Re-reading and Re-watching: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

If you missed my previous posts, I've been re-reading and re-watching the Harry Potter series in order.  Mostly because I wanted to read it again from the perspective of my Pottermore assigned Ravenclaw House, but also because now I'm a full-blown adult with a home mortgage and I was curious to see how the series has held up.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is notable in my opinion for expanding the Harry Potter world to include Harry's father James' generation and for also developing Hermione into a stronger, passionate character.

(Warning - Spoilers)

Hermione is amazing as f**k, in this, although her character is put on a painful journey through a majority of the book.  She tries to genuinely protect Harry and yet is sworn to secrecy about having a time turner. Thus she has to resort in tattling on her friends and is shunned by Ron for most of the book.  I would argue that Ron isn't really unfairly harsh to Hermione since he cannot know her motivations and really reacts as anyone normally would but not even Harry suffers as much as Hermione in the third book.  Hermione undergoes a fantastic hero's journey that could rival Harry's own.


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Re-reading and Re-watching: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Continuing on my mission to re-read and re-watch all the Harry Potter books and movies, approximately 15 years later since I first started when Book 4 came out, I have to admit that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was always my favorite book prior to Books 6 and 7.

It’s not a popular opinion, and I totally understand why most prefer Book Three over Book Two.  The plotting in Book Three is denser, and has more world-building elements.

The second book in my opinion just so cinematic.  Reading it the first time, I could definitely picture an Indiana Jones type movie in my mind’s eye.  The Basilisk made for a fantastic villain, versus the whodunit aspect of the third book, which had more difficult elements to translate to film.  I’m a movie director at heart so I always read books in the same way, picturing them as movies.

Again, I was re-reading to keep an eye out for any mentions of Ravenclaw and by extension Hufflepuff students.  Ravenclaw, because that is the house I was sorted into by Pottermore, and Hufflepuff because that is the house my best friend was sorted into. 

Below are my thoughts on both the second book and the second film. 

The same as last time, spoilers are abound.

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Re-reading and Re-watching: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

So yeah, I’m a Harry Potter nerd….who isn’t, really?  On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rate myself as an 8.  I’ve read all the books, watched all the movies, logged onto to the Pottermore site in its second beta testing phase and have gotten sorted into Ravenclaw. 

I can’t really rate myself any higher because I haven’t watched A Very Potter musical online, I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Harry Potter, and I have never been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter or LeakyCon.  Don’t worry, I’m working on going there someday.

Thinking it was a good idea to refresh myself with the source material,  this time from a Ravenclaw perspective, I dived in head-first into the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Philosopher’s Stone if you want to be super-technical about it),  and Christopher Columbus’ first film in the Harry Potter film franchise by the same name.

Here are my thoughts. 

Beware, spoilers here.

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New Halloween Movie Playlist

It seems to me that Halloween comes second only to Christmas.  Everyone loves Christmas and Halloween.  Both outrank every other holiday.  Both have treats, their own playlists, their own movie marathons, etc.  I originally wanted to run through a list of my favorite Halloween movies, which include popular favorites like Ghostbusters, Young Frankenstein, Sleepy Hollow, Night of the Hunter, and Nightmare Before Christmas, but I decided to recommend some current movies that may have originally flew under your radar when they first came out, all of which you can find on Netflix streaming.

Just note that I'm not a horror fan AT ALL.  I can stomach The Shining and Silence of the Lambs nothing scarier.  I can't handle torture porn, Japanese horror, or stuff like the The Evil Dead remake.  Nope, nope, nope.  Ain't no way I'm sitting through women being mutilated or worse on screen. HELL NO.

The following recommendations feature may feature some gruesome deaths but nothing too realistic or extreme.  Certainly not like anything you've seen in the Game of Thrones series.

1. Monsters (2010) dir. Gareth Edwards

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Postcards from Milan

Milan likes to have fun.  On the way to see the Duomo of Milan, my parents and I were weaving through the beautiful streets lined with impossibly tall, incredibly old ornate buildings, the kind you'd see in most major cities in Italy, when we came across clearing and saw a modern sculpture of a hand flipping you off, placed right in the middle of the street.

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Venice/ Venezia - 2 Days in Venice

When we, my parents and I, first arrived at the train station in Venice from Florence we saw the beautiful greenish water immediately.  All the canals and all the buildings fronting them, their stone steps entirely immersed in the lapping green waves. Walking alongside canal there are quite a few souvenir stands, filled with captain hats and those elaborate glittering Venetian carnival masks but as I was passing one such stand I saw for a brief second a t-shirt that featured a square shaped maze and along the bottom of the maze there was a phrase in white letters, "Venice - Get Lost".

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Under the Tuscan Sun - 2 Days in Florence

I feel that to really experience Florence, one must do while also visiting Rome, at least for the first time.  Florence is really the yin to Rome's yang.

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Roman Holiday - Part Two

Probably surprising no female ever, I actually did some research prior to packing for my trip to Italy. Dreamt of it, fantasized about what perfect little outfits to pack.  See, I wanted to look like I belonged in Italy and decided upon the advice of travel blogs and posts to pack mostly layers and mostly black clothing.  Black is chic and fits in anywhere, right?  Well the truth of it is, you can pretty much wear anything you want to, especially in Rome.  There are SO MANY tourists, everywhere, that you can wear shorts, flip-flops, sports bras, sweats, yoga pants.....whatever you please, and no one will bat an eye.  

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Roman Holiday - 3 Days in Rome

There is much to be said about traveling overseas with your parents once you are in your 30's.  I won't go into too much detail here, as there are probably not enough words to describe all the little moments of stress, laughter, joy, tears, minor fights, being completely lost in Venice and after an exhausting 20+ hours of flights and layovers, harmonizing with your mom to Phil Collins' Land of Confusion in totally deserted airport.

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The Power of Mindfulness

Before we delve deep into the concept of mindfulness, I just want to scale it back a bit and confess something to you all.  Ya'll, online dating is hard.  It totally messes with your mind and any remote amount of self-confidence you may have.  Subjecting yourself on a weekly basis to complete and total strangers for the purposes of romantic involvement is draining and somewhat unhealthy.  

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Oh Hai

I'm posting again for the first time in four months, and you know what?  I'm not even going to apologize.  Because life happens and it's not even a glamorous life in which so many amazing, exciting opportunities and adventures are going on, that there is simply no time to blog.  It's because work gets busy, or relationships rise and fall, or your inspiration falls flat, because let's face it, I don't live a life worth blogging consistently about on a regular basis.  No one truly does.  Why are there five Kardashian sisters on one show?  Why doesn't Kim or Kendall have their own show?  Because even their lives can't sustain enough footage for a on-going series.

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Austin Calling

 

Man, sorry for the infrequent posts.  I can't seem to find extra time these few weeks to catch up on my blog but I wanted to share some photos from my recent trip to Austin with my friend Christina, back in February.  

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