Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix Review.

Ray and I went to the new movie yesterday. I'm not really in a mood to tell little stories about how our lives are going right now (my story brain is tied up in a book), which is a shame, because otherwise I would tell you about our walk to Chik-fil-A, or how Ray and I got in a fight over being quiet during a movie.

The movie itself was pretty good, much better than the last one. The director actually directed, the writer wrote, the actors acted...JK Rowling's longest book was fearlessly condensed down to its nutshell. It wasn't as good as The Prisoner of Azkaban, but probably my second favorite of the series.

Reponsibility and frustration were the cores of the movie. People taking responsibility for things that they have no business doing--and the frustration that comes from that. People taking too much responsibility. People saying, "It's not my problem." People saying, "You're in charge, so I'm not responsible for what I'm doing." People saying, "You're frustrating me, and I can't do anything about it." People saying, "You're frustrating me, and I'm going to do something about it." People saying, "I did something about it, and now I regret it." And so on.

The actress that played Dolores Umbridge, Imelda Staunton, stole the show. In a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad way. With her first little cough, you hated her. Helena Bonham Carter, her brain affected by all those Tim Burton movies, overdid it. Daniel Radcliffe grows up as an actor and manages to portray someone who often doesn't handle the situation well without being annoying about it. Evanna Lynch makes Luna Lovegood into an interesting character instead of a comic throwback to the style from the first book. Some of the special effects actually made me say, "Wow!" or "Oooooh." The opening shot was incredible, and the juxtapositions of the magic world and the muggles was brought home with shots of London. Some of the joys of the book--the scenes with the twins--were lost, but in such a way that fans of the book will only sigh and say, "But you should have read the book" rather than pitch a fit. There's only so much you can do in a movie, after all.