Rev Stan's film blog

Review: Kill Your Darlings and the Daniel Radcliffe effect

Synopsis: How a murder brought the 1950s beat poets - Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs together.

Stan's thoughts:  Radcliffe puts in a good performance as the geeky Ginsberg who has his head turned by the charismatic Lucien Carr (play superbly by rising star Dane DeHaan). And it is a solid film and entertaining enough but Radcliffe's presence is a little bit of a distraction. It isn't entirely his fault.

He constantly chooses parts that are far removed from the Harry Potter franchise which is to be greatly admired and makes him an interesting actor to follow but it is a difficult character to shake off after a decade.

That there are gay love scenes involving Radcliffe in this film has been written about to death and I'm in the 'so what' camp but it's almost like the audience (ie slightly hysterical female Radcliffe fans) held their breath until the kissing and sex is out of the way.

He can't be blamed for that and Radcliffe is a solid enough actor but he doesn't quite push the performance in this to a level where you'd forget he was Harry Potter (the glasses didn't help). Kill Your Darlings is nicely paced and interesting enough character-led film. It's told from Ginsberg's perspective and it made me curious about the other view points.

The screening of Kill Your Darlings I saw was part of the London Film Festival and the film goes on general release in the UK on December 6.

Ratings

• Stan's: 62%
• IMDB: 69%
• Metascore: 64%
• Rotten Tomatoes: 72% 
• RT audience rating: Not yet rated

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Pics: Stan goes to the Harry Potter studios and drinks Butter Beer

Rarely do my personal interests overlap with my job, the last time was an invite to the press tour of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford. But, today even that was surpassed as I went, with a colleague, to a press preview of the Harry Potter Studio tour or Warner Bros. Studio London: The Making of Harry Potter to use the official title.

It was fabulous. They reckon on allowing 3 hours to make your way around the sets, displays of costumes and props as well as the interactive features and some behind the scenes footage and revelations. We spent over 3 and a half hours and I still feel I only really took in about half of what is there.

Everything on display was genuinely used in the films to the point where I renamed it the "Ohmygod look it's the..." tour as that was the most frequent expression to pass our lips.

It's all very nicely and slickly done. Nothing looks cheap from the loos upwards but then it comes at a price. But hey where else in the UK can you drink Butter Beer while wandering along Privet Drive? 

If you are a Harry Potter fan, book your tickets now (you have to book online). It opens officially next weekend but is pretty much sold out until September.

Oh and save up your pennies for the shop at the end. Loads of great stuff but it's pricey, even though, I couldn't resist investing in a collectors edition wand - Professor Snape's as he's my favourite. Foolish wand waving here I come.

Also took loads of pictures, you've been warned.

 

Video: Daniel Radcliffe talks working with Michael Gambon

Love, love, love this sort of stuff. In fact I'm more excited about the extras on the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 DVD than I am about seeing the film again. I just hope they finally go to town. The producers should have spent a couple of hours at the Peter Jackson School of DVD extras. Now there is someone who knows how to satisfy nerdy fans curiosity.

 

The Harry Potter finale - the experience and the verdict

It's rarely that I go to the Odeon in Leicester Square - too expensive and commercial for my liking - but it comes into its own on an occasion like this: the release day of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Why? Because it's chocker full of really excited fans, like me, who just had to see it the day of the release and the atmosphere is electric.

It was the same when I saw LOTR: Return of the King the first afternoon it came out.

As soon as the lights go down after the trailers a cheer goes up, then again when the certificate appears followed by whistles and 'ooo's' when the first few frames appear.

You get laughter in the cinema and a very, very occasional 'Ooo' or 'Ahhh' but when a film has such a dedicated fan base as Harry Potter it is audience participation all the way through: spontaneous applause and cheers when good things happen and 'hero' moments, 'ahh's' and whistles at the kisses'. There was even a ripple of groans when a mobile went off and ripples of 'shh's to settle whispers at the beginning.

OK there is inevitably going to be some whispering, inappropriate giggling and noisy eating when the cinema is packed but it is one of those rare occasions when it doesn't really matter.

So what of the film itself?

Video: Last days on the Potter set

This had me choking up. Doesn't bode well for a week on Friday when I'm sat in the cinema watching a new Harry Potter for the last time...

 

A final Potter snippet to get excited about

The run up to the last film is a bit of a roller-coaster for a nerdy fan like myself, torn between watching clips that show worrying book-swerving snippets and others that have me doing a little applause of excited anticipation.

This clip falls into the latter, or rather interview, as Daniel Radcliffe says that Alan Rickman gives possibly his film perfermance of his career. I'm sure it isn't but I love Alan Rickman's Snape and this is the chapter of the series where he really comes into his own, where we finally find out who he really is. *excited applause of anticipation*

 

Stan's 10 favourite things from the Harry Potter films

It is with a mixture of sadness, excitement and worry that the final film instalment of the Harry Potter story approaches. Sadness because it will be the end, excitement because it's a Harry Potter film and worry because I'm getting trailer-nerves. They have done a pretty good job of interpreting the books, adding excitement and layers of imagination to the books albeit with one or two dubious choices and one really bad one.

