A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)   If you have ever watched a film series based on a multivolume literary tale – like, say,  The Lord of the Rings  or Twilight –  you’ve probably noticed that the first movie is the “expository” installment in which we are introduced to the characters, settings and situations of the story.  Usually, these first movies are sometimes a bit long and leisurely paced so that we can get our bearings in their universe, especially if they take place in a fantasy Utopia with magical themes and otherworldly creatures.  Second films in  continuing sagas , on the other hand, tend to flow better and with a firmer grasp on the story and characters because the introduction of characters and the setup of the overarching tale have all been dispensed with.  The pacing of the story is usually brisker – even if the running time is not particularly short – and the writers, director, and actors can get on to the meat of th...

You have to have a heart of stone - or be a Dursley - to  not  like  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.   I say this not from the perspective of a child, nor the parent of a child, nor even a voracious reader of the J.K. Rowling novels about the boy with glasses and that lightning-shaped star. Indeed, I only have the first of the five books and that, dear readers, only because my former neighbor and computer troubleshooter gave it to me before he moved to South Carolina. My taste in movies rarely goes into the realm of "family fare," even though some of my favorite films ( E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind , the  Star Wars  series, among others) are geared for young and old alike.  I must also admit that I only started reading Harry Potter when I had just about gone through most of my Tom Clancy novels, Star Wars tomes, and history books. I was not sure if I would like it as much as I do, say, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings . However, I was...