Just Because I Can

I'm posting this article from the internet cafe on a cruise ship halfway between Seattle Washington and Juneau Alaska. Nothing particular to write about, but hey, I'm a geek and this is a nifty thing to do, technologically. I had a bit of a problem at first because I typed the address to the site incorrectly, the browser couldn't find it (of course) and it just kept searching without timing out... but the timer calculating how much to charge me kept going. And because the machine was locked down (rather effectively, I have to say... both the hardware and the software), I wasn't able to shut the machine down. So I'm going to have to get them to give me a credit for the 17 minutes I spent waiting for the techie guy to come restart the system. Anyway, I've already spent a couple bucks getting here and having to compose this online. Fortunately my folks are paying for the cruise itself, but I've gotta pay for the airfare and all the other incidentals, so I'm gonna cut this short.

Latter Days - Hollywood meets West Hollywood

my rating:

Latter Days is about a meeting between two cultures. Not just the Southern California party boi culture and the Idaho Mormon missionary culture (as in the plot of the movie, in which a relationship develops between two cute young men from opposite sides of the tracts). But also the formulaic button-pushing mainstream sensibility Hollywood culture and the taboo-pushing porn-friendly West Hollywood culture.

It's professionally executed, but obviously on a small budget. Most of the scenes are in a handful of ready-made locations, and a few briefly-used sets look like the quick mock-ups you might find in a "scene" porn video: just good enough to allow you to suspend disbelief and tell yourself "this is taking place at an airport".

It features few "name" actors in supporting roles (Erik Palladino - Dr. Malucci of "ER" - plays a shut-in with AIDS, Joseph Gordon-Levitt - the kid on "Third Rock" - plays one of the Mormons, and Jacqueline Bisset - look her up - is one of the hotties' boss), but the main characters (Christian the slut and Davis the saint) are played by a nearly-unknown and a complete-unknown, respectively. Similarly, it's an "auteur" movie (i.e. both written and directed) by C. Jay Cox, who has had just a few screen credits in Hollywood.

The acting itself is good, but not great. I'm not sure if it's the main actors' inexperience in front of a camera, the director's inexperience behind it, or the script, but it has a kind of "stage" feel to it... overacting a bit so that the people in the cheap seats can "read" it, without worrying too much if it isn't naturalistic. (Part of why hardly anybody does Shakespeare straight when putting it on film.) It'd probably play better on TV (or video, which is how most people will end up seeing it, since it's not exactly getting lots of cinema time).

The movie is simultaneously Hollywood and West-Hollywood with its treatment of sex. A Hollywood movie rated R for sexual content might contain scenes about as graphic as this, with shots of bodies intertwined with no naughty bits poking out, or extreme close-ups that crop anything unmentionable out of the frame. But these scenes would be conventional het-sex, not boy-on-boy action. Here we have similarly-staged scenes of Christian giving a reluctant straight guy a blow-job, or a shot focusing on Christian while a trick is rimming him, or the inevitable sequence of two nekkid boys rolling around in the sheets... and that content is directly out of West Hollywood.

There are glimpses of cocks here and there, but mostly the shots are carefully choreographed so that a leg ends up in just the right place to hide the goods. The movie is unrated, but deserves an R; I bet the MPAA would give it an NC17. I admit it: I enjoyed the sex scenes... they gave me an idea of how straight audiences probably feel during those tedious extended boy-on-girl scenes in so many R-rated movies.

The story itself features more than a few clichés and elements of formula, ranging from the stock supporting character types to the highly unlikely coincidences upon which the plot turns. Which is to say nothing of the Bet That Character A Can Seduce Character B But Falls In Love In The Process.

So, yeah, it's pretty Hollywood. But it's unapologetically gay, it has fun with the sex, and both stars are adorable, making it quite West Hollywood as well. That's not my thumb, but it's pointing up. {wicked grin}

Eek! Boobies In My Mail!

Lately I've been getting a bunch of unwelcome mailings trying to sell me porn. Not that I have anything against ads for porn. I actually enjoy getting them, because once you get inside the second envelope there's usually some hot pix of cute dudes or buff stallions inside, all free of charge to look at. Some of it's not particularly to my tastes, but I'm open-minded and polymorphically perverse enough to enjoy casually paging through a brochure of (for example) furry guys in leather masks pissing on each other.

What bugs me is that I've started getting mailings for hetero porn. Most of which, when you blindly open the inside envelope, is all boobs boobs twats boobs boobs, with scarcely a dick or even a firm chest in sight. Using these images in their mailings makes sense for the market they're aiming for... but they've missed that mark here.

