stonebender | Day O Entertainment (Reply)

Saw the new Harry Potter yesterday with

sogwife. It was O. K. I liked it as much as I liked any of the movies. If I haven't said this already, I'm not a huge fan of the Harry Potter franchise. I don't dislike them. I don't really like them. I read the books and almost immediately forget all of the details. Which I subsequently remember upon watching the movies. This was the first of the films that had any serious disconnect between what I expected from reading the book and what was in the movie. Not so much in the details (except I agree with

epi_lj's problem with screenwriter or director's decision to water down the difficulties between Harry Potter and his friends). I also remember thinking that the scene during the Quiddich match with the death eaters was much darker and a more interesting than the movie version.

Anybody else think that Moaning Myrtle looks like Harry Potter in drag?

Thanks to

wild_irises,

serenejournal and I got to see a play for free at the Aurora theater in Berkeley after the movie.

We saw Marius by Marcel Pagnol. Back in the day I was a dramatic arts major at UC Berkeley. So you'd think I might be aware of this playwright, but I wasn't. As I said

wild_irises sent me a link to a Bay Area theater promotion which gave out free theater tickets to several theaters in the area. I tried to get tickets to the Berkeley Reps Glass Menagerie but those went quickly. I got worried that I might not be able to get a ticket to a theater near me. They were giving out tickets to theaters in Campbell for example. So I basically chose my play by the venue. I'd never been to the Aurora and it was close to the Berkeley Rep. So that's what I grabbed.

Turns out we got lucky. Marius isn't a particularly deep or moving play, but it had some very sweet moments. Competent, if not inspired, performances. I especially liked the woman who played Fanny and Marius's father Cesar. It is a small theater I guess about 160 seats. We had front row seats. As a matter of fact, I was as close to being on stage as possible. I literally had my feet under a bench on stage where Cesar slept in the opening of the play. When I realized how close to the stage I was, I joked with the ushers that an actor could end up in my lap. I wasn't far wrong and if it had been the actor playing Fanny that would have been a distinct plus! :-)

After going a much longer time than I wanted without seeing much of

serenejournal. We have been seeing each other more. I like these new schedule rules she has :-)