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triskellianThe weekend has been action-packed. On Friday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
smiorgan and I went to see Prisoner of Azkaban, to general feelings of 'meh'. It's my favourite of the books (although I haven't read OotP - gave up in disgust), but my least favourite of the films. The pacing felt off, and there were sections where important bits of plot (like Buckbeak's trial) were skimmed over - one minute Buckbeak's mauling Draco, the next Hermione's dropping in a casual 'how did the trial go?' There was a trial? How did that happen? Was Lucius involved? And I agree with frax (I think it was she) in finding the difference in geography from the earlier films odd, although it wasn't too jarring for me, since I've only seen each of the others once, and not recently. Ron and Hermione's budding romance was a bit overplayed, but I did like the acting from (and direction of) the three main kids and Draco - I like the way they're starting to turn into moody, sex-conscious teenagers. The Dementors, as everyone else has commented, came straight from the Rent-a-Nazgul department, which is a shame because I see them quite differently. Sirius and Remus were both pretty good, although again, neither quite enough like my mental image of them. And, as in the book, the whole 'only one person is going to die tonight' scene pissed me off. How hard would it be to actually tell Harry that it's not him Sirius is after?
On Saturday, I drove into London to collectkauket for another bridesmaid dress fitting, with a minor incident on the motorway on the way... There was a police car sitting on a bridge over the road, just before a junction. As soon as they saw it, everyone slowed down to 70mph. (Note for non-Brits: the speed limit on British motorways is 70, but almost no one observes it, and there are rumours that police cars are told to drive at 60 or 80 to avoid disrupting the flow of traffic. The average speed is more like 80.) When I'd just passed the bridge, the police car left it, and came up the sliproad onto the motorway. Everyone was still going at 70, everyone thinking 'Is it me they're after? Did I see them in time? How fast was I going before I slowed down?' The police car zoomed off (at 80, at least), but everyone continued cautiously doing 70, until we passed the police car on the hard shoulder, having pulled over a big flash Jaguar. We breathed a collective sigh of relief, and sped up again.
I tookkauket to Luton for her dress fitting, and then she, blondeccgirl and I went up to Milton Keynes in search of underwear and shoes to wear to the wedding. We're all three interested in shoes (although two of us almost exclusively wear boots), and with bra sizes large enough to not be able to buy the pretty bras in nice fabrics stocked by most shops, so we wandered around, exclaiming at lovely shoes and grumbling at lovely bras. secretrebel and C both later told me how glad they were that they'd not been around. They'd have been bored to tears.
I successfully bought wedding shoes (and a matching bag. I'm a bit embarrassed about having a matching shoe-and-bag combo), and ordered wedding underwear. Which is pretty good, cos I was starting to think I'd never find shoes I liked, and would get married barefoot (which still has appeal), and never find appropriate underwear in my size, and have to... well, I suppose I would've had to buy some of the standard ivory 'bridal underwear', all of which I hate. Damn off-the-shoulder dress ;-)
On arrival back in Oxford,kauket and I met up with smiorgan and onebyone, to talk about wedding music. kauket and onebyone are DJing for us, and the wedding music session mostly took the form of us shouting band names at each other, while scouring smiorgan and my music collections.
"The Chilis!"
"Yes, they're at the top of the list"
"The Dandies!"
"So are they."
"Guns n' Roses!"
"I'm not writing them down"
"You have to"
"OK, but I'm writing them very small"
and so on.
So we'll have a shod and underwear'd bride, and music to dance to. Should all turn out fine ;-)
And then on Sunday, in the pouring rain, we went into London to see the Chilis play Hyde Park. We drove to the park & ride, and waited for a coach to London, along with lots of other people obviously doing the same thing (all armed with our regulation 500ml-and-no-more water bottles). A coach went by with "Sorry. Coach full" on the front. We debated, and eventually drove into London and abandoned the car at the first underground station we encountered. A much better plan. Not least because all the coaches we went past on the way back were also sporting their "Sorry. Coach full" signs.