Obviously I've gotten onto the "wrong" mailing list. As near as I can figure, it happened when I bought a deep-discount DVD advertised in a gay-oriented mailing I received from a pornographer who mostly deals in het movies. A pat on the back to him for being open-minded and willing to take the money of us cocksuckers as well as from his fellow muffmunchers. I don't mind doing business with folks like him on those terms. But from now on, I'm going to stick to buying my smut from folks (presumably gay folks, but that's not really the point) who specialize in gay smut, so that when they sell or trade their mailing lists, my address won't fall into the wrong hands.

As If I Didn't Have a Car

I've had a change of lifestyle lately. Not the sort of "oh my gods what's happened to me" change; that was last year. This is more of "this is what I'm doing for myself" change. I'm living (for the most part) as if I didn't have a car.

This isn't a complete departure from how I used to live. I've been walking and biking here and there for a few years. But a convergence of factors has tipped the balance from usually driving to usually not.

One motivating factor is my health. I spent nearly a year enduring either an injured knee or recovering from surgery to (partly) fix it, which was a huge demotivator for getting enough exercise. Even in the past several months when I've supposedly been healed, I've been reluctant to work that knee too hard. So I just sit. I'm heavier than I've ever been (well into the 200+ range), and I've had to start buying new fatter clothes to replace the pants I can't button, and the shirts that now hug instead of draping. This isn't just a vanity thing (though that's certainly part of it). It's about money and it's about quality of life. I need to get more exercise, and since the knee doesn't hold up well to jogging anymore, biking and walking places instead of driving is my best bet.

Probably the biggest factor contributing to the decline of my driving is a change of employment. Several months ago I took a job downtown, a couple miles away, and as the weather got warmer I started biking to work. The fact that my work shift ended at 9pm made he ride home in the dark less than pleasant, though. My new job is just a block down the street from the previous one, but it's all daytime hours, so it'll be a daylight ride even into November.

But another factor that encourages me to ride my bike is time: it's faster for me to ride my bike to work than to drive. That's because I can't park the car next to the building where I work. Which brings up the point that it's also less expensive to ride the bike, because I don't have to pay to park it anywhere. (My previous job downtown included free parking; this one doesn't.)

I'm not going to be able to ride the bike year-round, though. Sure, there are a few hearty souls who manage it, mostly (my boyfriend Andy tried it one winter). But we get at least one day every winter (and sometimes several) in which automobiles have trouble getting through the streets. Which is to say nothing of the windchill that a 10-15mph "breeze" adds to sub-zero air.

That's where the bus comes in. One of the 20 routes run by the Interurban Transit Partnership here (the same route I used to take home from my school downtown, as a teenager) stops a couple doors down from where I now live, and stops again a block from where I work. The speed of the bus compensates for the frequent stopping, so it takes about as long for the trip as it takes me to ride my bike. It costs a bit more than it did when I was in high school ($1.30, or 10 rides for $10, or a one-month pass for $35), and that's dramatically more than it costs to drive. But it's still cheaper than paying to park.

I do still use the car, pretty often. After all, I live in a medium-sized Midwestern American city, which has spent the last century (especially the last half) evolving in ways that assume everyone has a car. Even grocery shopping for just myself, it'd be a bit tricky getting the goods home without a car (or a tow-your-tot trailer for the bike, and I have neither tot nor trailer). And there are occasional errands where I have to go all the way out to the suburbs (where the bus routes get pretty spread out) or out of town (where the intercity busses go once a day, for a small fortune, if you're very lucky). Sometimes there's simply not enough time to get where I need to go, except by car. And if I'm going somewhere with a friend, it only makes sense - and is more sociable - if we share a car ride.

But I'm consiously trying to cut down on using the car. So I find myself doing more planning of my car trips. For example, if I know I'm going to a movie on the Northeast side on Friday, I'll plan on a stopping at the grocery store a few miles north of here on the way home. Or if I simply have to go to Batteries R Us out in the Southwest 'burbs, I'll try to figure out if there's anything else I'm going to need or want from out there, and get it now.

One thing that makes this a lot easier is the location of my home. I'd like to say that I planned it this way, but... wait a minute. I did plan it this way. A big factor in why I chose to live in this neighborhood is the fact that it's near the middle of town. There are also party stores, a few pizza places, a couple parks, a few bars and restaurants, and (there used to be) a hardware store, all within easy walking distance. A grocery store is a short bike ride/long walk home. And the bus route. Etc.

