Two Great Disappointments

I've encountered two disappointing things recently, and I wanted to share so any readers here can avoid the same let-downs.

First disappointing thing: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, movie version. I've been an avid Harry Potter fan since my little sister gave me the first book and insisted that I read it. I resisted the Potter books for a long time, because I've developed a certain snobbish disdain for books held up as modern masterpieces - basically, until one of the core group of fellow readers whose opinions I trust tells me something's worth the read, I assume it's crap - simply because trite, unoriginal writers abound on bestseller lists, but I just fell completely, stupidly in love with the Potter books. The reasons I love them are varied - resurrection of reading in kids, intelligent writing that doesn't condescend, etc., etc. - but most of all I love them because they are great stories. It was inevitable that they would be turned into movies, and it was inevitable that I'd have creative differences with the directors that took the projects on, but the Order of the Phoenix really reaches new heights in this regard, and it's because they forgot about the story.

Let's start with the basics...the movie looks, as all of them have, absolutely glorious. The castle looks great, the magic looks good (though not always as I would have imagined it), the casting on the series continues to be fantastic, this time with the addition of Luna Lovegood and Prof. Umbridge, and the whole feel of the film is true to tone. The basic themes remain intact and the movie is a decent length. That's where the problem starts, really. After Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the books jumped from long-for-kids-but-manageable into the edge of Ponderous Tome territory. Here are the page counts for the series (American hardcover versions):

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 309 pages
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 352 pages
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 435 pages
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 734 pages
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 870 pages
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 652 pages
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 759 pages

Not to mention that these are pretty detailed pages, with a lot of plot happening and a lot of characters popping in and out, to say nothing of the creation of an entire wizarding world in some pretty intense detail. Like I said before, there was no way to get every single detail into the movies, and it's probably best not to, since after a point it would feel crowded and forced, but there are essential details and throw-away details in the Potter world, and the creative team in charge of the Phoenix movie seems somewhat unable to grasp this distinction. The best example I can give is of one of the most important scenes of the book and film.

If by some miracle I'm NOT the last person in the known universe to see this movie, spoilers from here until the spoiler ending alert, also in red.

The Order of the Phoenix is a group assembled to fight Lord Voldemort, to which basically all the Good Guys in the Potter books belong. Harry has been having visions of a room that he eventually finds out is the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic, where a prophecy is stored that Voldemort believes tells who will emerge victorious, Harry or Voldemort. Harry and his gang of Hogwarts cronies are eventually lured to the room by Voldemort, and they fight the Death Eaters there. Eventually the adult members of the Order of the Phoenix arrive, and the fight goes nuclear. By the end of the book, Sirius Black has been killed, and Dumbledore fights Voldemort in the lobby of the Ministry, pressing massive golden statues into service. The entire sequence is full of symbolism and Important Stuff.

In the movie, Sirius is still killed by Bellatrix Lestrange, his own relative, but the scene is stripped of all its significance. Sirius is fighting the nefarious Lucius Malfoy (still accurate), then Malfoy is knocked away and Bellatrix appears on top of a rock (??) and Avada Kedavras Sirius. No build up, no real battle, just Bellatrix showing up and zapping Sirius. In the book, Bella and Sirius have a fairly extended fight, which stands as a metaphor for Sirius's frought relationship with his family, and also allows the reader to see that Sirius and Bellatrix are both powerful wizards. This is one of the great hallmarks of the books - the bad guys aren't just cardboard cutouts, they're seriously devious, smart, powerful people. Instead, the movie's creators stripped the scene of its significance. The same thing happens when the action moves to the Ministry lobby. In the books, the statues in the lobby feature a witch, a wizard, a goblin, a centaur and a house elf, and they all come to life to help Dumbledore fight Voldemort, symbolizing a new unity between all creatures that will be necessary in the very near future. This theme carries through to the penultimate book. In the movies, the statues don't even move. Can't throw that away, guys.

End spoilers.

