This was the essay I'd sent for the essay competition organized by Alliance Francaise de Bombay last month, entitled "Des Mets et Des Mots". After having no internet access for almost a week, I finally checked my mail and was informed that I'd been one of the top three finalists for the entire competition. I didn't win yet it's most definitely a triumph considering the fact that I wrote and re-wrote it on the eve of my FC exam on 6th October. Yeah, I'll most probably flunk FC but all that hard work, back pain and blurred vision seems to have paid off.
Carpe diem! :)
LA REVOLUTION CULINAIRE
L'art de la cuisine est comme la création d'une peinture. Delicat et avec plein de couleurs. J'aime faire de cuire. Mais aussi j'aime beaucoup manger. Je crois un bon repas est une cacophonie des goûts qui danse avec harmonie. Un bon repas est une conversation contre le chef et le client. Je trouve le processus de cuisine très intéressant et très thérapeutique. J'ai l'habitude de regarder comment les chefs de cuisine comme Raymond Blanc démarche l'élaboration de la nourriture. Il est essentiel de faire cuire avec émotion, mais des compétences sont également nécessaire.
Le monde change a un rythme rapide et également la façon dont nous faisons cuire nos aliments. Soudain, tout le monde a commence d'examiner tous les aspects de la cuisine: les goûts, les textures la science et comment la qualité de vie a change par la qualité de nourriture. Stefan Gates, un écrivain, a visite les régions comme Afghanistan, Korea, Chernobyl, etc, et il a écrit de ses expériences avec les cuisines et la qualité de vie.
Bocuse d’Or, les jeux Olympiques culinaires est un concours de cuisine qui récompense le meilleur cuisinier.
Aujourd'hui il y a la gastronomie moléculaire. Essentiellement, elle est une moyen moderne et très créative de faire cuire. Les pionniers comme Nicholas Kurti, Pierre Gagnaire, Hervé This, Ferran Adria, Michel Roth, ils étudiaient la science de la processus de cuisson. Ils se sont détachent de les frontières de la cuisine.C'est un mélange de chimie, de physique et d'un amour pour la nourriture. Par example, Heston Blumenthal a prépare une glace avec liquid nitrogen. Ces moyens sont très difficile mais intéressant et diverse.
Mon aspect favori du bon repas est le dessert. Quand je visite un restaurant, je remarque toujours le dessert dans le menu. Le dessert est comme la fin de un opéra magnifique. J’adore chocolat. Je n’ oublirai pas l’ expérience de dessert a Shiro. C’etait incroyable! Trois types de gâteaux! J’aime faire du gâteau a l’orange avec chocolat et cupcakes au citron de temps en temps. Pas mal, non?
Je suis heureuse de voir qu' il y a plusieurs innovations dans l'art de la cuisson. Mais, la cuisine classique est aussi très importante. Elle est sans complication. La simplicité est belle.
Pour l'instant, la révolution continue.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Film Review: Midnight in Paris
You’ve got to give him credit. Woody Allen, the bespectacled septuagenarian conteur, has served up his latest, ‘Midnight in Paris’, an obeisance to art, literature, music and Paris. Allen gently plunders the human tendency of dissatisfaction with the present and yearning for the past, using la ville lumiere as a backdrop.
Hollywood hack screenwriter Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is in Paris with his insipid, annoying fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams), unhappy with the way his successful career has impeded him from penning a real serious novel and disappointed by the way that life is moving in contemporary times. On a midnight walk in one of the charming serpentine Parisian lanes, he finds himself in the ‘Golden Age’, an era suffused with incandescent golden light, where he rubs shoulders with F.Scott Fitzgerald and his mercurial wife Zelda, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, Picasso and others. He’s living his dream (and mine too). His love for the art, literature and music is frequently a source of mockery by Inez and her incessantly critical friend, Paul who scorns,” Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present.”
His ecstasy at inhabiting an ebullient world in the past is juxtaposed with his increasing unhappiness with the present, as he falls in love with Adriana (Marion Cotillard), Picasso’s mistress whose got Modigliani and Braque on her resume too and who, we find, feels just as unhappy in her own time period.
