A few months after the end of Philosopher’s Stone, we again find ourselves at 4 Privet Drive dreading another birthday with the Dursleys. Indeed, the overall structure of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets shows great similarities with its predecessor - both books begin and end in the same place, both build up to an ultimate confrontation between Harry and his nemesis Voldemort. Along with this primary arc of good vs evil in conflict with its (at this stage) predictable conclusion, we explore at least two other aspects of Harry’s world that reflect on our own.

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I don’t really intend on doing any kind of full review of these as I go, just highlight the structure, themes, and notable quotations or clues in each to see if they point to the answers to come in book 7. Plus I want to keep moving on to the next book vs getting caught in dissecting the last.

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Having now seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix twice (first with K. and yesterday with KA), I wanted to record some impressions before turning attention fully to the books. Foremost of these was that seeing the movie, each time, really did reinvigorate me for reading the books. This stands in stark contrast with the aftereffects of Goblet of Fire, which had been my favorite of the books and thus made me the most anxious as to how it would fare as a film. Not to dwell too long on its shortcomings, sufficed to say that I could only console myself at how much worse it could have been, and felt the movies’ appeal had returned overall to a pale shadow of the books since the higher regard they had achieved after Cuaron’s Prisoner of Azkaban raised the bar. The difference, then, is that while still no substitute for the books - and more clearly viewed as meant not to be such - the OOTP movie reminded me of what was great about the book while trimming away much of what would not have translated well to screen.

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[warning: spoilers below]

The path to seeing Pixar’s latest, Ratatouille, was a diversion from the usual process for me. (more…)

When I first heard that Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (my favorite work of his, which is a feat) was being produced as a film, and had in fact proceeded past the option limbo where most fantasy and sci-fi scripts go to die (just when is Neuromancer coming out, anyway? 2009 now?), I was desperately hopeful. When I heard some of the attached cast, I became more concerned: Claire Danes as Yvaine is a good match in temperament yet hardly a snow-blonde, but Michelle Pfeiffer? Robert de Niro?! Was this going to be a case of names trumping plot?

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Finally, someone I know has also signed up for eMusic, the independent alternative to the iTunes Store and others which focus primarily on the “Big Four” major labels. Since I already obsessively review the New On eMusic listings for notable releases, I started collating recommendations as well, which in turn reactivated the mostly-dormant music critic in my head. Might as well share those efforts, which far from full reviews (eMusic taps into AllMusicGuide for that), are aimed at just giving a sense of why out of the thousands of albums that are added each month these few are worth considering. Enjoy!

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