I am a great Harry Potter fan myself (the kids only get to read it when the adults have finished). The movie is interesting for a couple of reasons. As a movie, if the book were unknown, it is not a great movie (hard to imagine once you have read the books). But becuase the books are so well loved and the movie follows them in intimate detail the experience of watching it is magnificient (we went as a family and were all glued - my 7 year old mentioning all the characters by name as they appeared).
I mention this because it is an oddity in the film world, and one which bears some thoughts about convergence of media, the books in combination with the movie are a wonderful teaching aid for primary schools, but my own son's school avoided them because they were worried about "Christian" parents objecting and frightening scenes - a case of a school avoiding its duty to educate when a wonderful text is dropped in their lap (considering the amount of students reading thing off their own bat).
My kids like your own talked about Harry Potter for a week afterwards (educationalists will state that children cannot concentrate for more than a few minutes - what rubbish mine could not take their eyes or thoughts off the screen for its entire length - which shows how quality works, they spoke of nothing else all the way home and Harry and his world has become part of their universe and mine as well).
The left needs to be more sympathetic to popular culture and act as its protectors against commercial excess. We should worry less on its political content and more about its general quality. I am the firm believer that the point of reviewing anything is to find the points of merit within a work and NOT try and give reasons why something should be avoided (as professional reveiwers nearly always do). But basically I am just glad to find another Harry fan.
Greg
--- Message Received --- From: Diane Monaco <dmonaco at pop3.utoledo.edu> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 14:11:36 -0500 Subject: Re: TV /Violence
Joanna and Greg,
Thanks for a great discussion. I have also had an unsettling feeling watching TV for a period of time even as a child as Joanna mentioned. Of course as a child I never thought about why I felt as I did let alone pinpoint the problem. I now know that it is the discontinuous nature of ALL the programming in the aggregate that is unsettling to me -- and I really extend this to more than just commercials breaking up the continuity. When I watch a movie -- a good movie -- it generally leaves me with thoughts and impressions that I want to think about, and a commercial or an unrelated show that immediately follows prevents me from doing so. I just took my children to the movie theater yesterday to see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and since that time that is all they've been talking about even after reading all four volumes before the movie...even this morning at breakfast. WOW! I don't think watching Harry Potter on TV followed by a tooth paste commercial...or Arthur: the world's most famous aardvark..or an educational PBS animal special would allow Harry Potter thoughts to linger. I think they ALL would force anyone to stop thinking about Harry Potter. And I don't want them to stop thinking about that...not just yet anyway...especially not with today's exorbitant movie prices!
On a different but related note, I now have a problem enjoying just one lousy "continuous" 30 minute show without my own mind breaking up continuity with thoughts of the 3 books I must review by the end of April, the paper I must revise, the report I must write, the essays I must grade...
Diane
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Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Modular And Integrated Design - programing power for all
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