The film’s frames are teeming with artistic legends, someone of them played by present day stalwarts as well, a sort of a who’s- who list of famous people. Adrien Brody inhabits the skin of a rhinoceros obsessed Salvador Dali with ease, Kathy Bates ‘s rendition of Gertrude Stein is perfect, Allison Pill as the spunky Zelda is delightful and Ernest Hemingway played by Corey Stoll is sombre and reflective.
Owen Wilson is like a blonder and younger Wood Allen, replete with Allen-esque inflections, mannerisms. It works. He’s immensely likeable and charming and his zealousness is infectious. Martin Sheen as the “pedantic” Mr-Know –It-All Paul is very enjoyable to watch. Marion Cotillard is alluring and enchanting.
Cinematographer Darius Khondji has masterfully differentiated between the two worlds, by giving the past a soft, rich gilded texture, and the present a clear, pristine quality. Production designer Anne Seibel and costume designer Sonia Grande have succeeded in bringing the past to life.
Unlike some of his previous work, which employs the use of a protagonist with an ‘I hate life’ sign on his forehead (usually with Allen himself playing this character), this film is surprisingly cheerful.
Allen’s writing aims at light chuckles rather than anything more substantial and cerebral that he is known for.
We always feel a sense of discontent every now and then at living in the present, often going “Oh, how I wish” while craving to go back to relive the time passages already past. Gil echoes this sentiment with “That's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying”.
A tender, period(s) piece and clearly one of Woody Allen’s better films, Midnight in Paris has all the weight of a feather and the enchantment of a wistful daydream.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
This Charming Band
Because a 23 song album takes long to download, I resorted to listening to the dulcet tunes of The Smiths, on YouTube. I don’t know anyone who listens to them nowadays which is rather unfortunate because they were colossal in England during the 80’s and still hold a sublime spot in musical history. This charming band from Manchester, England has unleashed 5 albums and 14 hit singles, has been recognized as ‘the most important band in the last 50 years’ by NME and has inspired a barrage of artists. Yet, it’s not just the hype surrounding them that makes them fascinating. They’re the melodious rebels, the ones who blatantly refuse to conform, calling themselves ‘The Smiths’ for the simple reason that their contemporaries chose convoluted ones like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. They were known to traipse onto stage to the classical tune of ‘Montagues and Capulets’ and were famed for having ingeniously welded heart-felt, reflective, humorous, often depressing lyrics that elucidate the carnage of life, together with sprightly, upbeat tunes and buoyant instrumentations. I like the fact that the cover art for their singles and albums never featured pictures of them, yet displayed portraits of others including Elvis.
Lead singer Morrissey’s voice and powerful lyrics, the jangly accent of Johnny Marr’s guitar, Mike Joyce’s drumming and Andy Rourke’s bass, simply, conspire to inspire.
Their first single ‘Hand in Glove’ illuminates the working class of the North with lines like ‘Though we may be hidden by rags/We’ll have something they’ll never have’ against a backdrop of sturdy and evocative music.
‘Panic on the streets of London/Panic on the streets of Birmingham’, sings Morrissey cheerfully on ‘Panic’, a little ditty with the intent to revolutionize. The line ‘Burn down the disco/Hang the blessed DJ/ because the music that they constantly play/It says nothing to me about my life’ melodically chides the commercial hit-makers of that time.
‘This Charming Man’ makes it a point to employ lines like ‘Punctured bicycle/ On a hillside desolate/ Will nature make a man of me yet?’ or ’I would go out tonight/But I haven’t got a stitch to wear’, language that has been rendered obsolete by up and coming songwriters. Their 1983 performance of the song on ‘Top of the Pops’ features Morrissey dangerously wielding a bouquet of gladioli flowers like an AK-47. Cool, eh?
‘Good times for a change/See the luck I’ve had can make a good man turn bad’ opens the number ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’. One minute and fifty-two seconds is awfully short for this charming melody. The loveliness of the song lies with the lyrics and with Morrissey’s voice which gives the song a slightly aged and weighty quality, as though a weather beaten old man was musing on his experiences of life. Yet it’s the youth that relates more to this song, as each ‘please’ conveys that sense of urgency, yearning and strength.
‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ elicits some chuckles with its dark and ironical humour and ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ talks about how ‘heavenly’ and pleasurable it would be to die by a double decker bus.
