HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE

This is, as you all know, the fourth Harry Potter movie. The book was the biggest Harry Potter book at the time, by several hundred pages. "The Goblet of Fire" is the absolute turning point of the series, both literary and cinematic. As you're all tired of hearing, it's much darker and more serious than the previous ones.

We saw the film on the Saturday night after it opened. Needless to say, the theater was PACKED. We picked a seat too close to the front and settled in. There was a trailer for a horrible looking film called HAPPY FEET and another for a horrible looking film called THE SHAGGY DOG, during both of which, the audience howled with laughter. A dog knocked over an old lady! BWAAA HA HA HAAA! A penguin was break dancing! WAAA HAAAAAA!!!!! Ugh. I felt so out of place. This was a 7:30pm show of a PG-13 movie and the audience was mostly adults, laughing likee hyenas at the stupidest crap imaginable. Then we realized the number of little kids in the audience. Like, LITTLE kids. Like, 3 year olds. I've always maintained that the appropriate age of Harry Potter books and movies was roughly Harry's age in the books. That is to say, 11 years old or so is appropriate for the first book. And this movie, the fourth, is PG-13, and therefore appropriate for roughly 13-14 year olds. All the movies have their share of scariness and adult themes, but this one is almost completely devoid of whimsy and chock full of horribleness, including two deaths. Not to mention, of course, the fact that kids under 7 tend to talk in movies. A LOT. So yeah, the kids yammered on throughout most of the movie and we somwhat discretely decried the bad parenting involved.

So how was the movie? Well, it was good. It wasn't amazing, but it was damn good. Why not perfect? Because it assumed you read the book already. See, the book was over 700 pages long and crammed a LOT of stuff into it. For the 2 and a half hour movie, a lot was cut out. The problem was not with what was cut, but with how the remaining pieces stuck together. It seemed like a 4-hour movie was made and then 90 minutes was quickly cut out. If you didn't read the book, I imagine it was very confusing. It seemed like a bunch of scenes strung together with no real flow.

That said, the visuals were pretty amazing, as usual. The actors were all excellent. The movie was pretty emotional and dark, but the humor that DID come through was appropriate and effective. Not like in Lord of the Rings. I hated how Gimli, in LOTR, was reduced to a comic relief that felt very stuck in. The "jokes" in HP4 felt very natural.

So, in a nutshell, this was a very good visualization of the book, but I think it could have been better by being 30 minutes longer and explaining a bit more and creating more of a narrative flow.

Oh yeah, there was a trailer for THE LADY IN THE WATER that was a hell of a good teaser. It definitely made me interested in the film, even though it's by M. Night "I had one good movie in me" Shyamalan.

After looking through my photo albums, it would appear that the eye doctor's office was correct and I was wrong. How humiliating.

MY GODDAMN EYE DOCTOR

I've been going to the same place for my eyecare needs for the last several years. My plan covers one eye exam and pair of glasses per year. Prior to this doctor, I got my glasses at a kind of wholesale eye place. Glasses were $30 a pair, but their selection was pretty crappy. Not really, but they didn't carry expensive, in-style frames. But I'm a pretty careless guy and needed new glasses constantly, so this was the place for me.

Anyway, this new place is an actual doctor's office. However, I've never seen the same doctor twice. They seem to teach them how to be doctors there and then send them off into the real world after a month or something. To be fair, I only go once a year now, so maybe they train them for a whole 11 months. Who knows?

This past summer, I went in for my exam and frames visit. I sat through the exam and adjusted my prescription. Then it came time to pick a frame. I saw one of those frameless sets. They were just eyepieces fused directly to the lenses. They were so sleek and cool it was like not wearing glasses at all! Of course they're not in my plan for free lenses, so I decided to spend the $300 for the goddamn things. They were the most expensive pair I'd ever owned and I LOVED them. A few weeks later I was playing with my son on the floor and took the glasses off and laid them behind me on the floor. I forgot about them and walked away. My son proceeded to trample them. I brought the pathetic thing back to the doctor's office and said, "fix please!" They said, "Nope. Can't. Too fancy. Buy another one." They managed to convince me that I should buy another pair, but this one should have fancy polarized sunglass magic in it, so when you go outside, they turn into sunglasses! So I paid another ridiculous amount of money and got my new awesome glasses. Trouble is, the magic sunglasses only get slightly darker in direct sunlight. If you're getting glare off your side window, tough titty, Kansas City. Even in direct UV sunlight, it gets dimmer, but not nice and dark. Whatever. I needn't complain for long. Last week my daughter decided to swing my new magic glasses around her head as if it were a cat instead of an expensive piece of eyewear, snapping an earpiece in the process.

