Lightbulb Over Head Blog

Tonight, I had the distinct pleasure of viewing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the Clearview Cinemas Zeigfeld theater. I’m including the theater in which I saw the movie because it had a lot to do with my experience of the film. So far, critics have given the movie  rather lackluster reviews, but I considered my thirteen dollars and fifty cents money well spent.

Firstly, the Zeigfeld theater is a sight to behold. It is a movie theater with a vintage feel. As soon as you walk in the building, you’re surrounded by a sea of crimson, gold, and velvet curtains with over-sized shimmering tassels. The staff is also very friendly and began shouting to the crowd about how the stars of the movie had been there the previous week for the NYC premiere as we filed into the packed theater. When you enter the theater itself, the space is vast. It clearly was an actual theater with a stage at one point and is only a few blocks away from The Great White Way.

On this particular evening, the place was packed because it was the first day of release. My friend and I arrived at the theater early, eager to settle into good seats for our epic journey into J.K. Rowling’s universe. My friend is an avid Potter fan and her intense excitement was undoubtedly infectious. I doubt I would have had the same experience if she hadn’t been with me. She has read the books more carefully and more times than anyone I know and I credit her with infallible Harry Potter expertise. We actually went to this same theater to Coraline and we instinctively knew that it was the right place to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s book, Decolonizing the Mind, he says that “Space is never neutral.” That is certainly the case for the Zeigfeld. There is a curtain that they close between the previews and the film. When they open it as the movie starts, it’s as if you’re looking at a live stage with infinite possibilities. Due to the nature of the space, the audience took on the characteristics of a live theater crowd, cheering, applauding, gasping, and laughing along with the performances. The place was buzzing with energy.

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson

The best thing this film did, which was only further amplified by the movie theater itself, was to honor the brilliant performances that the cast turned in. It’s hard to believe that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint are the same children who performed in The Sorcerer’s Stone. Their skills have matured and deepened, each with their own specialty. Watson is stunningly vulnerable while retaining the values and strength of Rowling’s original character, crestfallen when it comes to Ron’s inattentiveness and brutal when it comes to Harry’s occasional overconfidence. Grint’s skill for improvised physical comedy is at an all time high. Especially amusing were his scenes while under the affects of a love potion and his oblivious separation of Ginny and Harry when they are about to have an intimate moment, followed by offering them scones. I simply couldn’t get enough of him in this film. He kept the audience in stitches the entire time.

I must credit Daniel Radcliffe with remarkable improvement in his acting prowess. I have to admit that when I saw the first Harry Potter film, I actively disliked him. I have seen a bit of improvement over the years, but what truly changed my mind about him was his performance in Equus, by Peter Shaffer. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that this play is impeccable on its own as a written piece, but when I saw Radcliffe perform his extremely challenging role on Broadway, I saw a spark I hadn’t seen before. He was playful, unafraid, and interesting. I’m not sure when it was, but during the run of that show, Radcliffe discovered something about being in the moment and following impulses, no matter how strange or inappropriate they might be. That was reflected in his performance in The Half-Blood Prince, impersonating spider pincers, and impersonating the characterization of his co-star, Jim Broadbent, while under the effects of a “luck potion.”

Daniel Radcliffe, I hereby retract all ill wishes I harbored in your earlier years and officially give you my full support and a well deserved round of applause.

As the younger members of the cast rise to the occasion, the elder members become even more brilliant. As Snape, Alan Rickman is impeccable, both hilarious and terrifying. His comedic timing and command of his vocal instrument is a killer combination. I was on the edge of my seat, falling for the bait each time he paused, only to drop in the last word of his sentence at exactly the right moment- Simply an astounding and relentless performance.

Jim Broadbent, as Professor Horace Slughorn, gives a very intelligent performance. I have been a fan  since his role in Moulin Rouge. His drunken monologue in Hagrid’s cottage was a stunning combination of brilliant writing and expert performance. Broadbent does a wonderful job of addressing the multi-faceted nature of this character.

