Golden Compass!

Day 35: Leaving Next Thursday

Originally uploaded by Kristina B.
Hello oh loyal (manageable number of) blog readers! Shhhh… I think all those other people are gone now. Phew! That was kinda crazy. I’m glad it’s over.

Anwho… I have been quite busy recently, and therefor have not been posting anything of interest here. Let’s see…

I did go see Golden Compass. The finer points of the quality of the adaptation are covered quite nicely over at Crooked Timber.

I would like to add that if you have small children, you might want to consider seeing the movie first before taking the kid. Not because of any political or religious message (onward heathen liberals! power to the baby-killing satanists!), but because it’s scary, man! I mean seriously. I don’t know much about kids, but I was one once and I think parts of it would have scared me pretty bad. But maybe in a good way. When I was a kid, it was Jaws that gave me terrible nightmares. There was nothing good about that. Anyway, there is at least one scene that was positively shocking for a kid’s flick. I mean, maybe I’m totally out of the loop level-of-violence-wise. But I don’t think so because even the obnoxious gaggle of twenty-somethings behind me gasped and one of them said “Seriously?!” out loud.

Other than that? Well, I feel like they alternated between handing you info before it was necessary (and way before you got it in the book) and skipping around, hitting plot points perfunctorily without explaining them at all. I’ve read the book twice, though, so I really knew what was going on. Also, the Crooked Timber post says that the movie version was robbed of its atheist message, but that didn’t strike me. Maybe because I knew it was there.

I don’t know if this movie would be good if you haven’t read the books. I can’t judge. I am sort of inclined to say it wouldn’t. However, I personally would not have missed it for the world, because I am a complete and utter sucker for stories that stretch the imagination like Pullman’s do.

Acting-wise, I was very impressed with the actress who plays Lyra, and I felt like they even trumped up the fact that she was a little girl hero. The little boy in the story is pretty down-played as a character in this one, which just allows this kid to work her magic! I just loved all the strength and power behind her character. Very impressive.

Kidman did a great job as Coulter, but Coulter’s character is a big old stereotype. She’s stereotypically gorgeous and stereotypically evil. You know, kinda like the real Coulter (Don’t click that. It goes to Ann Coulter’s blog.).

OK, I said more than I meant to about this. You really should be reading the Crooked Timber post if you haven’t already. It’s really very good.