The Potter Era

So, this post has been a long time coming.

On a late night jaunt along the Charles River (yeah, so I may have forgot to mention that I'm at MIT now =P), I couldn't help but thinking that if I had Harry's Firebolt and I went flying over the Charles it would look exactly like the scene from the Order of the Phoenix movie where the Advance Guard is flying Harry across the Thames River. Of course that naturally led me to think of the logical counterpart of the much more difficult escape from Privet Drive in Book 7. Well now I was clearly in a Harry Potter mood (then again I always do have a few brain cycles committed to charting future HP possibilities) and I just had to write this entry with my thoughts on Deathly Hallows and the entire Potter Era. So from the very beginning...

When I woke up on a dull, gray Tuesday, our story starts. I was not yet 11 and I was at Stanford for CTY. As I walked through the campus, I saw people dressed in the strangest robes of the most shocking colors conversing in hushed voices: "You-Know-What is here at last!". Owls were flying in broad daylight. As a mere Muggle, I could not understand the clamor over the release of a new book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But that night I returned to my dorm to find an unflinching tabby cat with square green markings around its eyes and a copy of Goblet of Fire waiting for me in a bundle by my doorstep.

I picked up the first three books to start reading them in order and I instantly fell in love with the black-haired, bespectacled boy (say that ten times fast, Fred) with the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. His story became my story. His joys my joys. His sorrows my sorrows. I most definitely grew up and learned many of my life lessons with Harry (and Ron and Hermione). Just to name a few...

1. How to choose your friends: carefully, especially beware blonde-haired sons of Death Eaters.
2. What to do when you're in a new place: try new things, like Quidditch!
3. Best way to make new friends: save them from a mountain troll.
4. How to deal with other people when they hate you, for example when you are widely suspected to be the Heir of Slytherin, or of cheating to enter the Triwizard Tournament illegally, or of lying about the return of a certain Dark Lord, etc...
5. How to cope with a troubled family life like say if your parents were murdered by the most evil sorcerer of all time, your godfather was wrongly imprisoned for 12 years, and your aunt and uncle force you to live in a cupboard under the stairs for 10 years of your life.
6. How to take an insane courseload: borrow a Time Turner! (Thanks Hermione.)
7. How to get a detention: Tell your hooked-nose, greasy-haired potions master -- "There's no need to call me, sir, Professor." Or better yet, call him a coward and he might even throw in a Levicorpus for free.
   
8. How to get lost: Follow Neville and/or keep walking up the 142 staircases that keep moving and changing.
9. How to get unlost: Borrow the Marauder's Map. (Thanks Moony, Padfoot and Prongs. No thanks to Wormtail.)
10. How to get whatever you need: Concentrating hard on what you need, walk three times back and forth past the blank stretch of wall opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy on the seventh floor.
11. How to figure out girls: err, scratch that, they're mental (Seriously, Hermione, listen to Ron for once. You should write that book on how they think =P)

So, I guess I didn't get to do a Deathly Hallows analysis. That'll have to wait for another post so I can do it full justice.

-- Arkajit

Harry Potter Magic Meets Science

First, Invisibility Cloaks, now Wingardium Leviosa, what next? :) Check out this article:

Levitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported today by physicists.

	In theory the discovery could be used to levitate a person

In earlier work the same team of theoretical physicists showed that invisibility cloaks are feasible.

Now, in another report that sounds like it comes out of the pages of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an 'incredible levitation effects' by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together.

I See Dead People

No, really I do! Or maybe I've just been seeing Haley Joel Osment a lot. Seriously, I can't believe it. In the past couple of weeks, by some odd twist of chance, I've happened across his three major hit movies. And I saw them in reverse chronological order (of when they were released), I might add: A.I. (2001), Pay It Forward (2000), and The Sixth Sense (1999). Regardless, they're still 6-8 years old which just shows how up-to-date I am on current movies.

But wow, the boy can act! Every one of these performances was absolutely spectacular. His vivid character portrayals even made me stick with an otherwise excruciatingly long, surreal A.I. for the full 146 minutes (wow was that really how long it was -- it felt like 180 at least, even longer than Lord of the Rings). His role as David, the "Mecha" robot child that can love, in A.I. was the first one I saw him in. It was certainly a moving portrayal -- David's innocence and naivete was a refreshing contrast especially against the snarky character of Jake Thomas, his organic brother (who I shall always remember as Lizzie McGuire's little brother). Besides, it's a space-age Pinocchio, and that certainly has its appeal as well. Osment's acting made David, as a robot, appear more human than many of the "real" humans in the movie, especially Brendan Gleeson's (of Harry Potter Mad-Eye Moody fame) crazy character at the inhumane flesh fair. And unlike in the other two movies, Osment is really the sole leading actor in this film -- there is no main old actor counterpart. Perhaps because of this prolonged focus, Osment's acting was even more remarkable in that he was able to pull the movie along with him.


While I loved his character in A.I., my personal favorite was his role as Trevor McKinney in Pay It Forward. Here he is complemented by the duo of Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. But Osment is not one to be overshadowed and again delivers an extraordinary performance that makes him stand out. The concept behind the movie is quite intriguing in its own right. Trevor's 'pay it forward' concept puts an enormous faith in human goodness. He pays a complete stranger a favor and then instead of asking him to pay it back, asks him to pay it forward to three other people. And voila, we get a branching effect, (one could call it a 'favor tree' with 3^n 'favor leaves' at depth n). Osment perfectly captures the essence of his character again -- the shy, deeply emotional and intelligent boy. Osment really speaks to the audience with his eyes and his facial expressions. And the ending, well let's just say it's tragic and you have to see it for yourself *tear*.

That brings us to the final movie I watched, his breakthrough movie, The Sixth Sense. Though attentive movie-goers would have remembered Osment from his brief appearance as Tom Hank's son in Forrest Gump, this was the movie that first brought him to widespread recognition. And what a complex character Osment takes on in this movie! His interactions with Bruce Willis' character are really the center-piece of the movie. Osment's character speaks candidly and openly which is heartening when artifice and artificiality is the norm. The things that I loved about his performance in Pay It Forward - his facial expressions, his way of speaking to the audience with his eyes - drew me to his character again. Of course, the "I see dead people" line has become a cult favorite. But the scene I liked the most is when Osment and Willis are talking in the hallway of his school. Osment speaks with almost disturbing clarity, "You ever feel the prickly things on the back of your neck?...And the tiny hairs on your arm, you know when they stand up?". That scene epitomizes for me what makes his acting so great. It was well-deserving of the Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The movie is truly driven by the human emotions and superb acting of Osment and Willis. But "Tommy Tammisimo sucked big time".

Well, I'm certainly looking forward to his future movies and to see how he matures as an actor. :)

-- Arkajit