Helena Bonham Carter is a delicious villain. Her body and her voice are incredible, enhanced by her costume and makeup. I was so thankful that we got to see more of Bellatrix Lestrange in this film.

The only performance I wasn’t ecstatic about was that of Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy. While his performance was honest and heartfelt, the way he portrayed his character’s public actions at Hogwarts was extremely over the top. Anyone who saw him would have known he was up to no good. Draco Malfoy won the “emo kid” award for the evening.

I can understand why some of the reviews for The Half-Blood Prince are negative. There was so much wonderful acting that the movie could not contain all of it while simultaneously dealing with all the complexities of Rowling’s story. There were points at which I would have been extremely lost if I hadn’t read the books and points at which I was still lost simply because I haven’t reread the books in a few years. My biggest problem was that they focused a lot on the developing relationships between Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Harry, yet left the actual mystery surrounding the Half-Blood Prince and his Potions book mostly untouched. I missed the the mystery solving capers of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I think the director, David Yates, was more interested in giving detailed cinematic highlights of Rowling’s written world rather than a well-told story presented on film. I will say, however, that the composition of his shots is extremely dynamic. I felt in this film, more than in the other parts of the series, that there was a level of detail and depth that was fully integrated with the performances of the cast. The film wasn’t structured with stunted acting scenes followed by action sequences. The whole thing was a cohesive piece.

For anyone who enjoys the Harry Potter series, this movie is a must see. For those who haven’t read the books, I don’t think you’ll be able to understand and appreciate the brilliant parts of the movie in a way that will compensate for the otherwise unfinished story telling.

Being a huge Johnny Depp fan, I did not question spending thirteen dollars on a ticket to his recently released film, Public Enemies. When I was in Chicago during the summer of 2009, the extras were being put through hair, makeup, and costumes at the theater where I was interning so I felt a sort of loyalty to the film because I was excited about seeing how all the production work I had witnessed every day had turned out.

I always feel swept away by Depp’s performances because it’s undeniably clear to me how much he enjoys what he’s doing, how playful his choices are, and how alive he is when he’s in front of the camera. He drips with passion for his art.

This is the first time I’ve been a bit let down by him in a movie. I enjoyed a few of his “simply frank” moments, such as when he convinces Billie to “be his girl” by roughing up a man who’s giving her trouble at the coat check where she works and then holding her coat out wordlessly as if to say, You know you’re going to come with me. Also of note was the scene where he dangerously risks being discovered at the police station in Chicago where his case is being monitored. He studies his own pictures, the mug shots of his fallen comrades, and asks for the score of the game the cops are watching without them realizing who he is. It is Depp at his classic best; playful, mysterious, and confident. He did have a few great moments of characterization in this film, but I thought perhaps he was bored with this project. It seemed like he lacked inspiration.

Oddly enough, I enjoyed Christian Bale’s performance and I’m usually rather ambivalent about him. I think he’s done some cool action and mystery movies, but I wouldn’t necessarily call him a “fine actor.” There was something a bit deeper about his portrayal of Melvin Purvis. His physicality was fox-like as he ran down his pray, even with a heavy weapon like a rifle. He’s always been good with physical roles, like Batman and John Preston in the cult classic Equillibrium, but he managed to combine his physical prowess with a manifested determination. Perhaps he’s simply more compelling without his bat-mask on.

I hadn’t seen Marion Cotillard’s Academy Award winning turn as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, but I had heard so many good things about it that I was very excited to see her work in this movie. With the exception of the scene in the interrogation room where she is explicitly brutalized by one of the investigators on the Dillinger case, she gave a simply honest performance, but nothing particularly special.

The aforementioned scene was actually the best in the movie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie where the camera stays focused on a woman as she is beaten. It was hard to watch, but the pay off was so satisfying when Cotillard’s character told off the man who had been hitting her. It was a great movie moment, framed well by specific cinematography. However, the circumstances Cotillard’s character were often more engaging that her uneven performance.