I'm not really sure what the answer to the longer books is...I honestly do think that if the books were split in two, filmed at the same time, and released close enough together, people would go to a two-part series. That would allow the directors to keep more detail in and pay more attention to the plot threads, rather than frantically hitting the major points and mashing whatever else can be made to fit into two hours. Order of the Phoenix was so choppy and jumpy I can't imagine anyone who wasn't already a Harry Potter fan even tolerating it, much less liking it or seeing what was so great about the series. Sad, really, to do that to a story so beloved in modern society.

So there's that.

In 2005, the Pontiac Solstice was featured on The Apprentice, and I decided that I must have one.

Sexy, no? So for the past three years or so, every time I saw one in TV or in person, I'd turn to Speed and say something about buying one, and he'd roll his eyes and call me a butthead or something and that would be the end. Let's face it, it's not a practical car for a New Englander. That being said, I'm not exactly known for my well-reasoned, logical consideration of things in the face of prettiness or shininess, so the dream endured.

Every now and then, Speed starts a conversation completely out of the blue and starts it with "I don't want you to get excited," which of course immediately makes me assume I am getting some kind of rhinestone encrusted phony being ridden by Gordie Howe carrying a pink golden retriever puppy with saddlebags stuffed with shoes from Irregular Choice to Blahnik. The last time it happened, he was telling me about how a friend of ours who is a travel agent was organizing an Alaskan cruise, and maybe that would be a honeymoon possibility. I wound up more excited about the fact that Speed had recognized he would need to fly to get to said cruise and embraced it, since the timing was all wrong for our particular honeymoon. Last week, he started up another one of those conversations, and this time it was about the Solstice! GM is having a big 0% financing thing to get rid of some older models, and Speed had crunched some numbers and found out that if the planets aligned properly, we could actually wind up paying less for a snazzy new Solstice than we currently do for my beloved Stratus.

Is that sunlight reflecting off of rhinestones I see in the distance???

It was a long shot, but I was most excited that Speed had not actually written off the past eighteen million references I'd made to wanting a Solstice. On Wednesday, we went out to Danvers to test drive one, and oh. em. gee. the crushing, inexplicable disappointment.

Now, when you look at that car, you kind of assume power, no? I know I sure as shit did, but man, my Stratus could wipe the floor with it. It's only got a 2.4L engine in it, and it feels like it. The power steering, had we bought it, would have been the most effective exercise machine we'd ever bought, and I would have had arms like a power lifter after a week of driving it, just from cranking that wheel around. The bad kind of road feel abounded...I should feel a connection to the road, not every dimple in the asphalt jarring my cocyx into a fine powder. The dash gauges were canted weirdly so you couldn't see them well, and the steering wheel felt cheap as shit...flat on the edge, and Speed thinks it was hollow. Besides all this, it's got Fiero level maintenance problems (yes, the Fiero whose engine block you had to lift to change the oil), requiring a mechanic to change the oil and being outfitted with a battery that was all but inaccessible, so you'd need a mechanic to remove shit to replace THAT, too.

Just to add insult to injury, it also did not transform into Jazz from Transformers.

If a car doesn't transform into a racist stereotype from outer space, I want no part of it.

Very disappointing, and further proof that Americans don't really have their priorities in order viz. cars. For the St. Patrick's Day parade this past March, we drove two Ford Mustangs, and were underwhelmed to the point of rage at their wussiness. I have talked about this before, but the Mustang is considered one of the Great American Cars, and while the re-style of the Mustang does not fit my own personal taste, it's still clearly geared towards the consumer who wants a badass car. Shouldn't that include some power? Shouldn't badassery involve superior driveability? I realize we were driving base models and all, but come on, Ford. Of course, now I can't just blame Ford, since Pontiac is up to the same tricks. There are certain things that appearance can overcome (see above re: my wanting a car that's really only appropriate to Miami), but when you're talking cars, I really don't see how appearance should overcome things like "how the car goes vroom." Get with the program, America.