Not reading so much...

But two days of sitting in front of my computer and watching the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then all four Harry Potter movies (in a row and then I watched the trailer for #5... am I a dork or what?) I'm still not sure of what to think about Buffy... it's funny, no doubt, and I really enjoyed Firefly (both were created by Joss Whedon) which displayed the same dark humor about life in general. The tensions created in season one are bound to play out later on (ie, Buffy and Angel, Xander and Buffy, Xander and Willow... wait, are there any relationships without tension?) but I'm curious if I can make it through the next season. I would say I'm not in an epic mood (hence why I didn't want to finish His Dark Materials) but then...

I stayed up all night and watched the Potter movies. And the trailer. Now this is an ineresting study in how children grow over the course of seven or eight years. When the children were first casted to play the central Potter characters, they were about ten or eleven... now most are around seventeen. The jump between Harry in HPatPS and HPatCoS is quite clear... PoA is even more prounced and then you hit GoF and think, are you sure that you're still a teenager? the previews for OotP (out on July 13th) makes them look so grown up, and I checked www.imdb.com and they are already in pre-production for HBP... and I wonder when the last book will be out just so that it won't take too long between filming for the last movie (and because I want to read it). On a bunny trail... I think that PoA (the film) is in many ways cinematic perfection. It's sufficiently dark yet hillarious and quippy at moments. Michael Gambon should have played Dumbledore from the beginng; I didn't like him at first because I had loved Richard Harris, but having the four movies to put side by side, so to speak, I think that Gambon hits the nail on the head in terms of what we have learned about Dumbledore in HBP - he's tired and worried and loves Harry but understands that this boy will have to fight Voldemort... there's an Irishness to Gambon's Dumbledore while Harris played him far more British (nothing against them) that makes room for the depths of Dumbledore's fears and hopes.

I'm not avoiding epics that take a great deal of work and energy to get through them, I just want to know how it ends.

When I was done with Harry, I watched the trailer for the new movie, Miss Potter, which is not about Harry's sister but Beatrix Potter, the writer and illustrator at the turn of the last century. If it's as good as Finding Neverland, then I'll be very happy. But I wonder if this is a new trend in biopics, and when someone will do George MacDonald and E. Nesbit? And Tolkien? It's a thought.