Today was not my birthday. Regardless, a few friends and I went out for dinner to celebrate my birthday. I had a thank you gift in my hand, which gave the impression that it was my birthday, so we ran with that in case we got free things.
We didn't, which should have been the first indication that the restaurant wasn't that brilliant.
La Dolce Vita is a nice looking Italian restaurant on Park Road in Milton. It is situated just below the Eiffel Tower, which (as I'm sure my friends and I were not the first to point out) makes no sense whatsoever. Indication number 2.
The table service was adequate, although we did wait a while for the bill, even after asking at the counter for it. The champagne was fine (for cheapish stuff) and the waitress did suggest getting the bottle rather than glasses because it'd be cheaper, which was nice of her.
The table was on a slight slant, but otherwise nicely painted. Work had gone into those tables, as my friend noted.
The main issue I had with this place was just the food itself. Nothing major really, just the entire point of going out for dinner in the first place. I got the risotto and my friend got the gnocchi, and we had a bite of each other's food; they tasted about the same. It was all kind of bland and didn't even have a garnish, which personally I think is a big mistake for that type of eatery. Nothing tasted bad, it just really wasn't good.
Honestly, if you are going to have an Italian restaurant below a French icon, at least serve good food. Then maybe I could overlook your ignorance of basic geography. But when the lunch I made today (boiled rice with oyster sauce, soy sauce and chilli sauce stirred through it) almost tasted nicer than the meal I paid $30 for, there are no excuses.
My advice is that the chefs should spend the time that they are clearly not spending learning to cook studying geography instead.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1.
Firstly, let me just say that all things are relative. Compared to the earlier Harry Potter films, this one is brilliant. The script has improved, the cinematography is great and the main trio have actually learnt to act. There were fewer moments on screen where I wanted to cringe from the corniness and a couple of really well done moments.
Having said that, it still kind of blows.
Taking a really, really good book and turning it into a film is a great way to make money. To create a work of art, though, you can’t just take the book, pluck out the important scenes and act them out then add in some special effects. This is the biggest problem with the whole Harry Potter film franchise; they add nothing of value to the books. Sure, we didn’t have Hagrid’s “I shouldn’t have told you that!” line in the books, but there was a reason: that line sucked and was NOT funny. The novels had so much more detail in them that you could not translate onto the screen, making a direct film translation of them just a less detailed and choppier version of exactly the same story, which is entertaining enough, but entirely not the point of films.
This film leaves out fun details, as any film is likely to do. In the film, Ron just follows along on the quest with Harry and Hermione with no questions asked. In the books, he is believed by Hogwarts and the Ministry to be at home, bedridden with a bad case of Spattergroit, with the family ghoul covering for him in case anyone checks. In the books, there is a Taboo placed on the name Voldemort, enabling the Death Eaters and Snatchers to easily find anyone who says the word, breaking through protective enchantments, ultimately leading to the wizard trio’s capture. In the film Harry and Hermione just stop saying the name for a reason not ever clearly explained. They get caught not by accidentally saying the Dark Lord’s name, but during their (on foot) escape from Xenophilius Lovegood’s home. While these cases are annoying, it is understandable that all details from the books cannot possibly be included in the movies.
At the same time, though, details are sometimes just changed for no good reason whatsoever, which is much more annoying to someone who has read the books thoroughly. Harry is meant to attend Fleur and Bill’s wedding disguised by Polyjuice Potion as “Cousin Barney” (which would have been funny to watch on screen and just made sense) but in the film he just rocked up as Harry Potter. Also missing was Viktor Krum, who surely wouldn’t have been that hard to include. This random ball of light falls out of the sky part way through the wedding to warn the guests of the fall of the Ministry of Magic, rather than Kingsley Shacklebolt’s lynx Patronus, which is meant to deliver the message. In fact, Patronus charms are hardly used at all for communication in the film, despite being used a lot by the Order of the Phoenix in the book. After the wedding is interrupted, Harry, Ron and Hermione are supposed to disapparate to Tottenham Court Road. In the movie, they go to some other road. There is no good reason for this, they just changed it. The trio never whip out the invisibility cloak, which would have been pretty useful to them more than once, even though they used it a lot on the books. They also didn’t send Harry and Hermione to Godric’s Hollow disguised as a Muggle couple in the film, but still had time for a conversation between the two which went something like this:
“Harry, being the stuck up smart ass I always am in the movies, I still say we should have used polyjuice potion.”
“Shut up Hermione, I’m Harry Potter, Harry, Harry Potter and I know best and needed yet another excuse to make some heartfelt speech about my past that the audience is meant to find inspiring or something.”