My wife brought it to the doctor's office on a Saturday, but they had to call the manufacturer and see if it was fixable. On Monday, the doctor's office told me that it was impossible to fix. Grumpily, I told them I'd be by tomorrow (Tuesday) to pick them up. I figured I could try fixing them on my own or something.

Tuesday, I went in to get the broken pair. I walked in, told them my story and said I was here to get them. The woman looked up some paperwork and told me, "Oh, they're not in yet."

"What do you mean 'not in yet'," I stammered, "They never left here I thought."

The lady (whom I've never met before, by the way) was just confused and snotty, like I was the one who was being unclear: "Well...WHEN did you drop it off? When did they say it would be done?"

Sensing that they sent it off to get replaced or something, I held up my palms and said, quickly, "Wait, wait, wait...whoa whoa whoa whoa..."

The lady cocks her head and says, "Calm down, sir."

So now I look like a wild, crazy asshole patient in front of the other people wating because this bitch told me, condescendingly, to calm down. Just then, another assistant lady comes in and say that those glasses are on her order, or something like that. I asked her what that means and she said that it was her order, or something unhelpful like that.

"Are my glasses HERE or somewhere else???" I asked through gritted teeth. I was told they were, in fact, here. She found them and handed them to me. Fine.

END OF ACT 1

ACT 2

I asked the first lady a question: "Ok, my plan allows for one exam and one pair of glasses a year, but last time I got an exam but paid for the glasses out of pocket...OK?" I paused to make sure she understood, because it's a teensy bit complicated. Plus, she was looking at me through half-closed, disinterested eyes and occasionally looked elsewhere in the room. When I asked her if she understood so far, she closed her eyes and lazily bumped her head to the affirmative. "So, can I still get a free pair of lenses on my plan?" She looked at some paperwork and told me I was eligible for an exam and a pair of frames. I said GREAT! "Can I just come back there right now and pick a pair?" "No," she said, "It's been a year since your last exam. You need a new one before I can give you glasses."

"Uh, no, I was just in a few months ago for an exam."
"No, you just got glasses, not an exam."
"I WAS HERE! I HAD AN EXAM THIS SUMMER!"
"No you didn't. You got new glasses this summer, but you didn't have an exam."
The other girl asks what the problem is and the bitch tells her, "He wants new glasses but he hasn't been examined in over a year."
"NO! Your RECORDS say that, but I was here! I was examined by a Russian doctor! Is she still working here?"
"No."
"What time frame was she here??"
"She left here two years ago."
What the hell? It was like a Twilight Zone episode.
"Can't you just PRETEND you examined me? This prescription is 4 months old!"
"No."
Suddenly I realized that they had screwed up somewhere and that's why I was eligible for new frames and exam. They had no record of me being there last time. Either that, or, since I paid out-of-pocket, it didn't register as being on my plan. I don't know. The point is, If I convinced them that I was examined, I probably wouldn't be able to get a free pair of non-frameless glasses. On top of that I lost confidence that the Russian doctor was this summer. It might have been last year. But I ABSOLUTELY remember getting axamined this summer. I had no choice but to swallow my pride and sign myself up for another damn exam. I asked the other lady when she had openings. She said Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. "Tuesday? Today's Tuesday!" The bubblehead just laughed. "Oh, I mean Wednesday and Thursday! Hee hee hee!" I was in no mood for her minor incompetence. I made an appointment and this nasty woman probably rolled her eyes and complained about me as soon as I left. RRRRRRRR That makes me so mad!

I just finished Chris Elliot's first book, The Shroud of the Thwacker. Chris Elliot, for those who don't know, is a crazy comic actor who used to appear on Letterman, eating dog food and living under the audience. He went on to create the amazingly bizarre Get A Life TV show and Cabin Boy movie. He's done a bunch of other guest stints on other shows, but when he's in charge, his total surreal hilarity comes out. What I like about Chris is what I like about Monty Python and Salvador Dali. He just creates completely illogical scenarios and they're freakin' hysterical!

"Thwacker" is basically a whole hodgepodge of zany, surreal moments strung together with the following premise: In the 1800s, a serial killer is murdering prostitutes by hitting them in the head with a sack of apples...How Chris Elliot, Teddy Roosevelt and Yoko Ono come into the story I won't spoil. The story is sort of a parody of Jack the Ripper and The Da Vinci Code. Sort of. It's also sort of like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...but not really.

I loved the first half of the book and merely greatly enjoyed the second. It is really fast reading because there's nothing to remember or pay attention to! It's just one insane moment after another and it's so damn funny. I don't think another similar book would pack the same punch, so I hope Chris' next book is not just more of the same.

Anyway, if you like zany, random, bizarre humor, read the Shroud of the Thwacker! I give it 4 heads!