The Smiths were, and still are, essentially the people’s band, making a point to highlighting issues like heartbreak, loneliness, self-pity, the pain of adolescence and Thatcherism. Being someone who sees adolescence as a painful way to judge whether or not you belong to the human race, their music is helpful in translating certain thoughts that would’ve crossed your mind at some point in life.
Lead singer Morrissey’s voice and powerful lyrics, the jangly accent of Johnny Marr’s guitar, Mike Joyce’s drumming and Andy Rourke’s bass, simply, conspire to inspire.
Their first single ‘Hand in Glove’ illuminates the working class of the North with lines like ‘Though we may be hidden by rags/We’ll have something they’ll never have’ against a backdrop of sturdy and evocative music.
‘Panic on the streets of London/Panic on the streets of Birmingham’, sings Morrissey cheerfully on ‘Panic’, a little ditty with the intent to revolutionize. The line ‘Burn down the disco/Hang the blessed DJ/ because the music that they constantly play/It says nothing to me about my life’ melodically chides the commercial hit-makers of that time.
‘This Charming Man’ makes it a point to employ lines like ‘Punctured bicycle/ On a hillside desolate/ Will nature make a man of me yet?’ or ’I would go out tonight/But I haven’t got a stitch to wear’, language that has been rendered obsolete by up and coming songwriters. Their 1983 performance of the song on ‘Top of the Pops’ features Morrissey dangerously wielding a bouquet of gladioli flowers like an AK-47. Cool, eh?
‘Good times for a change/See the luck I’ve had can make a good man turn bad’ opens the number ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’. One minute and fifty-two seconds is awfully short for this charming melody. The loveliness of the song lies with the lyrics and with Morrissey’s voice which gives the song a slightly aged and weighty quality, as though a weather beaten old man was musing on his experiences of life. Yet it’s the youth that relates more to this song, as each ‘please’ conveys that sense of urgency, yearning and strength.
‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ elicits some chuckles with its dark and ironical humour and ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ talks about how ‘heavenly’ and pleasurable it would be to die by a double decker bus.
The Smiths were, and still are, essentially the people’s band, making a point to highlighting issues like heartbreak, loneliness, self-pity, the pain of adolescence and Thatcherism. Being someone who sees adolescence as a painful way to judge whether or not you belong to the human race, their music is helpful in translating certain thoughts that would’ve crossed your mind at some point in life.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Film Review: Hiroshima, Mon Amour
‘Hiroshima, Mon Amour’ is essentially a film of parallels: the desire to forget against the urge to remember, the pain of war against the ache of love, the personal war against the war waging outside, the dissimilarity and similarity of the past and the present, the joint pleasure and pain of love, the effects of the same war in two different parts of the world. This film formed an integral part of the French New Wave, moving away from the classical style of filmmaking.
Elle (Emmanuelle Riva), a French actress in Hiroshima for a film on peace, and Lui (Eiji Okada), a Japanese architect begin an explosive love affair that gets progressively contemplative as they examine the ripples created by the Hiroshima bombing and the resulting death and loss. Despite both of them being married, they embark on this affair where they start falling in love with each other.
Elle gradually reveals her painful past, when her first love was claimed by the World War, in France. As she feels the joy and pleasure of a new relationship, she continues to be haunted by her grisly experience and social ostracism in Nevers, France and is torn between the act of remembering and the inevitability of oblivion.
French director Alain Resnais and screenwriter Marguerite Duras have engineered a deliberative tale told through a tapestry of images, traipsing between the past and the present to convey the sense of loss and the shifting time passages in a beautiful and innovative way. A series of documentary and news reel footage establishes the roles of memory and oblivion. The film moves at a slow pace and could have been a little shorter, yet with the sheer artistic rendering and the sleek story-telling, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Cinematography by Sacha Vierney is immaculate in black and white with smooth camera movements, leading us back and forth into time. Editing is splendid as it harnesses the avant-garde style. The musical score by Georges Delerue and Giovanni Fusco is evocative.
The performances of both Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada are admirable, laced with subtlety, depth and just the right amount of emotion.
It’s interesting to note that their names are simply ‘Elle’ and ‘Lui’ which is French for ‘She’ and ‘Him’, since it exhibits something that is extremely personal and yet something that can happen to anyone at anytime.