Getting by without having a car (or as if) may sound limiting, and if I didn't have the trusty Chevy Metro sitting in the carport waiting for me whenever I want/need it, it might be. But living as if actually feels liberating. I know that if the Metro turns out not to be so trusty and I need to actually get by without it for a while, I can do it. Because on a day-to-day basis, I already do.

Supreme Cowardice

Gee, who didn't see that coming? The leftish wing of the Supreme Court found a way to preserve the Pledge of Religious Allegiance... without having to put their names on an opinon based on the kind of theocratic legal diarrhea that would be required to actually justify it. They - along with the conservative core of the Court's members - found a technicality (deciding that Michael Newdow doesn't have sufficient legal standing to file suit on behalf of his daughter) which allowed them to duck the question... and put everything back the way the Christian majority wanted it.

Whether or not Newdow has full custody of his daughter is completely irrelevant to the legal questions on which this case would turn. The legal arguments for and against would be the same, and the fundamental issue would be the same, regardless of their custody status. If the Supremes had any integrity... any genuine desire to ensure that the Constitution is upheld... they would have addressed that issue now, given the chance. They did not.

Maybe it's because they sensed that the American public wouldn't stand for it. That they're not ready. Probably not. But neither were they really ready for desegregation, or reproductive freedom, or the privacy of consensual sex. The Supreme Court has led society in the past. Perhaps someday it will again.

In the meantime, they've sent a clear message: Don't send us another case like this. Throwing this one out on a technicality isn't an invitation to try again with a better plaintiff. It's a demonstration of the court's unwillingness to address the issue. They'll find another technicality to duck it again if they have to. Or maybe they'll use Scalia's family connections to make some cement overshoes for the next would-be plaintiff.

Just in case anyone's game to try it anyway, three of the justices issued a concurring opinion saying that they would have decided the case against Newdow. And we all know that Scalia, who recused himself, would have been willing to make the religious pledge mandatory if given half a chance. So that's four justices who've already announced how they'll decide any future test cases. (Which is a violation of judicial ethics, of course, but it's not like we didn't know where they stood already.) So this question has been tabled, at least for another generation.

Another generation that will grow up reciting that judeochristian confession of faith known as the Pledge of Allegiance.

And another generation of Americans - those who remember the pledge when it was still free of this religious indoctination - dying off.

Which is a good strategy for establishing a state religion, I'd say.

Saved! - The Fashion of the Christ

my rating:

When I first heard about Saved!, an irreverent satire of youth-oriented Christianity, I figured it'd get little or no screen time here in Christianityland. To my surprise, it opened at three local multiplexes (1 screen each). While it was less biting than I'd hoped (which may explain the local cinema owners' comfort level in showing it), I still enoyed it thoroughly.

The setting and format is something of a cinematic cliché: several suburban high school students, some of them in their senior year, and a few who don't fit in for one reason or another. The key difference is that the school is a Christian school, one which exemplifies much of the shallowness and hypocrisy of such institutions and of the Christian youth scene.

The main protagonist is Mary, a fairly popular, devoted girl whose faith in Jesus is shaken when her boyfriend tells her that he might be gay. She tries to "save" him by sacrificing her virginity; the school and his parents send him away to be cured. The two other key misfits are the one Jewish girl at the school, and the wheelchair-using little brother (played with subdued maturity by Macaulay Culkin, who seems like he's going to continue working on projects of his choice as an adult) of the leader of the self-righteous bitches at the school (played by Mandy Moore, also proving herself more than just a teen pop singer).

Like at any high school, the kids who are different are ostracised: the most obvious indictment of this un-Christ-like WWJD-parroting crowd. The kids are just as erotically stoked. It pokes fun of Christian rock, youth ministers who talk in hipspeak, asexual sex ed classes, and the naked expression of hate as "love" (e.g. shouting vindictive remarks to force someone to repent, the open promotion of violence in opposition to abortion). I was never a full-fledged Jesus freak, but I grew up going to youth groups and Christian summer camp, so a lot of the parody was quite familiar. It gets some zingers in there.

But ultimately, the movie isn't anti-Christianity, or even anti-Christian. For example, Patrick Fugit's character is a teen overseas missionary who wears youth-styled "Jesus" t-shirts and (despite the thin disobedient streak of a preacher's son) never turns his back on or gives the finger to his faith, but he also doesn't get into the hurtful and hateful and hypocritical aspects of the school. And in the end, amid the chaos on prom night, when all the plot threads come to a tangled conclusion, there's a redemption - of sorts - for most of the characters... almost as if God (or the writer) did have a mysterious plan for everyone. Not exactly the movie I would have written (or the book I'm writing), but it's still wickedly irreverent without being overly nasty.