When we got off the tube, it was absolutely pelting down with rain, and everyone in the entire world was trying to find a pub near Hyde Park in which to get dry and drunk before the gig started. We gave up on 'drunk' and settled on 'dry' in a cafe serving utterly exquisite chocolate cakes. We stayed there for some time, gradually collecting other people we knew, before deciding to brave the rain for support act number 1, Chicks on Speed. The path into the arena was a big circle, and we speculated more than once that we were actually in hell, and were going to have to walk round the arena, in the rain, forever, but luckily this turned out not to be the case. Also luckily (by all accounts we heard), we didn't actually get there in time for Chicks on Speed (they were bottled off, no doubt grateful for the 'plastic bottles only' rule), but we did get there in time for me to spend my last pennies till payday on a T shirt (which I'm wearing as I type, and enjoying very much. Who needs food when you have a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt?)
The crowd was immense. More people than I can even begin to estimate numbers for. Whenever anyone wandered off, they had to call on their way back to ask someone to raise the umbrella (purple and silver, so quite distinctive) as a navigation aid. The rain stopped, and the sun started to come out, and then James Brown (support act number 2) came on stage. James Brown. Godfather of Soul and all that. And he was much more energetic than anyone has any right to be at his advanced age (I didn't even know he was still alive until I found out he was supporting), and pretty damn good, though I didn't know many of the songs he played.
And finally, the Chilis themselves appeared. Anthony Kiedis, to our great disappointment, in a suit. To our great relief, he gradually removed bits of it over the course of the set. There were lots of tattoos onstage. Lots. Kiedis obligingly turned around just after I'd remarked toventa that I wanted to see the eagle on his back, and I've since discovered that one of Flea's tattoos is a triskell, which naturally makes me extremely happy.
I was expecting them to rock, and they did. There weren't many songs I know well in the set, since I mostly know Blood Sugar Sex Magic, and it looked like they weren't going to play anything from that album, but the encore brought Under the Bridge, and, last, my favourite song of the night, Give it Away, with enough energy in it to keep me going till we were on a train, heading back towards the car, and home.
smiorgan and I went to see Prisoner of Azkaban, to general feelings of 'meh'. It's my favourite of the books (although I haven't read OotP - gave up in disgust), but my least favourite of the films. The pacing felt off, and there were sections where important bits of plot (like Buckbeak's trial) were skimmed over - one minute Buckbeak's mauling Draco, the next Hermione's dropping in a casual 'how did the trial go?' There was a trial? How did that happen? Was Lucius involved? And I agree with frax (I think it was she) in finding the difference in geography from the earlier films odd, although it wasn't too jarring for me, since I've only seen each of the others once, and not recently. Ron and Hermione's budding romance was a bit overplayed, but I did like the acting from (and direction of) the three main kids and Draco - I like the way they're starting to turn into moody, sex-conscious teenagers. The Dementors, as everyone else has commented, came straight from the Rent-a-Nazgul department, which is a shame because I see them quite differently. Sirius and Remus were both pretty good, although again, neither quite enough like my mental image of them. And, as in the book, the whole 'only one person is going to die tonight' scene pissed me off. How hard would it be to actually tell Harry that it's not him Sirius is after?On Saturday, I drove into London to collect
kauket for another bridesmaid dress fitting, with a minor incident on the motorway on the way... There was a police car sitting on a bridge over the road, just before a junction. As soon as they saw it, everyone slowed down to 70mph. (Note for non-Brits: the speed limit on British motorways is 70, but almost no one observes it, and there are rumours that police cars are told to drive at 60 or 80 to avoid disrupting the flow of traffic. The average speed is more like 80.) When I'd just passed the bridge, the police car left it, and came up the sliproad onto the motorway. Everyone was still going at 70, everyone thinking 'Is it me they're after? Did I see them in time? How fast was I going before I slowed down?' The police car zoomed off (at 80, at least), but everyone continued cautiously doing 70, until we passed the police car on the hard shoulder, having pulled over a big flash Jaguar. We breathed a collective sigh of relief, and sped up again.I took
kauket to Luton for her dress fitting, and then she, blondeccgirl and I went up to Milton Keynes in search of underwear and shoes to wear to the wedding. We're all three interested in shoes (although two of us almost exclusively wear boots), and with bra sizes large enough to not be able to buy the pretty bras in nice fabrics stocked by most shops, so we wandered around, exclaiming at lovely shoes and grumbling at lovely bras. secretrebel and C both later told me how glad they were that they'd not been around. They'd have been bored to tears. I successfully bought wedding shoes (and a matching bag. I'm a bit embarrassed about having a matching shoe-and-bag combo), and ordered wedding underwear. Which is pretty good, cos I was starting to think I'd never find shoes I liked, and would get married barefoot (which still has appeal), and never find appropriate underwear in my size, and have to... well, I suppose I would've had to buy some of the standard ivory 'bridal underwear', all of which I hate. Damn off-the-shoulder dress ;-)
On arrival back in Oxford,
kauket and I met up with smiorgan and onebyone, to talk about wedding music. kauket and onebyone are DJing for us, and the wedding music session mostly took the form of us shouting band names at each other, while scouring smiorgan and my music collections. "The Chilis!"