“Why deny the obvious necessity of remembering?”, asks Elle. A statement like that is succinct in making its point, yet never provides any answers. The importance attached to reminiscences is a powerful but not overpowering presence in the film. We want to hold onto memories, no matter how tragic and painful, but alas, as life would have it, forgetting is inevitable. Tragedy is something that we all strive to forget yet it is imperative to remember too.
This film, despite being made in 1959, is very much relevant today, reminding us about the ghastly whirlpool that is war. We’re hard pressed to find a film like this nowadays, an artistic platter that can be both delectable and contemplative.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Sequelism
Originality seems to have been declared an endangered species. Alas, about 70 percent of the movies released this year have a positive integer as its suffix. Summer seems to be the ideal time to unleash these harmless hi jinks to a key demographic of hungry, ennui ridden kids and adults alike. But what I fear most about the unhealthy practice of Sequelism is that it’s rendering true cinema obsolete. With movies that are decked up with pretty people and scant storylines, who’s gonna complain? That’s what audiences what, isn’t it?
For instance, the experience of sitting through The Hangover 2 was akin to having a bad bhel puri at Juhu Beach. It’s merely a hangover of the very first Hangover, again a film too banal to even worth talking about. Films like these manoeuvre their way to the audience under the guise of looking like a funky play on concepts like smartness and fun. However, it’s just another hackneyed yarn coughed up to sell, sell and sell. Frankly I’m weary of looking at the newspaper and seeing a dissonant symphony of films running in theatres.
It’s astonishing just how prosaic a film can get, only to observe that it makes an equally dire film look rather appetizing. This year, The Hangover 2 made Transformers look like Citizen Kane.
In another case, James Bond seems to be diagnosed with a Benjamin Button complex: with each successive movie, Bond becomes younger (and blonder). With franchises like X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, the names alone manage to entice congregations to theatre halls.
Once upon a time Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and Narnia were strictly literal but now have superb on-screen potential. Don’t even get me started on that insipid Twilight series. Films like these roam the district of ‘been-there-done-that’, bringing nothing new to the table, yet being marketed to give the impression otherwise.
Whatever happened to quality cinema built with a robust framework, complex characters, palatable storylines, breath-taking cinematography and inventive surge of storytelling? And what’s with the obsession for 3-D? Just because ‘Avatar’ did extremely well doesn’t make it appropriate or even sane to cash in on the epidemic. A remake of The Great Gatsby in 3-D is scheduled for release next year. I mean, The Great Gatsby and 3-D in the same sentence doesn’t sound particularly savoury. However people might be curious enough to actually check what all the noise is about. See, that’s what I’m talking about. Curiosity itself proves a noxious weapon.
‘Inception’, however, is a frighteningly brilliant display of creativity, which shows that stories like this haven’t died out so far. But how many more of these ordeals will we have to sift through to get a film that shows more technique than trite? I guess Sequelism derives its MO from everyday life. Not unlike the experience of going to the same restaurant every week and ordering the same dish every single time or asking for a second round of blueberry cheesecake. I guess art imitates life.
I don’t suppose Hollywood studios pay much attention to pleas like mine. What matters most to them is the ‘dough’, not the depth.
For instance, the experience of sitting through The Hangover 2 was akin to having a bad bhel puri at Juhu Beach. It’s merely a hangover of the very first Hangover, again a film too banal to even worth talking about. Films like these manoeuvre their way to the audience under the guise of looking like a funky play on concepts like smartness and fun. However, it’s just another hackneyed yarn coughed up to sell, sell and sell. Frankly I’m weary of looking at the newspaper and seeing a dissonant symphony of films running in theatres.
It’s astonishing just how prosaic a film can get, only to observe that it makes an equally dire film look rather appetizing. This year, The Hangover 2 made Transformers look like Citizen Kane.
In another case, James Bond seems to be diagnosed with a Benjamin Button complex: with each successive movie, Bond becomes younger (and blonder). With franchises like X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, the names alone manage to entice congregations to theatre halls.
Once upon a time Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and Narnia were strictly literal but now have superb on-screen potential. Don’t even get me started on that insipid Twilight series. Films like these roam the district of ‘been-there-done-that’, bringing nothing new to the table, yet being marketed to give the impression otherwise.