Riddick: Plagiarising the Puerile

my rating: Nathan's rating:

Somewhere there's a 14-year-old boy missing his spiral-bound notebook.

He's a somewhat imaginative lad, and maybe someday he'll come up with a story that's quite clever and original. But so far his notebook - which fell into the hands of the producers of The Chronicles of Riddick - is full of derivative cliches that an adolescent might think are the makings of an epic... but lack any of the depth or characterisation needed to appeal to a thinking adult.

The script is loaded with "ideas" as shallow as their names: the "necromongers" who worship this "underverse", lead by "Lord Marshal", and the only one who can stand up to them is the last surviving "Furyan", who (for some reason) goes to the prison planet "Crematoria". Not that there's anything wrong with cool-sounding names ("Darth Vader", "Shadowfax", "Excalibur", and "Argonauts" are all evocative names), but they're not enough in themselves. Riddick himself is a non-character, and the deadpan quips that substitute for his dialog seem to invite a letter from Gov. Schwartzenegger's patent attorney.

And speaking of attorneys: Judi Dench needs to sue her agent, for whatever malpractise got her signed to do this film.

Nathan defended the movie, citing the special effects, and yes, it's clear that they spent all the money they'd budgeted for that, and got their money's worth. But again, that's just standard surface gloss... or in this case, a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The images flickering on the screen in front of me were enough to keep me awake in the darkened cinema. But that's rather damning praise, I think.

Remembering Ronald Reagan

The U.S. flags are all at half-mast this week. {shrug} Fair enough; he was president of the nation, after all.

Me? I'm not in mourning. When I heard that Reagan was finally dead, I did a little jig. It's tempting to say that I never liked or respected the man, but that's not entirely true. I used to think he was OK. In fact, that - ironically - is the thing I have to thank Reagan for: he taught me to dislike Republicans.

I grew up in a very Republican household in a very Republican community. Like most kids I was raised to respect the president, and since the president at the time was a Republican, I figured they were the right guys. Nixon's disgraced resignation could have blown a hole in that, but hometown boy Jerry Ford took his place, and reassured me that the GOP weren't a bunch of amoral crooks.

Of course when a Carter beat Ford, denying our man the electoral legitimacy he deserved, I held it against him and his party. Every mistake Carter made was just more evidence that the Democrats were wrong. I did feel - even at the time - that Carter got a raw deal with the resolution of the Iranian hostage crisis (with the Ayatollah releasing them only after Reagan took office), but I was still happy that Ronnie won.

But by then I was old enough to understand more of what the president really said and did. I hung out with kids at school who came from Democratic homes and some of whom were actual radicals (at least according to their t-shirts and favorite rock bands), which also helped. And gradually I began to see that Reagan was just a charming, charismatic airhead. His take on Communism was simple-minded. In an embarassing moment in a school debate, someone finally explained to me why his "star wars" missile defense program was not only scientifically ridiculous, but politically dangerous. I realised that his approach to economics was as cold-hearted as it was illogical.

And then there was his response to the AIDS epidemic: ignore it. By this time I knew that I was gay, and I'd been just sexually active enough to be fucking scared as hell that I had AIDS. Or was going to get it if I ever did anything sexual ever again. (Remember that it was years before anyone had even identified HIV, let alone determined how it was/wasn't transmitted.) And President Ronald Reagan didn't give a damn. He let right-wing Christians set his public health agenda... and it included letting me die.

In the 1984 election, I actually sat on the fence. I still couldn't bring myself to vote for Mondale, but I couldn't vote for Reagan. So I drove 30 miles to my polling place (I was in college, but still registered at my parents' address)... and voted for every office except president. But by 1988, I'd had enough. George H.W. Bush was better than Reagan (I thought at the time), but Dukakis got my vote. So did several other Democrats on the ballot.

Bush the Elder turned out to be just as bad with his continuation of Reagan's anti-gay policies. He taught me to dislike the American flag through his red-white-and-blue-draped adventure in Iraq. And by 1992 I was protesting outside the Republican White House. But it was Reagan who first put me on the fence, and then pushed me to the other side. I'm not entirely comfortable with the Democrats, or with any other political party, but at least I'm no longer one of the unthinking and soulless dolts who give their allegiance to the party of indifference, hate, conflict, self-righteousness, arrogance, and aggression. For that I have Ron to be eternally grateful.