These little moments of heartfelt dialogue (there is another great speech given later by Ron) are really just bad versions of book passages. Whoever wrote the script has clearly never been told “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
Another big downfall of this movie is the fact that it really obviously feels like half of a film. Splitting the book into two movies may have been a great idea, enabling thee filmmakers to include more detail than otherwise, but this was just done really, really badly. So much of this film was just Hermione and Harry sitting around in a forest moping about how much their lives have changed or dancing badly to the radio. It dragged out forever until finally there were a few scenes of action , from the trip to the Lovegoods’, to the Malfoy Manor, to Shell Cottage, then a quick cliffhanger ending involving Voldemort practically molesting the corpse of Dumbledore, before the movie abruptly ended. It may have been a part 1, but it really still should have been stronger as a standalone film. Rather than launching straight into the action at the start of the film in some short, choppy, fast paced scenes, then fizzling into a long, drawn out bicker session of Ron vs. The World, before finally getting interesting then ending, it would have been nice if it had followed a stronger three act film structure. The makers (or money-makers) of the film seemed to be thinking that if they did it this way, everyone would be hanging out to see the second part and they’d rake in a lot more money. What they seem to have failed to notice is that everyone is going to go see the second part anyway because it is the FINAL HARRY POTTER FILM. They’ve seen the story up until now, they will want to see what happens next. It would have been possible to make a decent film AND get rich. As it is, this film just felt like it lacked a strong drive.
Some things were done really well in this film, though. Dobby was wonderful, although seriously left out of the series altogether. The scene right at the end where he dies was set up to be the heart wrenching finale, but they never gave him enough screen time for people to really get attached. Those who have followed the books would get it, but it seems (and I have read) that others would have been like “Oh, dang, Dobby’s dead....who was that again?” Without giving his character enough detail previously, his heroic rescue and untimely death really weren’t as spectacular as they should have been. They certainly should not have been the action packed climax at the end of the movie. Dobby even seems tacked onto the scene where Kreacher is sent to find Mundungus Fletcher. Dobby did not help out at this point in the book and there was no need for him to do so in the film. It seems like during the making of the film someone realised Dobby didn’t have enough of a presence and added him in somewhere they thought no one would notice. But even though he was slightly misused and underrated, he was cute, well animated and well voice acted and really felt the way Dobby should.
The scene where Hermione, Ron and several other members of the Order of the Phoenix take Polyjuice Potion to look like Harry was great. Daniel Radcliffe in a lacy bra was almost worth sitting through the rest of the film. There are some other moments well worth seeing, as well as some brilliant acting.
If this were just a film, and not a film based on one of the best books ever written, chances are I’d probably have liked it more. However, rather than having a film plot, it has a dumbed down book plot, which is left full of holes. Overall the story from the novel has not been adapted well to the screen. It annoyed me the whole way through, and though it was entertaining, it could either have been done so much better, or not done at all. The last movie, and Warner Bros’ last chance at getting it right better be amazing, or to me, these films will always be half-assed attempts at getting rich off JK Rowling’s story.
PS I am still pissed off at Peeves being cut from the films.
Having said that, it still kind of blows.
Taking a really, really good book and turning it into a film is a great way to make money. To create a work of art, though, you can’t just take the book, pluck out the important scenes and act them out then add in some special effects. This is the biggest problem with the whole Harry Potter film franchise; they add nothing of value to the books. Sure, we didn’t have Hagrid’s “I shouldn’t have told you that!” line in the books, but there was a reason: that line sucked and was NOT funny. The novels had so much more detail in them that you could not translate onto the screen, making a direct film translation of them just a less detailed and choppier version of exactly the same story, which is entertaining enough, but entirely not the point of films.
This film leaves out fun details, as any film is likely to do. In the film, Ron just follows along on the quest with Harry and Hermione with no questions asked. In the books, he is believed by Hogwarts and the Ministry to be at home, bedridden with a bad case of Spattergroit, with the family ghoul covering for him in case anyone checks. In the books, there is a Taboo placed on the name Voldemort, enabling the Death Eaters and Snatchers to easily find anyone who says the word, breaking through protective enchantments, ultimately leading to the wizard trio’s capture. In the film Harry and Hermione just stop saying the name for a reason not ever clearly explained. They get caught not by accidentally saying the Dark Lord’s name, but during their (on foot) escape from Xenophilius Lovegood’s home. While these cases are annoying, it is understandable that all details from the books cannot possibly be included in the movies.
