Harry Fucking Potter

[Noodle Lizard]

If you want to see Daniel Radcliffe at his absolute best, I implore you to watch My Boy Jack. His performance is absolutely breathtaking.

What?  No it isn't.  Unless by "breathtaking" you mean "not exactly the same as in the Harry Potter".  I saw him in 'Equus', plenty of room for blowing people away there, and he fucked it all up, despite people saying otherwise simply because "wow, it's Harry Potter doing something that isn't Harry Potter".

That all being said, and I've said this before, I don't dislike him - his heart's definitely in the right place and he hasn't gone the route of accepting any old nonsense like he might have done, but the boy cannot act his way out of a wet ham sandwich.

[Nuclear Optimism]

Unless by "breathtaking" you mean "not exactly the same as in the Harry Potter".

The same thing happens with Emma Watson in every fucking thing she's done since.

"Ooh Ms Watson's role in The Perks of Being A Wallflower is a BIG STEP away from her HARRY POTTER days because of (whatever the fuck she gets up to in it)..."

"Ooh the trailer for her new film shows Emma seductively licking her lips, an indication that she's ready to move away from her popular image as HERMIONE in the HARRY POTTER films..."

"Ooh if she takes the lead role in the saucy 50 Shades Of Grey like the internet wants her to, it would be a MASSIVE DEPARTURE from her days playing HERMIONE in HARRY POTTER..."

"Ooh Emma Watson seems ready to finally break away from her HARRY POTTER days by going topless baring her shoulders in this sizzling advert for some shite..."

"Ooh Emma Watson flashing her gash at a tabloid scuzzbag is a FAR CRY from her time playing goody-two-shoes HERMIONE in the HARRY POTTER series..."

"Ooh Emma Watson sacrificing a goat to Satan and carving a pentagram into her forehead with a cursed dagger shows just how keen she is to SHATTER her reputation as HERMIONE in the hugely popular HARRY POTTER films..."

"Ooh Emma Watson wearing blackface and shouting 'It's the wogs. It's all the fault of the fucking wogs!' could indicate that she doesn't want to be seen as HERMIONE GRANGER from the MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL HARRY POTTER FRANCHISE..."

[phantom_power]

People seem to get disproportionately bothered about Harry Potter because it is, or was, the big thing. Do people who are suspicious of adults reading the books feel equally dubious about people reading the Narnia books or other, more approved, family fiction?

I think the books are good stories that are written in a slightly clunky way. No more, no less. The films, after the first couple, are very competently directed and fairly reflective of their book counterparts.

[Cerys]

Regarding Narnia - CS Lewis wrote a letter to the real Lucy talking about the fact that while she'd inevitably outgrow the stories that he wrote for her, one day she'd be old enough to enjoy them again.  Clever man, that Lewis.

In other news, we still haven't watched The Philosopher's Stone.  I am oddly unbothered by this fact.

[checkoutgirl]

The same thing happens with Emma Watson in every fucking thing she's done since.

"Ooh Ms Watson's role in The Perks of Being A Wallflower is a BIG STEP away from her HARRY POTTER days because of (whatever the fuck she gets up to in it)..."

It's like people judge actors and musicians on how bad they aren't these days, as opposed to on how good a thing they did is. "This is great because you'd normally expect an actress who fluked a multi million dollar career in Hollywood by bagging a role on one of the biggest movie franchises ever to act in something that was exactly like everything else she did but this is slightly different and I am amazed as a result". I think pop idol and Haroldington Potter has ruined pop music and everything else in existence and condemned a generation to sounding like Pete Waterman in a business meeting "I think Frankie Fourfingers is good when he does pop but I think he would gain a significant foothold in the 21 - 28 demographic if he changed tack and pursued a more rock type sound". "Oooh yah". Normal people in the street are talking like this. It's not natural. I blame the parents.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

If you want to see Daniel Radcliffe at his absolute best, I implore you to watch My Boy Jack. His performance is absolutely breathtaking.

It's not really breathtaking in anything he's done, he's not an actor with an A1 calibre, but then few are.  The fact is, he's perfectly good and well suited to the roles he's done, and he was well suited to My Boy Jack.  That film is absolutely heartbreaking, and a big part of that is Radcliffe playing an innocent.  I think My Boy Jack illustrates how much actors are helped or hindered by the film content, editing and so on.  It's a very different film to Potter, so you perceive him as being very different, whereas actually he's not really an actor who can radically change personality like Gary Oldman can.

[checkoutgirl]

In other news, we still haven't watched The Philosopher's Stone.  I am oddly unbothered by this fact.

It's the worst of the bunch by far, very long winded and far fetched and very very boring. The second one is pants as well. Why are you even bothering with the Potter film ? What impulse/pressure are you giving in to ?

[Cerys]

'I'm the only one of my friends who hasn't seen it, so I can't play it properly'.  Six-year-olds can be manipulative.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

STOP BEING A TIT AND GET IT DAHN YER

[Cerys]

Look, we've asked her several times in the last week if she wants to watch it, but she always finds a reason not to.  Fickle little wossname.

[Noodle Lizard]

The fact is, he's perfectly good and well suited to the roles he's done

Yes, he was perfectly suited to the role of a lawyer and father bereft of a wife[nb]I won't go into how stupid an idea that plot device was[/nb] in 'The Woman In Black' at age 21 with the face and demeanour of an Alan Bennett schoolboy[nb]I'm not suggesting he'd have been good in 'The History Boys' either, mind you[/nb].

[Santa's Boyfriend]

[Thomas]

I drew this during some lesson or other three years ago. I felt it would improve the plot.

[Noodle Lizard]

I missed the part in the books where it mentions that house elves shit cutlery.

[Pube]

Unless he's a very late developer, I think we can safely put Radcliffe's name down on the list of confirmed manlets.

[Noodle Lizard]

That gif just reminded me that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is less convincing than the CGI Ted.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

You just know North Korean and Chinese choreographers are laughing their heads off at that gif.

[All Surrogate]

I drew this during some lesson or other three years ago. I felt it would improve the plot.

Reminds me of some Harry Potter fan art by Neil Cicierega.

[BritishHobo]

Ah, that reminds me (somehow - I don't fucking know): Cerys (and anyone else in the same situation), if you're getting roped in to watching this and you really can't be bothered slogging through two and a half hours of magical wizard fun, stick Brad Neely's 'Wizard People, Dear Reader' on some headphones - it's a deranged 'book on tape' style narration track that's very stupid but also very fun. It's on YouTube with the film, but you can download it here as an audio track.

[Cerys]

Ooh, thankyou!