Whatever happened to quality cinema built with a robust framework, complex characters, palatable storylines, breath-taking cinematography and inventive surge of storytelling? And what’s with the obsession for 3-D? Just because ‘Avatar’ did extremely well doesn’t make it appropriate or even sane to cash in on the epidemic. A remake of The Great Gatsby in 3-D is scheduled for release next year. I mean, The Great Gatsby and 3-D in the same sentence doesn’t sound particularly savoury. However people might be curious enough to actually check what all the noise is about. See, that’s what I’m talking about. Curiosity itself proves a noxious weapon.
‘Inception’, however, is a frighteningly brilliant display of creativity, which shows that stories like this haven’t died out so far. But how many more of these ordeals will we have to sift through to get a film that shows more technique than trite? I guess Sequelism derives its MO from everyday life. Not unlike the experience of going to the same restaurant every week and ordering the same dish every single time or asking for a second round of blueberry cheesecake. I guess art imitates life.
I don’t suppose Hollywood studios pay much attention to pleas like mine. What matters most to them is the ‘dough’, not the depth.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
It's Published!!
My review of Arna's Children in Prithvi Theatre Notes for August 2011:
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes_Aug_2011_for_1311686628.pdf
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes_Aug_2011_for_1311686628.pdf
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Potter Has Left The Building
The end is not near. It’s here. The last of the Harry Potter films, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’, is just out. In the 21st Century, Harry Potter is an ubiquitous phenomenon. There’s no running away from it, it’s going to catch up with you sooner or later. Not unlike death. Or taxes.
I’m a self-confessed ‘Harry Krishna’. Or at least I used to be in my youth. The last remaining dregs of the hysteria are still within me, but they’ve been distilled by age, experience and existentialism. It has played a massive part of my childhood. Me, along with the other million apoplectics out there in the world, have grown up watching Harry grow up. The series played an integral part of my childhood, spurring me on to read so many other books and giving me a very wide vocabulary of words to use in everyday life.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for these books and their author J .K. Rowling. She has so brilliantly managed to conjure a believable and alluring world, right out of thin air. Her prose is a whirlicote of eloquence, moving at a steady pace and beckoning us into a realm tres magicale. She has taken elements and symbols from ancient mythologies, myths, legends, put her own contemporary spin on it and engineered something that is the epitome of originality. The characters seem more real to me than real-life people themselves. I preferred getting lost in their trials rather than my own. The saddest bit was when Harry lost Sirius Black and Dumbledore, people who were both very close to him. An enjoyable bit was when Fred and George Weasley, the adorably gleeful pranksters, abandoned Hogwarts with a bang by conducting a mutiny against Professor Umbridge by a shower of fireworks. The books filter most of the characters into two concrete groups: good or evil with very little grey area in between. Apart from the world’s favourite trio, my favourite character is Luna Lovegood the quirky-yet-lovable, peculiar-yet-trustworthy friend of Harry’s. By the way, she gave a killer commentary on a Quidditch match at one point.
J. K. Rowling has managed yet another feat. The series and the way she’s choreographed it cannot really be compared to any other piece of work. Instead numerous works have been compared to Harry Potter itself. A massive pop culture phenomenon, not unbeknownst to majority of the world. Believe it or not, Quidditch has actually become a sport. Yes, with ‘flying’ broomsticks et al. The series has given ‘playing dress-up’ a whole new meaning. Kids and adults, people of all ages alike, flock to theatres and bookstores at the onset of a brand new release dressed as a Dumbledore or a Hermione or a Death Eater or a Dementor. Nothing says ‘Expelliarmus!’ like the dulcet tunes of Potter-inspired mayhem. Bands like Harry and The Potters, Draco and The Malfoys, The Whomping Willow… They’ve shaped up the wizard rock movement. They’re pretty good, actually.
Oh, and the films. Beginning from 2001, the films made an impact on the people who watched it. They were honoured with an award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinema at the 2011 BAFTA Awards. They help us to visualize the landscape of say, Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic, given faces to much loved or despised characters and have thrilled and charmed audiences. It’s obvious the films have their share of deflections and discrepancies. But then again, the books have another kind of depth and intricacy altogether. I mean, the books are always better. Out of all the films I’ve seen (not counting the last two), I’d have to go with The Prisoner of Azkaban as my favourite. There’s a certain artistic flow to the film which the others are lacking in. Great cinematography of Michael Seresin and a strong story.