"Yes, they're at the top of the list"
"The Dandies!"
"So are they."
"Guns n' Roses!"
"I'm not writing them down"
"You have to"
"OK, but I'm writing them very small"
and so on.
So we'll have a shod and underwear'd bride, and music to dance to. Should all turn out fine ;-)
And then on Sunday, in the pouring rain, we went into London to see the Chilis play Hyde Park. We drove to the park & ride, and waited for a coach to London, along with lots of other people obviously doing the same thing (all armed with our regulation 500ml-and-no-more water bottles). A coach went by with "Sorry. Coach full" on the front. We debated, and eventually drove into London and abandoned the car at the first underground station we encountered. A much better plan. Not least because all the coaches we went past on the way back were also sporting their "Sorry. Coach full" signs.
When we got off the tube, it was absolutely pelting down with rain, and everyone in the entire world was trying to find a pub near Hyde Park in which to get dry and drunk before the gig started. We gave up on 'drunk' and settled on 'dry' in a cafe serving utterly exquisite chocolate cakes. We stayed there for some time, gradually collecting other people we knew, before deciding to brave the rain for support act number 1, Chicks on Speed. The path into the arena was a big circle, and we speculated more than once that we were actually in hell, and were going to have to walk round the arena, in the rain, forever, but luckily this turned out not to be the case. Also luckily (by all accounts we heard), we didn't actually get there in time for Chicks on Speed (they were bottled off, no doubt grateful for the 'plastic bottles only' rule), but we did get there in time for me to spend my last pennies till payday on a T shirt (which I'm wearing as I type, and enjoying very much. Who needs food when you have a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt?)
The crowd was immense. More people than I can even begin to estimate numbers for. Whenever anyone wandered off, they had to call on their way back to ask someone to raise the umbrella (purple and silver, so quite distinctive) as a navigation aid. The rain stopped, and the sun started to come out, and then James Brown (support act number 2) came on stage. James Brown. Godfather of Soul and all that. And he was much more energetic than anyone has any right to be at his advanced age (I didn't even know he was still alive until I found out he was supporting), and pretty damn good, though I didn't know many of the songs he played.
And finally, the Chilis themselves appeared. Anthony Kiedis, to our great disappointment, in a suit. To our great relief, he gradually removed bits of it over the course of the set. There were lots of tattoos onstage. Lots. Kiedis obligingly turned around just after I'd remarked to
venta that I wanted to see the eagle on his back, and I've since discovered that one of Flea's tattoos is a triskell, which naturally makes me extremely happy.I was expecting them to rock, and they did. There weren't many songs I know well in the set, since I mostly know Blood Sugar Sex Magic, and it looked like they weren't going to play anything from that album, but the encore brought Under the Bridge, and, last, my favourite song of the night, Give it Away, with enough energy in it to keep me going till we were on a train, heading back towards the car, and home.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Damn You Chilis People!
Date: 2004-06-21 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 07:40 am (UTC)(Do I correctly recall that you're the only rock fan in the world who doesn't like them?)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 07:56 am (UTC)Or did you mean the music?
;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 11:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 11:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 10:03 am (UTC)And, entertaining though he is, one of the things that has always annoyed me about soul music is that he gets the credit for a show in which he is outnumbered about 10 to 1 by anonymous supporting musicians (all of whom are much better at what they do than he is at singing these days), has a couple of guest vocalists do songs for him, and basically nowadays is mostly there to add his name to the proceedings and occasionally do a little dance.
