Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Larry Crowne (and HPWI)

I went to see Larry Crowne on Sunday because ... I don't actually know why.  It seemed like Tom Hanks' CD financial option - normal people don't like low interest rates on savings accounts, so we might buy a CD to get a better rate without having to do anything extra.  Tom can write, direct, produce, and anchor a movie without a ton of effort and collect all the box office, so why not?  It was actually much better than I expected - the slew of supporting characters were pretty funny in each of their 5-15 minutes of screen time.  Hanks and Julia Roberts were fine, too, but there was almost as little character arc as Transformers.  The characters make progress, but there's no real villain or obstacle - imagine Harry Potter, but without Voldemort or Snape or any Malfoys, just Filch as a "nemesis."  Might have some fun stories about wizarding school, but would anyone really care about the story?  Same problem here.

Harry Potter What-If #5:
What If Harry, Ron, and Hermione remember what their parents told them (maybe not the Dursleys), and don't get in a traincar with a strange sleeping man?  Dementors get Harry right off, but the murder of a well-known child probably turns the Ministry against dementors.  With nothing else to lose, the dementors start feeding indiscriminately, and as patronuses are apparently incredibly rare, I think they polish off Muggles and wizards in a spectacular rampage.  If the wizards defeat the dementors, the wizarding world is too weak to resist a resurrected Voldemort, but if not, the dementors take over and either slaughter the world or put together some kind of Matrix to keep breeding their food.  Either way bad news, so remember kids: trust strangers or the world will end!

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