10 Reasons Why

20 Random Thoughts After Re-Watching the Very First Harry Potter Movie

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1. Wow, those kids look like they’re about 6 years old.

2. Hermione was pretty bitchy back in the day.

3. Daniel Radcliffe/Harry has exactly two facial expressions: “total surprise at being famous for basically doing nothing” and “grim determination as he prepares to face off against a monster that the adults really should be killing instead of sitting around and making stupid rules about not going in the forest”.

4. Maggie Smith/Professor McGonagall has exactly two expressions: “prim disapproval of basically everything that is going on” and “sad acceptance of the fact that no one understands how much she suffers for her art (I won an Oscar, people!)”.

5. How did Dumbledore wash that beard of his? Or not have nightmares about garbage disposals?

6. Alan Rickman must have had a very understanding pharmacist.

7. Those “viewing towers” at the quidditch matches were really cool, despite being essentially pointless if you actually wanted to watch the game.

8. There are hundreds of kids mucking about at Hogwarts, but at any given time there are only four kids in a given classroom. And one of the four is usually Hermione, waving her attention-craving hand in the air and yearning to answer another question from the teacher before her head explodes with all that knowledge.

9. They only have one caretaker in this place? No wonder he looks so mean and old.

10. Hagrid, dude, it’s about that hair.

11. Hey, the woman who plays Harry’s nasty aunt is the same woman who showed up on True Blood last season and made Pam’s face not be pretty any more, which of course led to dissatisfaction, war, and a debate about Marnie’s right to open a pseudo Pottery Barn shop.

12. What’s the horrid, spoiled cousin’s name, the one with all the presents and the whining? Runtley? Grunt boy? Doesn’t matter. He needs to go. Life’s too short to put up with that mess.

13. Why do they let Hagrid live in that little hut off by himself? Nobody else gets to have a cabana.

14. You’d think somebody could figure out how to make those staircases not move. This is a school, right?

15. Wouldn’t it be easier to just have someone cast a spell on you so that you would automatically know all the spells and wouldn’t have to go to class? Or is this a union issue?

16. I don’t want the paintings on the wall to talk. I don’t care if I get to wear a pretty robe and wave a twig around, I need my decorating accessories to be quiet.

17. Seriously, they had a multi-million-dollar budget and they couldn’t come up with a scar for Harry that didn’t look like it was done by a third-grader with focus issues?

18. Practically the whole school year goes by, with unicorns being ravaged and ugly goblins being let loose in the lavatory, and no one thought to take a peek under that one guy’s turban?

19. There’s something wrong with that whole scoring thing for the House Competition. Hermione and Ron got the same amount of bonus points for the little underground death-chess thingy toward the end of the movie, even though all she did was stand there, with her and her hair looking anguished, while Ron did all the work and almost died about 40 times. And he rode a horse. Hermione didn’t ride anything. I’m thinking somebody needs to file a grievance.

20. I would never take off the Invisibility Cloak. Ever.

 

Originally published in “The Sound and the Fury” on 01/20/12 and “Bonnywood Manor” on 09/02/16. No changes made from the last revision, mainly because I wanted to focus on something else, although with some degree of trepidation, as I don’t want to appear whiny.

Yesterday’s post received the lowest number of views and likes than any other day for more than two years. (Even the days when I didn’t post anything.) There’s a chance that there was simply an issue with the WordPress reader at the time of posting (fingers crossed) as most of my traffic comes from such a source. But there’s also the possibility that I may have pushed things too far with the Crusty Pie Marathon.

I’m a firm believer in posting whatever you want, but if you have the time, I’d like your honest opinion in the comments. Do the Past Imperfects get a little old if I post too many of them in a row? Or am I making much ado about nothing and I need to suck it up and keep doing what I’m doing. Just having a moment of existential crisis.

Oh, and here’s a link if you didn’t catch yesterday’s apparent blip on the radar.

Cheers.

P.S. Third possible explanation. Some people might not be comfortable about meat hooks. I can’t imagine why…

 

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53 replies »

  3. I actually didn’t see this post yesterday so maybe it was a blip but, having just read it, to be honest…..you did ask……it wasn’t your best. 95% of your posts make me smile or laugh at loud but this one just didn’t; could be because I don’t understand the political references perhaps. Anyway, take heart, you are 95% really funny so I don’t think you need to worry about anything :O) xx

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  5. My excuse I was on plane and then home cleaning birds shit from my sitting room as a bird got in and died in there while we were on holidays but now I must catch up ,like and comment even if I wouldn’t worry at all.your post are simply and always magnificent so……really just sometimes people is busy or wp doesn’t update its stats🤷🏻‍♀️

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  10. Never mind not taking the invisibility cloak off, I would not ever ever have set foot in that school, nor would I have gone within 100 miles of it. The whole getting on the train thing would have turned me off.

