endless iterations

I loved the damn movie the same way I loved the damn books, with one eye open to the fact that they are highly flawed. Love it anyway. - imaginarycircus

So I did that crazy thing. And it was worth it. It was sort of astonishing to watch those characters grow up on screen, to realize how cruel so many choices were. That moment where Harry talks to Sirius about how he's angry all the time and afraid he's becoming more like Voldemort really killed me this time around the bend. Because he's seen Cedric die and no one is telling him anything and everything is wrong and out of control.

So then we came to the end. The kids aren't really kids anymore, are they?

There were so many little things. The looks people gave each other. The small gestures. Minerva leaping to Harry's side in the Great Hall. The Malfoys - Narcissa and Draco walking away, Lucius running after them. Neville, being awesome. The sky on fire. Everything about that opening moment where Severus Snape is framed in the window looking out of Hogwarts.

The final battle at Hogwarts was madness. Someone next to me let out this choked gasp and I realized people were crying all around me. During the scenes of Snape's memories, I felt the quiet ebb and flow of choked breath all over the theater. People were sobbing as soundlessly as they could. It was intense.

We live so much in our heads sometimes and it feels startling to see these things taken out and put into the world. It feels strange and wonderful to know other people saw them too. There are things missing from the movies, constraints of film and time and money. But it makes for such a special experience even so.

There was one kid in my theater, a girl maybe 12 years old who was accompanied by an adult. I wonder what it must be like to be a kid with an adult in your life that they would take you to a movie marathon that starts at 4:30am and ends after 2am the next day. They were both wearing Gryffindor colors.

I have to say, I enjoyed the epilogue more as an on screen device and closure than I did with the books. It at least made me laugh a little.

So I did that thing and I'm really glad I did that thing. Because it hurt at times, but it was worth every single moment. I ate a lot of scones, drank butter beers, had pudding and treacle tart and seared trout salad and wished the person next to me wasn't taking up all the arm rest or intruding on my seat. But it was worth it to live all of that all over again at once.

(Thank you Alamo Drafthouse for making that possible. You are the best.)

We had quite a time at the Alamo yesterday. Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant were there, to show hilarious clips and talk about making shows and movies and their book about how to write for the Hollywood Industrial Complex for profit. They also had a super secret screening a totally wild television show they put together recently. Hilarious, hilarious stuff.

The Alamo also has their sticky toffee pudding back on the menu. SO GOOD.

One of the things that most impacted my life in my 20s was Harry Potter. Initially I resisted reading the books because I was in college and depressed and fucked up in all sorts of boring ways that left me entirely too cynical to approach what I thought was just a children's fairy tale. My college roommate dragged me to the movie on the premise that Alan Rickman was in it and I have to admit that's what got me in the door. Being the sort of person who often longed for some secret exit from the ordinary terrors of the world, I fell hard for the premise and started reading the books immediately. I went to buy the new books at midnight, to a convention in New Orleans, played in that RPG That Should Not Be Named at the behest of a good friend, got involved in fandom, made friends and cultivated the voices of wizards. I stayed up all night reading more than once, where I cried and laughed and shouted at the book in my hands as if I could reach right through it to the other side.

Once upon a time I had a beautiful wizard's wand, but it disappeared. It was a gift from my ex-husband and was symbolic of a lot of things so that was probably for the best. But I still miss it sometimes. It had sharp points and felt like a blade in my hand.

Following the lives of these wizards was something special for me. I may not have always liked the way Rowling did things with her characters and stories, but they gave me many gifts. When the final book came out, it was bittersweet. I found myself missing those long years between books that we filled with endless speculation and fanfiction. Now there's a theme park and the final movie is coming out in a month and I have that same bittersweet feeling. I've never been nostalgic for my teen years or high school, but I am for those years when it was still in the middle and we didn't know how it would all play out. I miss that boundless sense of energy and possibility, before we knew what happened.

All this rambling is to say that I caved and bought a ticket to the Alamo's Harry Potter-a-thon for next month. I'm going to the theater at 4am, where I'm going to watch every movie in order up to the midnight premiere of the final one. Every. One. It's crazy. But it also seems wonderful, and a once in a lifetime sort of thing. I wish I could pack that theater with all my fandom friends. I'll drink serious quantities of butterbeer for you.

Today I made a bird wearing a hat. It was fun. Any project that requires you to repeatedly stab something with a sharp needle is fun. I only nicked myself once. So, experiment with leaving the house and doing a crafty thing - successful. I did fail to eat beforehand and came home starving, only to overcook dinner. Argh. But we watched Mad Men and ate some gelato so it was okay. And I was introduced to this wacky pundit RPF/World War Z crossover fic of madness.

I am so tired. I think I am going to go to bed early. I know, incredibly boring. But I feel delirious, that is how tired I am.

WE went tot he Drafthouse on Saturday night to see a documentary called Lemmy, about Lemmy Kilmister. I think this was one of the better musical documentaries I've ever seen. It was engaging, not sappy, not pro OR anti-drug, well edited and funny. Completely riveting stuff. I am really glad Mike convinced me to go see it.

