• It's me!  It's AlterBadger!  Aren't you excited?
• Made a rare trip to the movie theater last week to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.  After suffering through some truly horrific trailers (Green Lantern, Green Hornet, Red Riding Hood, Kung Fu Panda 2) with one hand clamped over an ear to lessen the deafening roar of commercial advertisements, I was reminded once again of why I love the Harry Potter film series.  Director David Yates has handled the last four films beautifully, taking the kid-focused tone of the first three films and morphing them into something darker, more serious, something that a boy of Harry's age might actually like to watch.  As sacrilegious as it may be to say this, I think I like the movies better than the books.  Sure, there's more story in the books, and they do delve into Harry's world in far greater detail than the movies possibly could, but I think I prefer NOT having that detail.  George Lucas once said that the reason his Star Wars movies worked was that he deliberately refused to allow the setting to trump the characters, letting most of his sci-fi universe exist only in glimpses and brief explanations.  The Harry Potter films use a similar tactic, whereas Rowling absolutely reveled in her setting, expounding on every facet of Harry's wizarding world.  In the films, the magic and endless teen angst are boiled down to their essential and least obnoxious elements, and while that reduction can mean some unfortunate omissions, it also means we didn't have to suffer through Hermione's "Save the Elves" subplot.  Now, to talk about this film in particular, there's really not much to say:  if you like the other Harry Potter films, you'll like this one.  By the seventh movie in a series, you pretty much know what you're dealing with.  It's funny though, every time I see a Harry Potter film I think, "that one was my favorite of the series," and this was no exception.  That says a lot about the quality of the work.  Can't wait to see the last one.
• Right on time for Christmas, I read Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar last week.  Because what better time of year is there to read about depression and suicide?  The Bell Jar is a classic novel, which is basically a memoir but is written as a novel.  I find I generally prefer things that way, with fact masquerading as fiction, as opposed to a collection of fuzzy memories and half-concealed truths masquerading as fact.  When writers are given the ability to lie, they tend to be more honest.  Plath's novel is the story of her life as a teenager, going to New York for the first time, determined to find a career and to find a man who will have sex with her.  Her complicated relationship with men and work echoes the dreary and oppressive time of the 1950s, when a woman who wanted more than to be a housewife found every door closed in her face.  A long series of events brings Plath's narrator to the brink of suicide and into the halls of mental health hospitals, and it's here that we find even greater honesty.  It's hard to write about mental disorder and depression unless you've lived through it, and Plath's calm and angry sense of distance from her own life and the lives of everyone around her conveys it well.  American literature has spawned countless depictions of depression as a sort of romantic existence, authors who think their sadness makes them deep, but Plath finds no nobility in the life of a young woman fighting against herself, and that is what sets The Bell Jar apart from its imitators.  The story of a girl who is beaten down by the world only to struggle back is tragic and yet inspiring, and it's no surprise that it's become so widely read.  It becomes even more unsettling when you learn that Sylvia Plath never really triumphed over her beginnings; she ended her own life one month after the novel's publication in the US.
• I also read Woody Allen's brief collection of short stories, Mere Anarchy.  From 2007, this was his first collection of stories in 25 years.  I love his older stories, and these are even more focused and sharply intelligent.  If you ever sit down to read a book by Woody Allen, you'll want to have a dictionary beside you, and it might not hurt to have a set of encyclopedias too.  Woody continues to be alarmingly, stunningly funny, and I have to say I like his prose just as much as I like his films.
• The holiday arrived, and I got my DVD set of Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 for Christmas.  I've talked about Fantasia before, of course, and I still love it more than anything.  I do understand why some people say it's kitschy, and yes some of it is, but for every kitschy moment there are two more that take your breath away.  Fantasia 2000 I hadn't seen before, and after an initial viewing I have to say I was disappointed.  The animation was still beautiful in every way, but several segments were augmented with CG animation, and computer modeling just isn't as impressive as hand-drawn work.  I also missed the abstract pieces of the first film, the ballets and tableaux that defied any need for plot; almost every segment in F2000 tells a story, but I'm sure some people probably actually preferred it that way.  Oh, and the celebrity cameos were sheer torture.  But there are segments of great beauty here, and maestro James Levine (Met operagoers all know James Levine) provides a stunning soundtrack that surpasses even the original film in quality.  My wife said she actually liked it better than the first time she saw it, and probably I will too.  It's not as good as the original, but it's still pretty good.
• But there was one problem with the new Fantasia release that bears discussing.  The version that was released in 2000 was absolutely loaded with bonus content, but now I feel lucky just to have audio commentary.  I guess all the bonus features are on the Blu-Ray release.  I'm reluctant to engage in the endless game of technological keep-away that is the life of the American consumer.  I'd rather resign myself to always being a few years behind the curve, rather than continually throwing out fistfuls of dollars to ensure I always have the latest gadget.  Could I please go six years without having to replace every computer, television, video player, phone, and video game system in my house?  And the bonus content is really a minor annoyance, I never really watch bonus features but I can't stand to be treated like a non-entity because I had the audacity to buy the version printed on technology that was the primary vehicle for home video release FOUR YEARS AGO.  And it's hard to blame the corporations for this, because I don't expect them to have a conscience; they exist to make money, and this is a good way to do it, by constantly enticing and then forcing consumers to upgrade expensive equipment.  I guess it's just the mood of American consumers now, we're easily bored and willing to spend our grocery money on entertainment, and the corporations are only too happy to cater to that.  And if I ever manage to get my hands on a Playstation 3, I'll start buying Blu-Ray discs too, because I'm just as stupid as everyone else.
• American Film Badger:  Continuing my look at the AFI Top 100 Films, #7 on their 1998 list is The Graduate.  What can I say about The Graduate?  It's smart, it's funny, it has Dustin Hoffman, the soundtrack is all Simon and Garfunkel... the perfect film about a young man trying to find his place in the world, forced to grow up no matter how little he wants to.  Easily relateable, wonderfully funny.  And #7 on the 2007 list is Lawrence of Arabia... which I already talked about (it's awesome!), so you're spared more of my ranting.
• This week's reading:  Lady Murasaki's The Tale of Genji.  It's an interesting experience reading a book that is just a decade shy of being one thousand years old.  You learn a lot about the commonality of all human experience, and the endurance of civilization.  And in another thousand years, all those e-books that are being published today won't even exist, so shove your iPad in that and smoke it.