The action sequences were too general to keep track of the story. They began. Lots of machine guns were fired. Then they ended leaving the characters either dead or in different circumstances. Sadly, it was a missed opportunity for story telling. It was easy to lose track of who was shooting and who had been shot. During the climactic action sequence at a woodland farmhouse, the heavy sound of the machine guns and the mass destruction they wrought lost their initial power after a few minutes of the long-winded shoot-out.

Stephen Graham was truly terrifying as Baby Face Nelson. He brought a sorely needed unpredictable element to the movie. When he went down, shooting wildly into the air and pelting the grass with bullets as he took a lethal volley of machine gun fire, I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or to cheer. He was such a dangerous force in the movie that I was happy for Dillinger to be rid of him, but I immediately missed his exciting presence.

I was also shocked at how many cameos there were by established actresses in the film. Leelee Sobieski played Polly Hamilton who appeared near the end of the film and had about five lines in total. I haven’t remembered seeing her in front of the camera since I was in my freshman year of high school. Emilie de Ravin, who plays Claire in the hit television series, Lost, played a random bank teller who is used as a human shield to keep the police from shooting at the men driving and defending a post-bank-robbery getaway car. As long and slightly didactic as this movie was, seeing these actresses made me wonder how much film was lying on the cutting room floor considering the fact that these ladies probably wouldn’t have signed on for the project without a supporting role as opposed to a part with a few spoken lines.

For me, the bank robbing scenes were the highlights of Public Enemies. They were a window into a different age when crime was waged with different tactics than in today’s world, not to mention that Depp’s rock star quality had a chance to shine.

Public Enemies is by no means a horrible film, but I don’t think it makes my “Must See” recommendation list. With with movie ticket prices in New York City at an all time high, this is one where I would wait for the release to DVD.

Last night I watched Contact twice. Not once. Twice. In a row.

The movie came out in 1997 when I was 12 years old. I was in 6th grade and absolutely obsessed with outer space. I even had my own armory in my closet which consisted of space blasters, lightsabers, and Jedi armor. As a Girl Scout, I was taught to always be prepared. Let’s just say that if Darth Vader had materialized in my room, I could have easily been ready for an old fashioned Jedi showdown.

I certainly loved everything to do with Star Wars and most other sci-fi/fantasy universes, but I also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to be an astronaut. I was serious about learning everything I could concerning NASA, its history, and development.

It was only natural for my father to take me one Sunday afternoon to see Contact, the film adaptation of Carl Sagan’s book by the same title. As we sat in the cool, dark movie theater, I didn’t even resent him for not letting me get candy or popcorn. I was going to see a space movie and that was all that mattered.

As the story unfolded, I idolized the heroine, Eleanor Arroway, who was played to perfection by Jodi Foster. She was so brave and strong willed. She fought for what she wanted and at the end of the movie, no one even believed her story. It made me incredibly sad for her. I marveled at how the director had used well-edited clips of Bill Clinton to make it seem like he was speaking about building the alien transport system and responding to questions about the fictional events presented in the movie. There were even interviews with my favorite hosts from “The Today Show.” which I watched every morning before school. It was almost as if the whole thing had really happened right under my nose. The audience was implied as a part of the story because the movie had incorporated figures from our daily life.

I remember leaving the theater and tugging on my Dad’s arm and asking,

“Daddy, what’s a worm hole?”

“Daddy, I can’t believe that they didn’t believe she went to Vega!”

“Daddy! Which star is Vega?”

“Daddy! How long is a lightyear? No wait! What’s a black hole?”

The list went on and on and my dorky, lovable father, who is a professional know-it-all, patiently answered all of my questions. The movie had perked my interest in the mapping of space rather than its deeper themes.

