Have Car, Will Travel - Part 2
Nov. 22nd, 2005 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqI've officially fallen off the WW wagon, I think I had about a weeks worth of food on Monday. It's 10 AM Tuesday, and I'm still full from last night. I'll be up a few pounds on weigh-day and I don't care.
Breakfast was at the 9th Avenue Diner, where I had one of the best Benny's I've ever had - instead of back bacon, it had a farmer's sausage. That, the english muffin, two eggs and the hollandaise sauce, and I was pretty much good for the day. As a conceit to good dietary practices, I skipped the hash browns and had mixed fruit instead.
For lunch I had candy.
Supper was at one of the restaurants that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
garething recommended - Kam's Singapore Restaurant (Davie, between Burrard and Thurlow). It was damn good. We had the Veggie Pad Thai, Coconut Rice, Ginger Beef and Chicken & Veggies in Black Bean Sauce. It was all really good. Spicy, but not stupid spicy. And it was all spicy in different ways, so that you never really got used to one flavour, so you got it good and hard with every bite (assuming you eat like a normal person and not like a Romulan). The Ginger beef was especially good because it was different from what I'm used to in Cowtown. In Calgary, ginger beef is always the same style (albeit there are differences in quality), namely shredded and dee fried, then mixed with some veggies and doused in ginger sauce. Kam's was different - I suspect they pan fried the beef instead of deep frying. As I mentioned, it was spicy, but you didn't really feel it on your tongue - it was more a back-of-the-throat spicy, that you felt, and raised a sweat, but didn't have you begging for mercy. I also had a blended coconut/leechee drink called Boo Boo's Special that was damn tasty and was just the sort of creamy goodness that went well with a spicy meal.
To add insult to injury, we went to Calhouns for a late-night coffee and I had a hot chocolate and peanut butter cookie.
But I didn't just stuff my face in Vancouver, oh no, I also went to see The Goblet of Fire. It was good, better than the novel I think.
The problem with the novel is that it has a ton of useless filler (the World Quidditch Match, which is the first 100 pages of the book and only about five minutes of the movie. and Hermione's House Elf liberation sub-plot). Rowling also repeated herself a lot in the book (how many scenes of Hermione riding Harry's ass about studying/preparing for the next Goblet challenge do we really need?)
The movie boils this wall down to a thick soup of important plot points. The World Quidditch match for example is set up, but we don't actually see the game itself, it serves to set up Victor Krum and Barty Crouch Jr. We then jump to Hogwarts where the Tri-Wizard tournament is set up along with the exchange students. Boom - 200 pages done in the first 15 minutes of the movie. The bad news is that it jumps around so much in the first 15 minutes, that it seems very choppy. This made me less forgiving of later transitions in the movie, where I probably wouldn't have been otherwise.
A much welcome chunk of high comedy occurs in the middle of the movie as we see the characters deal with the embarrassing spectacle of the Yule Ball, though it becomes high tragedy due to the thoughtless actions of teenage boys. Am I the only one who thought this sequence was more nerve racking then the various Tri-Wizard challenges? Of course, for me, asking someone out is roughly equivalent to facing a fire-breathing dragon.
As an aside, I love that Longbottom is growing a pair and not being such a whipping boy.
The Goblet of Fire is a pretty punk book and the movie reflects that. Cedric Diggory is, of course, doomed and it's hard to watch him on screen knowing what's coming. Likewise, it's hard to see Mad-Eye Moody as a sympathetic friend of Harry knowing that it's not really him. This lead to a discussion after the movie as to whether reading the books enhances the movie watching experience or distracts from it. I think a good case can be made for both. However, Rowling is improving as an author (I look forward to watching the movie version of the Half-Blood Prince, which I think was her strongest narrative yet) and I think the movies will also improve greatly.
How does this one compare to others? The Philosopher's Stone suffers from having to set up the premise - we need to know about the wizarding world and Harry's unusualplace in it. We have to discover Hogwarts and Harry's friends. It's a good movie, but partly this is because the source novel is short.
The Chamber of Secrets is Rowlings weakest book and also the worst of the movies. It suffers from some pretty awful editing, so that the climax, when it occurs is largely unexplained. The Goblet of Fire at least gives you sufficient hints about the outcome that an observant viewer can figure everything out without having read the book.
The Prisoner of Azkaban was the first truly great movie in this franchise, offering genuine character development, large additions of talented actors to the stable of secondary characters and a compelling plot. I think it is a slightly better novel and book then The Goblet of Fire.
I look forward to the next two movies because the next two novels are better then 3 & 4. The Order of the Phoenix sees a Harry Potter who begins to act instead of react, which is a welcome and logical change to a character approaching adulthood.
The Half-Blood Prince sees the character's becoming stronger still and all come into their own. It also shows how Voldemort's campaign is sending violent ripples across Rowling's magical society. It's good to see an evil villain doing evil, villainous things. If he's just a serial killer he's only a remote, random threat to most people and they go about their lives. A terrorist army making constant attacks on society will make everyone paranoid though and we see this in book six. This book also has the best plotting and a fantastic (cinematographically) climax.
