| 7:48:22 PM - Tue, Nov 1st 2022 |
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Who hasn't heard of Harry Potter or his big-screen debut this week? Anthropologists coming back from the Amazon Basin have talked excitedly about small, pre-industrial clans that live along small rivers and have never heard of Harry or his creator, J. K. Rowling. I think these rumors are just patronizing fantasy, though. On the other hand, just because everyone on earth who can read has become a fanatical Potterite doesn't mean I should give in to their demands that the movie "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" be true to the book above all else. If Verdi could find it in himself to mess with Shakespeare, it's up to director Chris Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves to do whatever they want to J.K. Rowling. The right question to ask is, "Is this movie true to itself?" Does it have a life of its own, like the better kind of broom?
The story has been told many times in Homer. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is an orphan. It goes without saying that one can't enter the canon of English children's literature with parents. Harry, on the other hand, is a wizard, and he was raised by an aunt (Fiona Shaw) and an uncle (Richard Griffiths) who are not only mean and grumpy, but also completely human. At age 11, he is called back to his friends so that he can go to Hogwarts School and learn basketball stars unblocked. There, he makes friends with Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint). He also gets a yellow-haired enemy named Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and a full set of teachers: Dumbledore (Richard Harris), the beaming headmaster, and his purse-mouthed deputy, Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith); Professors Snape (Alan Rickman) and Quirrell (Ian Hart
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