Hallow how are you?

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
I was watching True Blood season 4 (episode 3, 4) last night and I realised that the short-haired, memory-loss Eric Northman (extreme left) is just not doing it for me. He reminds me too much of Meekus from Zoolander (in green) to take him seriously. While Eric Northman with short hair was still quite the (delicious) devil -- please see that look in that poster, sigh -- I am not liking this lost-boy act. Yet. Overall I do like Eric oh-so-much, read this if you didn't know that already!

However, I think I much prefer my bad boys with long hair. That said I am totally enjoying the way Alan Ball has changed Charlaine Harris's original story. Some of the plot and character changes are heaps better than they were in the book. Looking forward to the rest of the season.

On another front if July has been a quite month blog-wise, it's been pretty much go on every other count. I've found I cannot write at home. So I pack Mia and various baby-belongings and go and sit in this cafe called Pampered Mummies. It's brilliant! There's a play pen and separate play area for kids, there are other kids to play with and most importantly, the staff more than often look after Mia (and other babies) as I write. I've done more writing at Pampered Mummies in two weeks than I've done in the last year.

Along with the writing, this month has also been about Missy's first birthday and the last of the Harry Potter movies.
Both really momentous for me. In all my years in Delhi, in moments of despair and discovery, rebellion and recovery and other feelings/occassions I cannot think of rhyming words for, JK Rowling's books were with me. I have really, really enjoyed reading her books. They've been -- and remain -- a great story for me that's even better told. I hadn't even thought of a daughter when I first started reading the Potter books. Somewhere along the line -- and around the sixth book -- I had given up hope of ever having a child of my own. Now she's there, my precious munchkin, and I hope someday to read the books to her and then eventually see her reading them. On her first day as a one-year-old, Missy got three injections, cried for half a second when she got them and came back home and ate cat food when mum wasn't watching. She liked it.


Since Partner was out of town last evening and I wasn't feeling in top form -- read as coughing too much and didn't want to write -- Missy and I sat down to watch more Harry Potter. She sat very quietly on my lap, leaned into me and we watched Deathly Hallows 1. For 15 minutes. Then she was off attacking all her new books and the toys and the cat and the wires and... But it was a precious time. Somehow she seems to know that we are doing things together. I am absolutely in love with her and cannot imagine what I'd been doing with my life and time so far! (reading Harry Potter, wink) 

Back to Deahtly Hallows 2: I really liked the movie. Really. While I do have some grouches, the film was pretty good as a finale. The complaints I have about DH2 are more from a fan's point of view rather than any movie criticism. There were things I felt the makers could have done without and other stuff I felt they could have added.


While the books did lead up to Harry's final stand-off against Voldemort, somehow the final movie made it only about Harry vs Voldy. As in I felt that the books were also about a concentrated effort and the need for the wizarding world to come together to fight Voldemort. Harry was the final piece and the main struggle but he couldn't have done it without support. Both the Battle of Hogwarts (in book 6 and 7) could not have happened if others hadn't done their bit. When I read the final book it always gives me the feeling that the entire wizarding world was united against Voldemort -- even the truculent centaurs and the house elves join in -- a feeling that I found lacking in DH2. I felt the movie underplayed the contribution of a host of characters. Or may be it's just me because I wanted each and every one of my favourite characters to be farewelled!


Here are some of my good and not-so-good bits about Deathly Hallows 2:

1. LOVE opening sequence with Hogwarts surrounded by Dementors.
2. Love the negotiation scene between Harry and Griphook: Totally felt I couldn't trust the goblin and Harry seemed very mature, very tired and very determined.
3. A whole lot of people are raving about the Dragon-escape-Gringotts' scene, it was all right.
4. Felt more needed to be shown about the resistance at Hogwarts. There was hardly anything about the rest of the students standing up. Also, why didn't they show the Dumbledore's Army badges? What's this about "lightning has struck"? Didn't like that change from the book. 
5. Neville Longbottom's finally becoming a hero was done well. Being a nit-picky fan though I would have loved to see him take on the Carrows. Also the Nagini slaying scene, I thought it looked/read far more heroic when Neville pulls out Godric's sword from a burning Sorting Hat that's on his head instead of the way they did it in the movie.
6. I was let down by Bellatrix Lestrange's execution and felt the Molly Weasley-Lestrange scene could have been heaps better. One reviewer wrote how if you'd *just* seen DH1 you would remember Lestrange's torture of Hermione and her murdering Dobby. However, Bellatrix taunting Ginny about another Weasley kid dying was SO important for the whole not-my-daughter-bitch line. It was a bit flat in the movie. It could also perhaps do with the fact that I've never liked Julie Walters as Molly Weasley.
7. Loved, loved McGonagall, she's always been one of my favouritest professors and she's such a good actress.
8. Tonks and Lupin death could perhaps have been given two more minutes of screen time. Their son, much like Harry, is left orphaned, a little more of them couldn't have hurt.
9. Loved the Ron-Hermione kiss. Couldn't stand the Ginny-Harry kiss. WHY is Bonny Wright so bloody wooden?
10. LOVED the Snape death scene. There were times through all the movies when I felt Alan Rickman's really s.l.o.w speech got a bit too much. However in DH2 he totally, completely brought Snape's whole life to er, life. I cried when he says, "Take them" and his tears flow.
11. Hagrid gets like three seconds on screen? Nooooo.
12. The last scene. Hmm. I loved it in the book but not so sure about it in the movie simply because 40-year-olds do not look that frumpy and tired. They don't, right?