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  14. LOL. Love this post. Whenever I go back and watch the early films I can’t get over how young they all look either.

    I have always had a sneaking suspicion that Hagrid now lives on his own because he loved to play loud rock and heavy metal in the early hours of the morning, this kept on waking everyone else up who was in the castle. Dumbledore gifted him with his own house so he could blast those tunes out good and loud where nobody else could here him.

    I never understood the one caretaker thing. Plus his job must be doubly hard because he is only half magic. Surely Dumbledore could have afforded to give the dude an assistant!

    I think the thing with the points is that Hermoine and Ron didn’t have to go with Harry at all, but they both bravely walked towards danger and possible death anyway. So they each got equal points because of that. True that Ron did more than she did, but he was good at the game of chess and she wasn’t. I think they should have got more than 10 points for the risk they took. If one of Snape’s students had done what they did, I bet Snape would have given them like 100 points LOL.

    I love the Past Imperfects! 🙂

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    • We approach movies in the same way, in that we can instantly create background stories for the bits that don’t quite make any sense on the first viewing. This makes us either really clever or really gullible, not sure which. 😉

      Now that you’ve enlightened me on the Giant Chess Match, I can see how the points should have been equal if you consider the intent and not the actions. I did forget that they only got 10 points, which is an outrage. I may have to do a second installment of this mess.

      And thank you for supporting the Past Imperfects. I love doing them and it’s wonderful to hear that folks enjoy them…

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  16. I did NOT see yesterday’s offering, and thought YOU must have gotten tired of recycling and took another day off. I pay attention to things like that, things that are none of my pie, crusty or not. Anyway. WP is puking up hairballs again, and as one who owns cats, you can appreciate the unwelcomeness of that more than most. Huny only poops now and again, and I don’t have to decide if she ATE something vile that had to be vomited up. Um. Off topic.

    Hermoine is crabby because wouldn’t YOU be crabby if someone named YOU Hermoine without even telling you how to pronounce the damned thing? Lots of Herms and Hey YOUs in her future, from teachers who can’t pronounce “Melanie” correctly, let alone Hermoine (which is also a bitch to spell. Another reason Ms. H. (as I shall refer to her going forward) is channeling Lucy Van Pelt with a vengence. AND Ms. H is the one who discovered the goblins or gremlins or that ugly ghost whom I would have punched in the throat…seriously. Don’t bother a girl when she’s off to take a wee. Talk about invasive! Which makes the female in question more crabby, because some idiot is blocking the urgent visit to the throne room.

    I watched the First Harry Potter in something like 1990 (or whatever) and I don’t remember a damned thing about it save for what you’ve shared here. The book was better in any case…ALL the books were better except that last one where Ms. Rowling had gotten rich enough (I guess) or ran out of story lines or those damned actors WOULD age too fast, so she had to scribble the book out at a furious pace…I’m going with my first reason for that weak tea ending where suddenly Voldemort was finally for really and true DEAD, Harry had grown some facial hair and his voice deepened by one octave, an accomplishment when one is 5’5″ and has short man issues. He goes on to appear totally naked (nude!) in some ‘arty’ indie film and all the Harry Potter film fans are aghast. I don’t see good things for Daniel in the future vis a vis a film career…Nor for Ms. Rowling, whose subsequent books are so boring that I don’t think they sell….or maybe I’m wrong on both counts.

    Anyway, I’m off to find your latest Imperfect and to loudly bitch about the quality of service at WordPress, a thankless task as WordPress doesn’t give a fuck.

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    • I fully understand Ms. H’s trepidation about name pronunciation, although in my case it concerns my LAST name. No one on the planet can ever get it right on the first try, even some members of my own family. (This is due to a mild intra-family feud wherein half of the family says it one way and the other half another. I’m sure I’ve got at least one blog post concerning this matter floating out there in the ether. However, I don’t recall the title of said blog post and searching for the dissertation feels far too laborious at this point in my life. Perhaps someday I will have a more positive attitude and seek it out.)

      Now, let’s talk about Daniel and his nudity. If memory serves, he’s been rather generous with his full frontal in a couple of projects, with one of them involving his performances in a revival of the play “Equus”. I haven’t seen any of the stage versions of this horse-flavored fable, but I did see the 70s film version of such, starring Richard Burton, and I did so as a very young teen, shortly after the movie was released. I didn’t really grasp all of the concepts (how could I?), but I remember thinking “this is incredibly bizarre and I love it”. It was yet another keystone in the architecture of my belief that stretching your imagination is a healthy and satisfying thing.

      And WordPress? Yep, they can sit on it and spin…

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  17. Hadn’t considered the hygiene issue with Dumbledore’s beard, and frankly that shocks me. Usually I’m far more sensitive to those kinds of things. My favorite bit with the first movie, actually any of the movies, is when they enter Diagon Alley. Why anyone would leave that place is beyond me. (Surely there are apartments nearby?)