There’s a tie between the weakest of the films: Chamber of Secrets and the Order of the Phoenix. Reasons: Shoddy editing (the latter more than the former), poor storytelling with unsatisfactory acting where the actors resembled wind-up toys, vacantly and stiffly spouting dialogue.
The theme park at Universal Studios has, well, everything for the quintessential PottHead. Rides, Sweets from Bertie Botts, the Three Boomsticks signature drink Butterbeer and wands for 65 dollars apiece (highway robbery, if you ask me)…
So there’s goes my apotheosis for the Harry Potter series. In all honesty, there really may not be another Harry Potter. It may occur once in a while every now and then, much akin to a Halley’s Comet sighting. But that’s what makes it so special. But once I go to the theatre and see it, I’ll forever be in mourning.
I’m a self-confessed ‘Harry Krishna’. Or at least I used to be in my youth. The last remaining dregs of the hysteria are still within me, but they’ve been distilled by age, experience and existentialism. It has played a massive part of my childhood. Me, along with the other million apoplectics out there in the world, have grown up watching Harry grow up. The series played an integral part of my childhood, spurring me on to read so many other books and giving me a very wide vocabulary of words to use in everyday life.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for these books and their author J .K. Rowling. She has so brilliantly managed to conjure a believable and alluring world, right out of thin air. Her prose is a whirlicote of eloquence, moving at a steady pace and beckoning us into a realm tres magicale. She has taken elements and symbols from ancient mythologies, myths, legends, put her own contemporary spin on it and engineered something that is the epitome of originality. The characters seem more real to me than real-life people themselves. I preferred getting lost in their trials rather than my own. The saddest bit was when Harry lost Sirius Black and Dumbledore, people who were both very close to him. An enjoyable bit was when Fred and George Weasley, the adorably gleeful pranksters, abandoned Hogwarts with a bang by conducting a mutiny against Professor Umbridge by a shower of fireworks. The books filter most of the characters into two concrete groups: good or evil with very little grey area in between. Apart from the world’s favourite trio, my favourite character is Luna Lovegood the quirky-yet-lovable, peculiar-yet-trustworthy friend of Harry’s. By the way, she gave a killer commentary on a Quidditch match at one point.
J. K. Rowling has managed yet another feat. The series and the way she’s choreographed it cannot really be compared to any other piece of work. Instead numerous works have been compared to Harry Potter itself. A massive pop culture phenomenon, not unbeknownst to majority of the world. Believe it or not, Quidditch has actually become a sport. Yes, with ‘flying’ broomsticks et al. The series has given ‘playing dress-up’ a whole new meaning. Kids and adults, people of all ages alike, flock to theatres and bookstores at the onset of a brand new release dressed as a Dumbledore or a Hermione or a Death Eater or a Dementor. Nothing says ‘Expelliarmus!’ like the dulcet tunes of Potter-inspired mayhem. Bands like Harry and The Potters, Draco and The Malfoys, The Whomping Willow… They’ve shaped up the wizard rock movement. They’re pretty good, actually.
Oh, and the films. Beginning from 2001, the films made an impact on the people who watched it. They were honoured with an award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinema at the 2011 BAFTA Awards. They help us to visualize the landscape of say, Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic, given faces to much loved or despised characters and have thrilled and charmed audiences. It’s obvious the films have their share of deflections and discrepancies. But then again, the books have another kind of depth and intricacy altogether. I mean, the books are always better. Out of all the films I’ve seen (not counting the last two), I’d have to go with The Prisoner of Azkaban as my favourite. There’s a certain artistic flow to the film which the others are lacking in. Great cinematography of Michael Seresin and a strong story.
There’s a tie between the weakest of the films: Chamber of Secrets and the Order of the Phoenix. Reasons: Shoddy editing (the latter more than the former), poor storytelling with unsatisfactory acting where the actors resembled wind-up toys, vacantly and stiffly spouting dialogue.
The theme park at Universal Studios has, well, everything for the quintessential PottHead. Rides, Sweets from Bertie Botts, the Three Boomsticks signature drink Butterbeer and wands for 65 dollars apiece (highway robbery, if you ask me)…
So there’s goes my apotheosis for the Harry Potter series. In all honesty, there really may not be another Harry Potter. It may occur once in a while every now and then, much akin to a Halley’s Comet sighting. But that’s what makes it so special. But once I go to the theatre and see it, I’ll forever be in mourning.
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