The Harry Potter feast the other night was masterful. The Alamo South Lamar's new chef is really a bad ass. The movie was fair, much more emotionally engaging than the last one and full of odd surprises. (The amazing animated sequence, the Ministry scenes, that terrifying snake, the Nick Cave dance.) It feels rough to wait so long for the next one, like your emotional energy might collapse in the meanwhile. But I'm glad I saw it.

The Malfoy home seems much like I always imagined it to be. Oh Malfoys.

The night before that we saw Buster Keaton's The Cameraman with a live score by Bee Vs Moth. It was superb and fun. Having the live performance added quite an engaging element. Buster Keaton was fantastic. I had no idea, and it shames me to admit I've never seen any of his stuff. But it was so good and they did so many lovely and excellent things I didn't even imagine were possible at that time. It was a lot of fun and the theater was packed.

We watched Inglourious Basterds today because the in-laws wanted to watch something on Blu-ray on our television. (Trust me, the other choices were no more holiday related.) So that was fun. I enjoy that movie more each time I see it. I kind of want fanfic of Shoshanna and Marcel. Or just more Hugo Stiglitz killing Nazis.

I am so envious of everyone going to DC this weekend for the Rally to Restore Sanity. I will have to content myself with watching it here, and seeing Master Pancake riff on Twilight. I've deliberately avoided watching that movie just for this day. If anyone can make vegetarian Mormon vampire love palatable to me, it will be Master Pancake.

Yesterday we enjoyed an amazing Drafthouse feast, with lots of Live Oak brewery goodness. Fantastic food and beer pairings. It felt delicious. I had a little headache from drinking all that beer but it was worth it.

Tuesday I spent my day helping brienze with a feast of homemade candy goods. I melted and spread chocolate, and made some coconut macaroons. She has amazing secret family recipes. She also found a cool recipe to recreate Snickers nougat and so made Snickers bites! Surprisingly easy, aside from that whole dipping things in chocolate.

Mike wore his costume to work today. It received many compliments. Pretty amazing that he made it!

I had no idea until last week Mike had never seen The Lost Boys. Dude. One of the most quintessential 80's films of all time? One of my favorite movies? A movie that makes me want to live in that weird 80's moment where 3,000 rowdy young people will dance with abandon to a big muscled dude belting out impassioned saxophone rock? Where the beach was the murder capital of the world and vampires lived in the ruins of a resort crumbling into the sea? With all that ridiculous and wonderful original period hair and clothing?

Not to mention - A MOVIE WITH BOTH COREYS.

So thankfully it was showing in an original 35mm print at the Drafthouse so we could relish the scratchy, joyous abandon. I love that movie.

Penny Arcade has discovered bat houses. I highly encourage you to build your own bat house. Google bat house kit and you can find all sorts, small and large. Bats eat insects and pollinate plants. Giving them a bat house will be both good for them and keep them from nesting in your own house. Bats!

Last night we went to see The Killer Inside Me at the Drafthouse because I have a deep love of film noir. This is dry, sun washed West Texas film noir.

This is graphic movie, and horrible things happen. There's a level of cruelty, a mingling of sex and violence that is hard to see. But at the same time it is an amazing movie. Compared to some things, like Coen brothers or Tarantino, the movie only contains a few truly violent moments. But the intensity of them, the camera's steady and unflinching focus on that violence renders them overwhelming.

I haven't watched a movie in a good while where I felt genuinely frightened of a character the way I felt about Lou Ford. Some of that might come from the fact these characters are cast in the light of my home state, their accents familiar. But it is also because Casey Affleck is the scariest thing since Christian Bale was Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. (This movie is based off a novel of the same name, and I wonder if Bret Easton Ellis ever read it.)

Lou Ford is scary as hell and not just because I've known men who look and talk just like him. He's a void, a gaping, grasping hole wearing a human face and walking around town. He reminds me of the weird things, the strange and terrible things that happen to our world that we don't have any good reason for and linger like bad dreams.

We watched crazy documentary shorts at the Drafthouse Ritz this evening. Now I'm watching Mike play Super Mario Galaxy 2.

The edits the Master Pancake team made to Independence Day tonight made it a much more awesome movie. Though I think it needed even more Danger Zone.

Master Pancake Theater trumps Rifftrax, and MST3K in my mind. I think the live aspect, with the improv and skits and totally ridiculous edits they make are what pushes those guys to the top. Also, I secretly love John Erler and wish I could be just like him. Tonight I even got to chat with him briefly and tried to sell him on crazy surrealist Czech film. Yay!

My neighbors are setting off tons of fireworks. I like fireworks okay, but I have to admit loud noises freak me out. Especially when it starts to sound like gunfire or exploding houses. At least it has been so wet this year that I don't worry as much that we will all catch on fire. But it is really loud, so I am hiding in the house.

A giant ant fell in my shirt. I don't know why. Ugh. Tomorrow I am putting down poison everywhere in the yard. Poison poison poison. My vindictiveness can be traced back to the three (3!!) bites on my left pinkie knuckle, forming a creepy, itchy triangle.