    I’ve given up trying to understand my stats. Some posts that I think are hot stuff go plop, while a so-so one gets lots of clicks. I have one from nearly three years ago that will still get a fluttering of attention, and it bothers me every time because it contains opinions I no longer have. All this is to say, sorry. I don’t have an answer for you. If I could, I’d buy you a drink in the pub place in Diagon alley (a true fan would know the name) and we’d discuss our writerly woes, then stumble out into the night singing selections from Les Miz and getting all the words wrong. We wouldn’t get any closer to the answer, but we’d feel better.

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    • Whilst I do appreciate all the various aspects of your commentary, as always, I am enraptured by the concept of singing show tunes after some modest imbibing at The Leaky Cauldron. Despite my sometimes cantankerous diatribes, I’m a celebratory soul at heart, and the fellowship of being surrounded by like-minded spirits who feel free to harmonize with conviction regardless of actual talent is a sublime and wonderful thing. Life happens in the expression and not the accomplishment…

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    • I had forgotten Diagon Alley. Someone is missing quite the financial opportunity if there aren’t apartments nearby. I’d totally rent one… IF the goblins at the bank (who have to own the apartments…I mean who else has the funding?) put one within a reasonable rate. That scene was AWESOME! Thanks for the refresh!

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  18. Don’tbother about the stats – who cares- weel, apart from you obviously. (I know, Iv’e said it a lot of times before). For however long I have been blogging I haven’t ever bothered to look at stats – this is FUN, not homework – who cares about the mark?

    Re the last post – I missed yesterday (or it missed me) – just read it now, you know I love you, but it just isn’t my thing – most of them have too many American/film noir/political references for me so they make me feel stupid for not getting it. Just my 5 cents.

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  19. 19 has troubled me ever since first reading the book to my angelic daughters all snugged up beside me on the sofa. I’m up for making a real noise about this now, if you will join me. It is never too late to seek justice, isn’t that right? Besides, it will give me the chance to tell the story of Emma Watson and my second daughter in the upmarket hairdresser in Oxford 😉

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    • Of course I will always join you, travelling to the ends of the earth, or at least the next block over, to support your noble causes. But what’s this with the Watson-daughter connection? You simply must share or I will perish of thirst in the desert…

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      • In the interests of fending off your dehydration here is the potted version with a promise that I will spin it as glistening yarn when I can get that pesky muse to realign with my shoulder.

        Daughter and Watson are the same age (Watson being senior by about a month) and of course we all lived in Oxford. Can’t remember exactly how old they were but mid-late teens and Miss W was definitely an ‘it’ girl but still contracted to the Potter series. I took daughter, with all her sisters to the hairdresser for a ‘do’ involving whatever dying and snipping she desired (she had mermaid locks back then). They had a sort of giant pouffe affair that ran the length of the salon front and daughter perched poutingly on it waiting for her call to be primped and preened. In walks EW. And sits next to her. Daughter has no idea who she is. Watson asks what daughter is having done. Not sure, she replied, I’ll decide with the stylist – but Colour and some trimming. EW replies that she is SO jealous because of course she is not allowed to change her hair. This clanging clue fails to hook daughter. So Watson tries another way. ‘You have such gorgeous hair … it must be lovely to do whatever you like with it’. ‘Yes it is’ replies daughter. This charade carried on for some minutes with Ms Watson increasingly perturbed that a member of the (Oxford of all places) public has no notion of who she is and starts peppering the conversation with references to ‘Dan’, ‘JK’ ‘Hagred’ ‘Dobby’ and other entirely unveiled clues. Daughter remains resolutely naive. We all sat in awe of a) the base desperation of Emma and b) the absolutely stunning disconnect with life, the universe or anything at all that my daughter displayed. Maybe you had to be there but it sure made me grin …. 😊

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        • This is brilliance in the making. You simply must turn this into a one-act play about social dissonance and the illusions of purpose. Working title: “Emma Watson and the Stone of Her Philosophy”. (Of course, when we workshop this thing in the Extreme West End, we’ll have to use cover title of “Splendor in the Grasp” to keep the paparazzi away.) This is going to be better than “Waiting for Godot”, swear…

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  20. Holy Every Flavour Jelly Beans, Brian – great list! 🙂

    I missed your post yesterday – my boss passed away suddenly and I assumed her job, so I am really busy getting up to speed on everything. Laundry and dishes haven’t been done either and my M is sick. It’s one of those life periods. 😳

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    • I’m glad that you were able to relieve yourself. (Wait, that sounds a bit… off.) I fully support your brave stance, as there are many examples of world-conquering pop culture that I have not participated in, whatsoever…

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