Watching Contact 11 years later is a completely different experience. I’m an actress and not an astronaut. I’m a writer with a critical mind and not a child with a dramatic sense of wonder. After such a large perspective shift, anyone is bound to see things differently than when they were 12 years old. Still, I was especially struck by the difference in my point of view on this particular film.

I no longer saw a film full of whimsical science fiction and alien technology, but a story about how we as humans can reconcile faith in a modern world where science is sometimes made out to be be anti-religious. After all, we’ve gotten to the point where certain religious institutions do not want to teach evolution because they believe that its heretical.

When I was younger, faith wasn’t an integral part of my life. I’m the daughter of a Protestant mother and a Jewish father. We attended church pretty much only when my grandmother was in town and went to the synagogue only when a friend had his or her bar or bat mitzvah. I was allowed to believe in what I wanted to believe, but because of my own interests in science, I tended to side with Jodi Foster’s character in Contact.

I saw no evidence for or against God, but I did see a lot of civil limitations connected to Christianity.

I have always been very supportive of my gay family members and hearing the “religious right” tell the world that marriage is for a man and a woman has always seemed outrageous to me. My uncles have every right to same advantages my parents have. Seeing religious rallies against a woman’s right to choose abortion if she felt she couldn’t properly care for her child seemed like yet another misplaced limitation being forced on women.

As a child, I had seen religion as an obstacle and that’s how I identified it in regards to this film. I wanted Eleanor Arroway to be chosen to represent humankind on their mission to contact alien life and I was outraged that just because she didn’t have a strong connection to a higher power, that she was discriminated against. “What about that separation of church and state thingy?” I had asked my father afterwards.

Religion in the form of cult worship is demonized in the movie and made into the very the source of terrorist acts and the backbone of the suicide bomber who disrupts the alien machine’s first test, killing the initial candidate for the mission and destroying the entire aparatus.

What I wasn’t mature enough to recognize in 1997 was that “faith” can be separated from religion. To me, faith is an odd mixture of trust and determination. In Contact, there is a communal sense of faith in God that Eleanor Arroway doesn’t identify with. However, she experiences faith in the unknown throughout the whole film, even when no one believes in her project or in the end, her journey. She heads a project that is running out of funding which requires her to sit alone for hours, listening for a signal from beyond that may never come. Despite the odds, she knows she has to be there if it does. When others want to give up on her project, she insists that it’s necessary, convincing them of its importance despite the fact that she can’t provide a foreseeable result of her studies. When the other scientists want to add a chair with straps to the alien design for the pod, Arroway questions them. “Shouldn’t we have a little faith?” When she is offered a cyanide tablet, she refuses it, retorting that she didn’t come this far to bail out on the Vegans who sent their message across the stars. She intends to see it through to the very end and directly as instructed by the message she received. She trusts their plans for her with no guarantee of success or survival.

When the movie ended back in 1997, my 12-year-old self was most interested in the fact that no one believed that Arroway’s pod had traveled to Vega. I revelled as the president’s adviser stuck it to the movie’s “villain,” announcing that there although there was only white noise on the whole video recording of Arroway’s journey, it lasted for exactly the amount of time Arroway had claimed to be in transit form Earth to Vega.

“Ok to go,” Arroway states over and over again as she readies herself for that epic journey. She trembles as the terror takes over. She has no idea how this machine will work. She has only been able to speculate up until this point. Yet Arroway presses on. She has planned for this moment her entire life. The fear keeps her from being able to fall back into the comfort of her precious logic. She must simply be vulnerable to the experience.

As the pod moves through space, she can see through its walls, racing through worm holes and floating amidst gas formations only seen before in the form of Hubble Telescope images. Her eyes are wide. There isn’t even a hint of analysis or calculation in her gaze as she unstraps herself from the chair, looking out into the starry masterpiece. “So beautiful… It’s so beautiful,” is all she can muster.

