Ever since college, I have taken off the week beginning Christmas and New Year's Eve. It is one of my annual and traditional vacations. A perfect time to do nothing but check up on those things you have put off for a year or maybe more.
So, in December 2011, I am...
...cleaning out a walk-in closet.
...paring down several dresser drawers.
...and, as a result, making several drop-offs at Goodwill.
...seeing my dentist about getting Invisalign to straighten my lower teeth which are getting a little squished together. This, however, wound up in a repair of a cracked tooth.
---having my annual physical, which is my holiday gift of health to myself.
And, for some mystical reason known only to me and other wizards, I am going to try and dive into the Harry Potter film series.
Yes, I know. Where have I been?
Except it didn't exactly sweep me in.
I read the first book on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. And I was thoroughly underwhelmed. To me, the whole plot was nothing but the onset of a migraine headache. And, with all the made-up words, everything looked to me like J.K. Rowling needed to run the galleys through Spell Check.
Okay, so then I went to see the first movie. Maybe a visual look at the tale would explain it all to me. And I could finally find out how some of those big words were actually pronounced.
Uh huh. And I was thoroughly underwhelmed.
Which explains why my life the past ten years has been relatively Potter-less. While people clamored to get on line to be the first to read the new pages or see the new movies, I sat on the sidelines with a broom that didn't get an inch off the ground. Miraculously, I survived the decade without Harry Potter being a part of my existence.
Okay, so the saga is now over and all the movies are already available in one complete boxset of DVDs and/or BluRays. And I'm still disconnected.
Except, in 2011, I became a fan of star Daniel Radcliffe, having seen him twice in a tour de force performance starring as J. Pierpont Finch in the latest Broadway revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." This is now in my history books as one of the best musicals I've seen. And I marveled at the talent of the once-bespectacled Radcliffe. The kid can sing, dance, act, and perhaps move a mountain from the Rockies to the Adirondacks.
Yours truly is now wondering why I missed with all that Harry Potter business.
So, courtesy of a Netflix queue as well as Direct TV video on demand, I decided to go back and see what all the Hogwarts fuss was about. Don't look for reviews as I tackle the films one at a time in succession. It would be useless for me to comment on a movie that everybody except maybe me and Kim Jong Il I saw ten years ago. Just know that it is possible. It might take me a while, but Len can still catch up to the rest of the universe.
Wish me luck. Or, however, it's spelled in the world of Harry Potter.
Dinner last night: Leftover ham sandwich, potato salad, and cole slaw.
1 comment:
Anything that gets kids to read gets a thumbs up from me. I read the Danny Dunn series as a boy and loved it. The magic is still there if kids look for it. Put down those dumb video games and pick up a book.
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