Reagan was a tireless teller of jokes, so in memory of his passing:

John David Hinckley dies, and finds himself being ushered to his new home by the archangel Gabriel. He starts to panic as he sees the fire-scorched landscape, and the names on the mailboxes of his new neighbors: John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, and James Earl Ray.

"Exactly," says Gabriel.

Kate Worley, Mistress of Kitty Porn

Over the weekend, a great American passed away, one who raised the spirits of so many, a great communicator with a daring message of hopefulness for us all. I'm speaking not of Ronald Reagan, but of Kate Worley.

Worley was half of the creative team behind Omaha the Cat Dancer, probably the most notorious comicbook series of the 1980's and early 1990's. It was about an exotic dancer named Omaha and her circle of friends (and not-so-friends). Worley wrote the stories, which were illustrated by her then-husband Reed Waller. The stories were frequently sexually explicit, and unapologetically erotic, but they were more than just porn. Thanks to Worley, they were actual stories, about characters that - despite having the heads, fur, and tails of cats, dogs, and assorted other animals - were more human than Bruce Wayne, Jean Grey, Archie Andrews, or most of the other characters that we think of when someone mentions "comics". They were not only "adult", they were adult.

There's actually a whole subgenre of funny-animal-porn comics, but Worley and Waller were the lions of it. By their example, they raised the bar not only for the quality of comics writing, but for the freedom of expression of the medium, and by extension our sexual freedom in society at large. Worley and Waller both came out as bisexual in the late 1980's, making them among the first publically openly queer creators in comics. (Other gay-identified creators before them had usually used pen-names.) Although both creators seem to be closer to the low end of hte Kinsey scale, Omaha included characters of assorted orientations, and the couple proudly contributed a 5-page story and the cover for the "funny animals" issue of Gay Comics. And above all, they celebrated sex as the potentially joyful, perfectly natural, part of everyday life it is.

Omaha came to a rather abrupt end when Worley and Waller broke up, an acrimonious split that seemed completely irreconcilable. She later remarried, to cartoonist Jim Vance (best known for the excellent graphic novel Kings In Disguise) and had two children. Part of the sad irony of Worley's death at this particular time is the fact that the wounds between her and Waller had finally healed enough that they had recently begun work on new Omaha material, to finish a planned reprint of the series. Unfortunately, her cancer returned at the same time, and she only got a little bit written before she was overtaken by it. Waller has said that he and Vance intend to finish the project in her memory, based on her notes and what they both know of her plans for the story.

I hope they do, and that they can bring some closure to the story of Omaha and her friends. It would also be a fine example of how mature adults can cope with the obviously awkward relationship between these two survivors. But even if the cruel hand of Fate intervenes again, or if Vance and Waller just can't make it work, I'm grateful for what Kate Worley accomplished before the break-up. Not just the 24 issues of comics, but for what it did for the industry and society. That mind- and door-opening work will always remain unfinished, but in such matters the beginning is so much more important than the finishing.

Festival

Festival is to Grand Rapids, as Carnival is to Rio de Janeiro.

If you say "Festival" to anyone in town, they'll know you're talking about "Festival of the Arts", the big block party that takes place downtown the first weekend in June. It's been going on since I was a kid, and I've at least dropped in on it just about every year.

My favorite part of it in the early years were the Glue-In and the Paint-In. (Can you tell that this was started in 1970?) These are roped-in areas where, with minimal supervision, kids can play with paint or glue bits of wood together. Later I got more interested in the stages, where (among the high school dance clubs, amateur chorale singers, and instrumental enembles) some local rock bands get a chance to perform. Lately I've been more interested (like most people, it seems) in the food. They have a couple dozen tents where non-profit groups sell all sorts of different food for people to munch on while they wander over the several blocks that Festival now covers.

When I draw the analogy to Carnival, I'm not saying that Festival is just a smaller version of that. It's actually quite different from Carnival, in all the same ways that Rio is different from G.R. It's fairly low-key... one might even say conservative. Sure, there are oodles of people, but it's a relaxing atmosphere. And except for the food booths and the art sales, it's all free, and most of the work (including the food booths) is done by thousands of volunteers.