When she finally arrives on the beaches of Vega, she is greeted not by an alien life form, but by her father, the man who inspired her to begin her work with audio analysis in the first place. She reconnects with the origins of her life’s journey, while at the same time she is meeting with the unknown, making contact with both past and future simultaneously. The Vegans never appear to Eleanor in their true form. She must decide for herself whether to believe she has had and encounter with an alien life form or merely hallucinated a meeting with her dead father.

“This is just the beginning. This is just contact,” Her father says to her, tenderly brushing her cheek with his fingertips.

Listening to that line, I think of all of those times I’ve heard people say, “That’s when I found God.” Arroway is given a precious, life affirming experience, something she cannot deny whether the experience was real or simply a vision.

Even though I’m not sure if I believe in God in the Christian sense, I can I identify with moments when I’ve felt something more, or gained a sense of the unknown. This film suggests that our great human need for discovering and connecting with the unknown is not only present in the ritual of daily prayer, but in our scientific reach for what lies beyond our star system. Science does not have to be anti-religious and at the same time we don’t have to believe in a higher power to sustain faith. We can sustain faith simply by believing in something great than ourselves, whether that lies in Heaven or beyond the reaches of the Milky Way.

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If you haven’t seen Disney Pixar’s Up, then you are a bad person. You need to accept your faults and find the nearest toddler you can get your hands on and use him or her as an excuse to go to this movie. Or if you’re secure enough in your inner child, go by yourself.

The film is extremely layered and more complex than most Disney movies. Sure, it has its fair share of adult jokes to entertain parents and the most perfect portrayal of what dogs would say if they could talk that I have ever witnessed (I won’t repeat any of it here because it will truly ruin it for people who want to see the movie), but the themes in this movie are what make it so special. I will be discussing parts of the film in detail, so SPOILER ALERT for anyone who cares, but honestly I think reading this would only provide a lens through which to view the film.

Firstly, it contains a poignant vignette detailing the childhood and relationship of Carl Fredrickson and his wife Ellie. As children, they vow to adventure together to Paradise falls in the footsteps of their hero, explorer Charles Muntz. The children grow up and end up getting married and building their dream house, all the while saving up for their adventure. But life often comes with curve balls and they never quite get around to seeing their goal through before Ellie dies and Carl is left with their house full of fond memories and dreams of Paradise Falls. This part of the movie could honestly stand on its own. The story telling is winning and perfect. Bright and funny, you fall in love with the children versions of Ellie and Carl before they fall in love with each other. The depiction of Ellie is particularly articulate. A firecracker, she helps a stifled young Carl to come out of his shell and includes him in her adventurer club.

When I was younger, my best friend Pam and I used to create clubs just about every day. We had soccer clubs and spy clubs and God knows what else. I know we would have had a great relationship regardless of these childish enterprises because we’re like sisters, but I think those clubs did have a very special way of keeping our imagination and impulsive sense of adventure at full throttle. It was very believable to see the relationship between Carl and Ellie bloom from the seeds of their adventurer club to the full bloom of life long love because in my own life, I have grown into such intimate sisterhood with my friend Pam. By intimate, I mean to say honest self deprecation and the examination of the soul rather than some torrid lesbianic affair that the word “intimate” brings to mind for some people. So keep it in your pants, gents.

During the montage of the relationship between Ellie and Carl and her ultimate end, the story tellers gave us specific visual cues to hold onto; the way Ellie always has to set the little, red, ceramic bird on her mantle at the right angle, the mail box that Ellie and Carl put their hand prints on, and most importantly, Ellie’s adventure book which she shares with Carl on eve of their first day as club-mates and presents him with on her last day on Earth.

The first half of the book is filled with Charles Muntz idolatry and drawn pictures of her dream house resting at the top of Paradise Falls. The second is labeled with a title page that reads:

“The Things I’m Going to Do.”