At the same time, though, details are sometimes just changed for no good reason whatsoever, which is much more annoying to someone who has read the books thoroughly. Harry is meant to attend Fleur and Bill’s wedding disguised by Polyjuice Potion as “Cousin Barney” (which would have been funny to watch on screen and just made sense) but in the film he just rocked up as Harry Potter. Also missing was Viktor Krum, who surely wouldn’t have been that hard to include. This random ball of light falls out of the sky part way through the wedding to warn the guests of the fall of the Ministry of Magic, rather than Kingsley Shacklebolt’s lynx Patronus, which is meant to deliver the message. In fact, Patronus charms are hardly used at all for communication in the film, despite being used a lot by the Order of the Phoenix in the book. After the wedding is interrupted, Harry, Ron and Hermione are supposed to disapparate to Tottenham Court Road. In the movie, they go to some other road. There is no good reason for this, they just changed it. The trio never whip out the invisibility cloak, which would have been pretty useful to them more than once, even though they used it a lot on the books. They also didn’t send Harry and Hermione to Godric’s Hollow disguised as a Muggle couple in the film, but still had time for a conversation between the two which went something like this:
“Harry, being the stuck up smart ass I always am in the movies, I still say we should have used polyjuice potion.”
“Shut up Hermione, I’m Harry Potter, Harry, Harry Potter and I know best and needed yet another excuse to make some heartfelt speech about my past that the audience is meant to find inspiring or something.”
These little moments of heartfelt dialogue (there is another great speech given later by Ron) are really just bad versions of book passages. Whoever wrote the script has clearly never been told “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
Another big downfall of this movie is the fact that it really obviously feels like half of a film. Splitting the book into two movies may have been a great idea, enabling thee filmmakers to include more detail than otherwise, but this was just done really, really badly. So much of this film was just Hermione and Harry sitting around in a forest moping about how much their lives have changed or dancing badly to the radio. It dragged out forever until finally there were a few scenes of action , from the trip to the Lovegoods’, to the Malfoy Manor, to Shell Cottage, then a quick cliffhanger ending involving Voldemort practically molesting the corpse of Dumbledore, before the movie abruptly ended. It may have been a part 1, but it really still should have been stronger as a standalone film. Rather than launching straight into the action at the start of the film in some short, choppy, fast paced scenes, then fizzling into a long, drawn out bicker session of Ron vs. The World, before finally getting interesting then ending, it would have been nice if it had followed a stronger three act film structure. The makers (or money-makers) of the film seemed to be thinking that if they did it this way, everyone would be hanging out to see the second part and they’d rake in a lot more money. What they seem to have failed to notice is that everyone is going to go see the second part anyway because it is the FINAL HARRY POTTER FILM. They’ve seen the story up until now, they will want to see what happens next. It would have been possible to make a decent film AND get rich. As it is, this film just felt like it lacked a strong drive.
Some things were done really well in this film, though. Dobby was wonderful, although seriously left out of the series altogether. The scene right at the end where he dies was set up to be the heart wrenching finale, but they never gave him enough screen time for people to really get attached. Those who have followed the books would get it, but it seems (and I have read) that others would have been like “Oh, dang, Dobby’s dead....who was that again?” Without giving his character enough detail previously, his heroic rescue and untimely death really weren’t as spectacular as they should have been. They certainly should not have been the action packed climax at the end of the movie. Dobby even seems tacked onto the scene where Kreacher is sent to find Mundungus Fletcher. Dobby did not help out at this point in the book and there was no need for him to do so in the film. It seems like during the making of the film someone realised Dobby didn’t have enough of a presence and added him in somewhere they thought no one would notice. But even though he was slightly misused and underrated, he was cute, well animated and well voice acted and really felt the way Dobby should.
The scene where Hermione, Ron and several other members of the Order of the Phoenix take Polyjuice Potion to look like Harry was great. Daniel Radcliffe in a lacy bra was almost worth sitting through the rest of the film. There are some other moments well worth seeing, as well as some brilliant acting.
If this were just a film, and not a film based on one of the best books ever written, chances are I’d probably have liked it more. However, rather than having a film plot, it has a dumbed down book plot, which is left full of holes. Overall the story from the novel has not been adapted well to the screen. It annoyed me the whole way through, and though it was entertaining, it could either have been done so much better, or not done at all. The last movie, and Warner Bros’ last chance at getting it right better be amazing, or to me, these films will always be half-assed attempts at getting rich off JK Rowling’s story.
PS I am still pissed off at Peeves being cut from the films.
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