But back to The Goblet of Fire. As a movie it's pretty good, maybe not up to The Prisoner of Azkaban, but still a close second and well worth your ten bucks.
Breakfast was at the 9th Avenue Diner, where I had one of the best Benny's I've ever had - instead of back bacon, it had a farmer's sausage. That, the english muffin, two eggs and the hollandaise sauce, and I was pretty much good for the day. As a conceit to good dietary practices, I skipped the hash browns and had mixed fruit instead.
For lunch I had candy.
Supper was at one of the restaurants that
garething recommended - Kam's Singapore Restaurant (Davie, between Burrard and Thurlow). It was damn good. We had the Veggie Pad Thai, Coconut Rice, Ginger Beef and Chicken & Veggies in Black Bean Sauce. It was all really good. Spicy, but not stupid spicy. And it was all spicy in different ways, so that you never really got used to one flavour, so you got it good and hard with every bite (assuming you eat like a normal person and not like a Romulan). The Ginger beef was especially good because it was different from what I'm used to in Cowtown. In Calgary, ginger beef is always the same style (albeit there are differences in quality), namely shredded and dee fried, then mixed with some veggies and doused in ginger sauce. Kam's was different - I suspect they pan fried the beef instead of deep frying. As I mentioned, it was spicy, but you didn't really feel it on your tongue - it was more a back-of-the-throat spicy, that you felt, and raised a sweat, but didn't have you begging for mercy. I also had a blended coconut/leechee drink called Boo Boo's Special that was damn tasty and was just the sort of creamy goodness that went well with a spicy meal.To add insult to injury, we went to Calhouns for a late-night coffee and I had a hot chocolate and peanut butter cookie.
But I didn't just stuff my face in Vancouver, oh no, I also went to see The Goblet of Fire. It was good, better than the novel I think.
The problem with the novel is that it has a ton of useless filler (the World Quidditch Match, which is the first 100 pages of the book and only about five minutes of the movie. and Hermione's House Elf liberation sub-plot). Rowling also repeated herself a lot in the book (how many scenes of Hermione riding Harry's ass about studying/preparing for the next Goblet challenge do we really need?)
The movie boils this wall down to a thick soup of important plot points. The World Quidditch match for example is set up, but we don't actually see the game itself, it serves to set up Victor Krum and Barty Crouch Jr. We then jump to Hogwarts where the Tri-Wizard tournament is set up along with the exchange students. Boom - 200 pages done in the first 15 minutes of the movie. The bad news is that it jumps around so much in the first 15 minutes, that it seems very choppy. This made me less forgiving of later transitions in the movie, where I probably wouldn't have been otherwise.
A much welcome chunk of high comedy occurs in the middle of the movie as we see the characters deal with the embarrassing spectacle of the Yule Ball, though it becomes high tragedy due to the thoughtless actions of teenage boys. Am I the only one who thought this sequence was more nerve racking then the various Tri-Wizard challenges? Of course, for me, asking someone out is roughly equivalent to facing a fire-breathing dragon.
As an aside, I love that Longbottom is growing a pair and not being such a whipping boy.
The Goblet of Fire is a pretty punk book and the movie reflects that. Cedric Diggory is, of course, doomed and it's hard to watch him on screen knowing what's coming. Likewise, it's hard to see Mad-Eye Moody as a sympathetic friend of Harry knowing that it's not really him. This lead to a discussion after the movie as to whether reading the books enhances the movie watching experience or distracts from it. I think a good case can be made for both. However, Rowling is improving as an author (I look forward to watching the movie version of the Half-Blood Prince, which I think was her strongest narrative yet) and I think the movies will also improve greatly.
How does this one compare to others? The Philosopher's Stone suffers from having to set up the premise - we need to know about the wizarding world and Harry's unusualplace in it. We have to discover Hogwarts and Harry's friends. It's a good movie, but partly this is because the source novel is short.
The Chamber of Secrets is Rowlings weakest book and also the worst of the movies. It suffers from some pretty awful editing, so that the climax, when it occurs is largely unexplained. The Goblet of Fire at least gives you sufficient hints about the outcome that an observant viewer can figure everything out without having read the book.
The Prisoner of Azkaban was the first truly great movie in this franchise, offering genuine character development, large additions of talented actors to the stable of secondary characters and a compelling plot. I think it is a slightly better novel and book then The Goblet of Fire.
I look forward to the next two movies because the next two novels are better then 3 & 4. The Order of the Phoenix sees a Harry Potter who begins to act instead of react, which is a welcome and logical change to a character approaching adulthood.
The Half-Blood Prince sees the character's becoming stronger still and all come into their own. It also shows how Voldemort's campaign is sending violent ripples across Rowling's magical society. It's good to see an evil villain doing evil, villainous things. If he's just a serial killer he's only a remote, random threat to most people and they go about their lives. A terrorist army making constant attacks on society will make everyone paranoid though and we see this in book six. This book also has the best plotting and a fantastic (cinematographically) climax.
But back to The Goblet of Fire. As a movie it's pretty good, maybe not up to The Prisoner of Azkaban, but still a close second and well worth your ten bucks.