During the powerful montage, Ellie and Carl strive to do those “things” but other things always get in the way and Carl is wracked with depression when he realizes that his wife will never get to fill in those pages. I think we all dream about the things we’re going to do. When we’re children, we’re allowed, encouraged even, to dream up elaborate lives and goals for ourselves. I often think about where I am as opposed to where I thought I’d be. I’m not old enough to be a sage, but I do know that life takes you places you didn’t necessarily think you would go. I also have my journals from my clubs with Pam and they are similarly half full. I never did join the CIA or play soccer in the Olympics so after a while I ran out of things to record from my life as a Secret Agent with a cover as a famous professional athlete.

I was surprised to find that the screenplay writer, Bob Peterson, was not afraid to touch the subjects of Ellie’s miscarriage and personal tragedy at the very outset of the film. I knew I loved this film during the transition from the sepia tones of the sensitive and tender scenes of their wedding and renovating the house and colorful shots of the couple painting the nursery for their expected child, to the stark shot where Ellie finds out she’s miscarried, followed by the shot of a concerned Carl watching her from the window as she is seated in the yard. There was something about the oddly placed wooden dining room chair sitting on the grass and her hair gently wafting in the breeze that was so sad and so intimate. There was also a collective gasp when Ellie died. A little girl sitting in front of me poked her mommy in the arm and exclaimed in disbelief, “She died!?” It brought to mind the first time I saw Bambi. However, when Bambi’s mother dies its a good way through the film. This was within 10 minutes of the start, and yet we as the audience had already felt the weight of a lifespan of love and loss.

For Carl, Ellie lives on in their house through her pictures and the chairs sitting side by side that the couple had enjoyed in their living room, her picture on the wall, and her adventure book. Unfortunately, as is the case with many lonely, elderly folks these days, he ends up facing the reality of a nursing home. Rather than cave and leave his beloved house behind (which he talks to as if it is an incarnation of his dead wife), he opts to spend his last dime and use every remaining helium tank and balloon from his balloon cart to fly his house and his memories far away from his hometown and the waiting nursing home attendants.

This image was so gorgeous and poetic to me. He packs all of his grief, loss, and stubborn habits into his house and takes off with them, leaving the world behind and ready to live cloistered in them for the rest of his life in solitude and peace. When he escapes, he’ll be able to dwell as much on the past as he desires rather than facing the changing modern world springing up around him.

Little does Carl know, his nemesis, a young “eagle scout” who constantly tries to give unsolicited aid to the elderly is stuck on his front porch.

The two characters embark on an adventure to Paradise Falls where they nurture and enrich each other in ways I certainly didn’t expect. Of course it was predictable that the kid would breathe new life in Carl’s stale existence, but what I didn’t expect was the portrayal of the boy named Russell.

He wasn’t just a lively kid that reminded Carl of his wife and how they had acted together as children. Russell was the victim of a broken home. His mother was dead and his father left. Russell describes his memories of his father pinning on his scouting badges and how he hoped that getting this final “Aid to the Elderly” badge would bring him back. I was struck by the brilliant writing of this monologue that exposed how memories of someone aren’t always exciting. They’re just the little important boring things about existing with a person that you remember after they are gone, whether they leave you by choice or they are taken from you.

I relatively recently got out of a long term relationship where I was truly in love with someone. The things I remember and miss aren’t necessarily trips we took or the highs and lows of our time together. I remember waking up next to him and snuggling close, or the way he draped his arm over may waist when we watched Lost on my laptop at night, knowing that I would almost immediately fall asleep- Just the little things that make a house a home.

When they land at walking distance from Paradise Falls, the man and the boy begin dragging the house towards that “promised land” as it floats above their heads. In a moment, instead of being a vehicle, it becomes an obstacle that Carl must contend with and eventually let go of. I found that it was such a perfect metaphor for loss.

You let loss carry you for a while. Then you carry it until you’re ready to let it go.

Watching this play out on screen was such a joy, both in the sense that I giggled and in the sense that I cried. I truly recommend this movie, and for me, seeing it in 3D at the Regal Union Square was worth every penny.