rushthatspeaks | the cat is sneezing on my pillow

But other than that, life is good. I'm at Ruth's, of course, and enjoying myself a good deal. We went to the Harry Potter movie, and I liked it much, much better than the first one. I go to movies for reasons that are different than the reasons I read books; when I'm reading, I fill in the story, the plot, the background, the appearances of things with my own imagination. When I'm watching a movie, I don't get to do that, and so what I want from a movie is to be shown something that I can't imagine. Something that would never in a million years cross my mind. It's a rare film that does that, so I'll settle for movies that show me things that I haven't imagined (could have, but for some reason didn't). This means that for the most part I dislike book adaptations. If they're exactly and precisely faithful to the book, all the movie does is be a stripped-down and less interesting version of precisely what I could have seen for myself when I read the original. That's the problem I had with the first Harry Potter movie. Usually, also, the things that adapters change to make a book suitable for the screen are not things that change the work of art for the better. That's the problem I had with the first Lord of the Rings movie. So I feel that a good adaptation should have its own vision; it should be a different work of art, not a reinterpretation. And the second Harry Potter movie successfully showed me things that I had not imagined. They may have been there, in the book, though I ws trying to read carefully; but the movie saw the book differently than I did, and, what's more important and far more rare, more interestingly, more deeply, and with greater richness. This just doesn't happen. I can't remember the last time that happened to me with an adaptation of a novel. I was delighted. I still am delighted.

A lot of it was the acting, of course. I've been looking forward to Kenneth Branagh all year, and he did not disappoint (stay through to the end of the credits, honestly, it's hilarious). The person they got for Moaning Myrtle changed the character from one I found annoying as hell into one I found genuinely amusing. And the three principles have grown up and are better able to carry a movie (and the kid playing Harry continues his strange physical resemblance to nii-chan... had you noticed that, nii-chan? Sei and I commented on it after the first movie. It's kind of eerie, but very cool). It's the guy who played Voldemort I was really impressed by. Charisma oozing out the ears. Nifty.

This visit has been a good one for my relations with Ruth's family, I think. We went with her parents to the new Turkish restaurant that just opened down the street, and sat on the floor and ate magnificent Turkish food and had a conversation that, for once, contained no awkward places, many jokes, and a discussion of our upcoming wedding that did not cause Ruth's mother to scream and head for the hills. Not even subtlely. And family Thanksgiving was nice, though I found myself missing my mom's Thanksgiving dinners; she always did them really well, and so my default Thanksgiving food preferences are set to that. We ate and talked and played Monopoly and they gave me a chocolate turkey along with the rest of the younger half of the family. (I honestly want to know where in heck one finds six-ounce solid chocolate turkeys. I am deeply amused.)

And today there will be more family, this time for Chanukah. After seeing Wayman (yay!).

So all is good.