I like it because it really does bring together so many different kinds of people. You get your upper-class patrons of the arts, who ditch their ties and pearls and walk around like regular people for the weekend. It's a perfectly safe place for middle-class suburbanites to bring the kids, and the kids will probably enjoy it. There's no cost to show up and watch, listen, and even participate in the activities, so it's open to the poor (though they probably oughta bring their own food, since it's a bit pricey). The alienated teenage punks show up, though I haven't figured out where they've been congregating since their traditional hang-out area got paved over. It's even a good weekend for the poor and homeless, who can make a decent haul pulling 10-cent-deposit soft drink cans out of the trash cans.

The food booths serve as fund-raising projects for the groups that operate them, but they've also become kind of a celebration of multiculturality. The Islamic Center sells Pakistani chicken pitas. The Greek Orthodox Church sells souvlaki and baklava. The Sons of Italy sell Italian sausages. There are a few generic "American food" booths, so if you really can't cope with anything more exotic than a hot dog or a beef sandwich, you'll still be OK. But most of the booths have a clear ethnic identity, and it's usually not just a bunch of WASPs pretending to have a culture. It's stuff that Mom doesn't know how to make.

Probably about half of the booth operators are religious groups of some kind, and it's refreshing to see that it's not just a bunch of Dutch Reformed churches. In addition the Muslims (two booths this year) and the Greek Orthodox, there are Buddhists (selling vegetarian dishes, one of my favorites), African-American Baptists (selling BBQ soul food), a few WASP churches, a few Catholic groups, and the Free Spirit Worship Center (whose "walking garden" veggie pockets were a nice find this year). They don't appear to be doing it anymore, but there used to be a conservative Jewish congregation and a Calvinist Reformed church who shared a booth: the Calvinists operated it on Friday and Saturday (covering the Sabbath), and the Jews ran it all day on Sunday. It gives some encouragement to the idea that we can all just get along.

The organizers of the event try to include the whole spectrum of "the arts", such as poetry, cinema, theatre, storytelling, traditional visual arts, crafts, and so on, but those - by their nature - tend to be tucked away in buildings where they don't get as much attention as the food and the open-air stages. Which is OK, I guess. Sure it'd be nice if there was more emphasis on the "of the Arts", but "Festival" is what it is, and that's something good in itself.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

my rating: Nathan's rating:

I considered giving this four stars, because there's really nothing wrong with it, but it's not quite outstanding enough to get my maximum rating. It's what one has come to expect from a Harry Potter movie, which is praise... but a little lukewarm. It's well worth seeing, just don't expect it to dazzle quite as much as the first one did. Once you've seen animated paintings, boys on broomsticks, and a roomful of floating candles, seeing it again isn't as exciting. Which is more of a comment on the challenge the producers of the series face, than a criticism of them.

One thing I couldn't help noticing is how much the actors - especially Daniel Radcliffe - have aged since the first movie. According to a line of dialog in the movie, Harry and his classmates are 13 years old now, but Radcliffe is about to turn 15, and he looks it. Rupert Grint (Ron) is closing in on 16, Emma Watson (Hermione) is 14, and Tom Felton (Draco) turns 17 this Fall. It took me a couple seconds before I even recognised Draco. At the current rate of filming (and assuming the books themselves are finished soon enough... no small assumption) the actors playing the principal student parts will all be able to go out on a legal drinking binge at the American premiere of Harry Potter and the Five O'Clock Shadow (the seventh and final installment of the series).

In the context of the actors' adolescence, the opening scene of the movie is ripe for parody. Harry is hiding under the bedsheets at home with his muggle relatives, reciting the spell "luxus maximus" (or similarly fractured Latin), producing increasing bursts of light. His uncle keeps barging in on him, and Harry has to hurriedly conceal what he's doing. Change the incantation to "penis maximus" and... you get the picure. {grin}

But enough of my admittedly perverse Daniel Radcliffe Age Of Consent Watch report. I remarked to Nathan before the movie that it was opening without any competition this weekend, in part because it's the sort of movie you can't easily do the "counter-programming" thing with (e.g. opening a "chick flick" the same weekend as a blockbuster "dick flick", hoping to attract those not interested in a fights-and-explosions movie). It has some horror, some comedy, some special effects, some action, some mystery, and even some hints of romance.

Some of it went over the head of the fairly talkative kid directly behind me, requiring her to ask Dad for explanations, but she was well below the age of the actors, and seemed to be enjoying the film immensely regardless of her confusion. The movie does require the viewer to pay attention to seemingly insignificant bits of business (which becomes significant later), and does a bit of the same futzing with our expectations of how the mystery will turn out (like the first movie, especially). The "things are not as they appear to be" twist is in danger of becoming a cliché for the series, but it beats the hell out of the "obviously predictable plot" approach.