But putting that all to one side, I've spent the last few weeks re-watching all the films in order and it's reminded me of individual delights. The result is this list, my favourite scenes, and it has been extremely tough whittling it down. Have I missed a particularly good one?

1. Mirror of Erised, Philosopher's Stone

Harry discovers a mirror in which he can see himself with his parents, Dumbledore later discovers him and tells him that the mirror shows your deepest hearts desire. Despite the first book being the most child-like and fun this was such a moving and poignant moment, it never fails to bring a tear to my eye - a scene which is nicely mirrored, for want of a better word, by the grave yard scene in Deathly Hallows part 1

2. Whomping willow, Chamber of Secrets

Always makes me smile, the tree with attitude that terrorises birds and Hogwarts students alike. Especially like it when it decides to shed its leaves for winter and just shivers them off.

3. The Knight Bus, Prisoner of Azkaban

So much to like about the bus: the way it shrinks to fit between on-coming traffic, the talking shrunken heads hanging in the window, the way the beds on the bus are all on wheels and move around as the bus swerves and breaks and of course Harry having to peel his face of the window it comes to an abrupt stop outside the Leaky Cauldron - having of course nudged a park car setting off it's alarm.

4. The Yule Ball, Goblet of Fire

The teenage trio take their first tentative steps onto the road of romance and the sexual tension crackles from Harry awkwardly taking his first dance to Hermione's exasperated, high-pitched rant. It is one of the joyful scenes that reminds you of your own early teen romances and unrequited love and also a rare moment when the three can forget the trials and tribulations of magical life.

Harry Potter through the Pensieve

This just makes me want to watch the films back to back. Hmmm it's a bank holiday weekend.....

  

The nerdy 'how are they going to do that in Harry Potter 7 Part 2?' post

The lure of re-reading Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows was too great after seeing Part 1 of the film for a second time over Christmas. I enjoyed the film immensely but there were a couple of plot points I couldn't quite remember that were driving me nuts...well that's my excuse anyway.

Aside from noticing all the bits that had been left out (this post only really scratches the surface) it also got me thinking about how they will execute certain key scenes on the big screen.

*This post will contain spoilers if you haven't read the book*

One problem the film makers have had throughout the series is the cloak of invisibility. It is one element of the magical world that works brilliantly on the page but not on screen. It is a difficulty which I believe led to the Dumbledore death/astronomy tower debacle that ruined my enjoyment of the Half Blood Prince film.

The cloak of invisibility features heavily in the last book but has been largely ignored in the first film without too much deviation . But in Part 2 or the final third of the book* it is an essential aid for the trio:

1. Harry and Griphook hide under the cloak while Hermoine is polyjuiced into Bellatrix and Ron disguised in order to break into Gringotts

2. The trio also use the cloak to apparate into Hogsmeade and then is used by Harry and Luna to get into the Ravenclaw common room.

3. They also use it to get around the castle while the battle of Hogwarts is raging and then to the whomping willow when they attempt to kill Nagini at the Shrieking Shack.

4. Harry uses the cloak to leave the castle undetected after Voldemort calls a cease-fire in the battle and for Harry to be handed over and then again after his 'death' and the battle recommences.

Of those, the one I will be most disappointed to see go is when Harry leaves the castle because there is a lovely scene when he sees Ginny and really wants to go to her but can't. I think Gringotts will be difficult to engineer without it too.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1: the verdict

Mixture of excitement and nervousness about this one after the Dumbledore/astronomy tower debacle of the Half Blood Prince.

Much relief in that there isn't any obvious messing with the story this time although I've purposefully avoided the book so it's not too fresh in my mind. But it bodes well for part 2.

Deathly Hallows 1 certainly seems the most polished of the films so far. The production is much more grown up, reflecting the subject matter and maturing characters, flexing its film-craft muscles using hand held cameras for some of the action sequences, for example. 

And the CGI too seems the most polished of the films. Technology has developed or perhaps the film makers just had more time with this one. Dobby and Kreacher in particular are about as 'real' as they could be. Lets face it, Harry weeping over a bad CGI Dobby would be a hard scene to give emotional gravitas to otherwise.

Indeed Daniel Radcliffe's ability as an actor continues to grow, no doubt helped by his stints on stage and screen outside the franchise. There is great rapore between Harry and Emma Watson's Hermione but Rupert Grint's  Ron seems a bit stodgy, almost as if he has outgrown the character.

I haven't read any reviews but I confidently predict that a good handful of them will comment on Hallows being darker than the others and of course it is only right as the characters reach adulthood the film matures. Indeed there is one particularly bloody scene where Hermoine treats what is a very convincingly 'splinched' Ron. Maybe it's because of this that Ron's humour seems sometimes a little out of place and awkward at times.

The film has not manage to overcome the dull sequence in the book when the trio seem to spend endless hours in different campsites, not making much progress with their search for horcruxes and I did wonder how engaged the younger members of the audience were.