So, entertaining though he was, I wouldn't have gone to see him headlining, and he wouldn't have filled Hyde Park on his own. Regardless of minority opinions that they're shite, the Chilis are a supergroup in live music at the moment - by the logic of live music the headliner is the one who's going to sell the tickets.
James Brown was good fun. I won't have it said that he wasn't entertaining. But I'd rather have a Flea bass solo than an announcer saying "Mr. James Brown" 10 times in a row, so I feel that the precedence was justified.
Also, the Chilis are like ten times better than James Brown. He may have been funking before they were born, but they funk harder.
harry pottering... spoilertastic!
Date: 2004-06-21 11:28 pm (UTC)As somebody who has not read the books (that's the qualifications I was talking about) I don't entirely agree with what you said. To take things near enough in order...
Buckbeak's trial I didn't think was necessary at all. I felt no sense of jarring or being rushed over there. Draco was attacked, he vaguely threatened revenge, people contemplated the trouble that wassisname might be in. They talk to wassisname to find out what happened. It made perfect sense to me. The onyl thing that might not have made sense is that it seemed odd that harry at least wasn't at the trial as an example that the creature wasn't just psycho.
The geography change was *very* odd. Especially that bridge that they seemed so fond of shooting thigns on. I did find myself repeatedly wondering if they had classes in the main castley bit any more.
The ron hermione romance thing seemed a bit forced to me. I was left half the time going "wha?" at the slightly clumsy attempts to put them together at times. I certainly didn't feel it was a romance. I got more of an impression of hermione slightly obliviously being a bit friednly with ron and ron going "Ulp. I need to go to the bathroom".
And draco? I really didn't like draco in this film. I suspect its because the key scenes in the film were the ones were he came off worst but it means he came across as a bit of a wuss really. In the first films he'd played quite a nice bully/antagonist. In this film his key scenes involves being mauled by a hippogriff. Whining a lot about how badly hurt he was. Getting lamped by hermione. probably whining a bit more. Oh, and of course getting scared by somebody he couldn't see throwing snowballs at him.
FOR GOD'S SAKE YOR A WIZARD! *YOU* COULD HAVE LEVITATED THE SNOWBALLS EASILY!
*ahem*
I was basically very disappointed with draco. I do agree the other kids were good though.
The only thing that really annoyed me in the film was harry's insistance that it was his dad that saved him from the dementors. I suspected that the stag motif might have been something to do with that insistance and have had that semi-confirmed from book material but in the film it came across as *very* irrational to be that firm about it.
There were some other minor things that they glossed over (they couldn't free Sirius on the word of three kids but didn't one of the school teachers, Lupin, know the full story and be able to be sufficient witness?) but all in all I thought it was a good film. The twists I didn't see coming (such as the fact that sirius didn't done it) and the time travel was quite well done. I always like time travel though. ;)
Anyway, that's my bit over. All I have to say now is "I wanna be a wizard!" :)
Re: harry pottering... spoilertastic!
Date: 2004-06-22 07:54 am (UTC)I'm with you on most of the rest, and perhaps I only found the Buckbeak bit too quick because I faintly remember the greater detail in the book.
Re: harry pottering... spoilertastic!
Date: 2004-06-22 08:08 am (UTC)*nod*
One of the reasons I haven't read the book is because it is rare to get the situation where quite a big thing like this you can get people who have read the books watchign the film and then get somebody who has not read the books watchignt hem too and able to compare thigns.
Inevitably the fact that you have read the book means you know more about what is going on so you see thigns differently.
An interesting one that came out when I was discussing this was to do with the magic map thing. Lupin seemed to know how to use it which my sources tell me is explained in much more detail in the book. The conclusion *I* came to of why he knew about it is that he used to be a student there and this map is one of those things that gets passed down from student to student and Lupin used to have it. A very different interpretation and one not as nice but one that quite happily lets me keep watchign the film.
Re: harry pottering... spoilertastic!
Date: 2004-06-22 08:12 am (UTC)Re: harry pottering... spoilertastic!
Date: 2004-06-22 08:15 am (UTC)Re: harry pottering... spoilertastic!
Date: 2004-06-22 08:22 am (UTC)Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are the four names on the front, btw.