it does take really long siestas though. but it's still alive (barely), and 6 years old. yes, old archives are ridiculous. i was planning on taking them all down, since many are just downright embarrassing. but i eventually decided, what the heck. it's funny, i was dumb back then. and there's no reason to be ashamed. and let's celebrate the fact that we're not that dumb right now. we're growing up! (or we hope we are anyway)

i remember there was this one post, in 2006 i believe where i officially proclaimed that viggo mortensen was hot. my first public declaration of a man being attractive did see a surge in tagboard activity. that weird post-primary school / enter rgs / pseudo-feminist? anti-boy stand was starting to wear thin! woots! but i'm glad my blog readership was/is limited, because the proclamation that tom cruise was hot, which took place few months down the road, is something i would dearly take back. and then came rj that made me wonder if my first stand was not that impractical after all.

(haha. ok i just HAD to add an rj jibe in there for old times' sake.)

so basically, my somewhat old and downright embarrassing blog has
1. seen the declaration that i'm not asexual.
2. the highlights of 2 euros and 2 world cups in there, including the greek national anthem from my underdogs-supporting stint of oh-four.
3. evidence of progress on the narcissism front - the sign offs have thankfully changed from radhika *the great* to plain radhika.
4. alot of mraz-ing at one point.
5. 2 years worth of titles that read "it's been awhile since i blogged".

it's not much, but it's my blog. now let me start ranting about the stuff i was actually planning to rant about before vinithra's tagpost made me randomly browse through the archives.

ah harry potter.

started out well. loved the uk-tourism advert side of it. and i'm glad they stuck as true as possible to the book. i do not agree with all the critics who go on about how there's too much of new info (although i do agree that quite a bit of this info should have made appearances in earlier movies) or that they don't get what's going on all the time (read the books you nutcase). i thought this movie respected the book. kudos to that.

everything was fine until halfway through the 2nd hour, the director decided that he'd rather fool around with camera techniques to successfully throw off the audience. the filmmaking drew too much attention to itself david yates. i feel that camera work should be consistent throughout a movie. you get accustomed to one way of story telling / reading the film and if the feel of the movie is randomly interjected 10 minutes at a time here and there (bourne-like hand held camera out of nowhere/twilight-esque chase through woods/animation sequence), the audience's involvement and engagement with the film can get seriously disrupted. at least mine did. it also doesn't help that for the last 20minutes i was second guessing every blackout between scenes - "gasp, is that the end of the movie?!". and i just spent the last hour trying to dig out the reviews from the 18th of nov (by reputable agents like CNN/Reuters) which said the same thing.

before i explain my second point, you have to understand that i'm not a prude. seriously, i'm not. i've only turned off the tv/computer at one movie so far, and that was bruno at a certain you-know-what-i'm-talking-about scene. so yes, i don't think i'm a prude. but i felt that that harry-hermione making out scene was taken a little too far. yes, you can argue all you want about how that was all in ron's mind, but i believe there's a line between sticking with the story and exploiting it for a little commotion. i felt that it crossed that line and i don't appreciate it, but again, that's just me.

and thirdly, i know this book is emotional - heck i cried a couple of times while reading it. on screen, i appreciate depth to the characters, but not a full-blown, pensive, character drama. yes ron, i get that you're jealous. yes harry, i get that you're worried. yes hermione, i get that you're lonely. but steve kloves, i got that all from the book, which also made sure that the sense of adventure was always a tad bit more important than all the sop. you didn't.

i came out of the movie irritated. because it came so close to being all i wanted it to be. but it didn't. for once, not because of the plot (which is what we all fear). but because of the dumbest things possible. do not experiment camera techniques on my story. do not exploit my story for publicity. and do not undermine its character.

so there you go. feel free to disagree with me whole-heartedly. but i'm just glad i had the patience to type this all out to explain my point of view. maybe some of you will see some truth in what i'm saying.

or heck, maybe another 2 years down the road, this will all be part of just another dumb post i churned out.

it's dark by 5:15 here. that's sad.
goodbye, it'll be awhile since i blog again.
radhika