I am (and looking for a distraction), went and asked him if he wouldn't feed something to his snake so we could see ^.^ (He promised that he would earlier in the year - I did not come up with this off the top of my head.) he said he would, but that he didn't have any mice, so he wouldn't unless one of us went off campus and got it at the pet store half a block from here.

What do you know, Ashley raised her hand and says, "I'll go!" and he said, "Okay," and handed her a twenty, and off she went ^.^ she said she wouldn't get caught.

Presto, less than ten minutes later, she comes back, with two gray mice in a little plastic bag. Like a shopping bag. We were very surprised.

Childress dumped them into the snake's tank, and our sadistic biology class curled around it (with a good radius), and we watched.

Unfortunately, the first mouse scampered behind the log - which was a really bad idea because that was where the snake was. It's unfortunate because we couldn't see the snake kill it behind the log, although we did see it curl its body around the mouse, suffocating it. We were very surprised.

We were very impressed when the snake, having killed its prey, left the end of its body coiled around the dead mouse and went after the other one. And SNAP, like lightning, that snake bit the mouse :O it was SO COOL. I've never seen it that closely before, and it was great ^^ it then coiled its body around that mouse and also suffocated it. After checking for predators (that would be us), the snake dragged the mouse behind one of the logs and ate it, although we couldn't see it.

Well, we were very relieved when the snake headed back to the other mouse... (I quote Kristyn C. saying, "GET IT! GET IT!") and, in plain view for us, unhinged its jaws (this was really cool) and just inhaled that mouse. It was amazing. The mouse's legs just sorta folded back as it got sucked into the mouth, until - it seemed so fast - only the tail was sticking out, and the snake swallowed that too.

And there were two distinct lumps in the snake. Perfect for Halloween. It was really cool ^^ and I'll see everyone again in another month :P

Posted by Kylara @ 12:02 AM PST