Thursday, February 27, 2014

Figure Skating, "Pedorazzi" and More




  • Has anyone been following the recent "Pedorazzi" story? Basically, last month Dax Shepard and Kristin Bell announced that they would boycott all publications that print papparazzi photos of children. (Read the original announcement here.) Given the increasing interest in celebrity offsping (which seems to have taken off hardcore around 2005/2006 with the births of Suri Cruise and Shiloh Jolie-Pitt) which has lead to instances of children being surrounded and shouted at by paparazzi looking for a money shot, not to mention the fact that these kids entire childhoods are being documented and published as entertainment for us, I fully support this policy. Though I admit it's pretty hard to abstain from all magazines that feature these photos, and even more so when the photos are only an internet click away. You'd think this policy would have garnered more support (about time someone tried to do something about this, right?) but the problem for many publications (read People Magazine's response here) is that a lot of celebrities arrange for paparazzi shots to be taken of their families during an awards campaign, to divert attention from a scandal or negative publicity, or even to establish themselves as "celebrity parent know-it-alls" (like Jessica Alba, who seems to be famous for little else these days). The question now asked, how to you take steps to protect celebrity children when many of their parents are more than happy to pimp them out when it suits their own needs. And that doesn't even address where the line is for children of celebrities who are launching their own careers - think Jaden Smith, or Cindy Crawford's modeling youngster. It's a complicated and interesting subject, and regardless where you stand, I appreciate that Shepard and Bell's stance has opened up the discussion further. Blame has to be placed not only on the photographers, but also on the Hollywood machine that enables this invasion, and we the consumers who don't protest. (The comments in that Pajiba link are really interesting as well.)


  • Post Olympics high; I didn't really watch a lot of competition, just the snippets I caught in between pill passes at work, so I didn't watch the figure skating competition live. But I heard great things about 19 year-old Jason Brown and tracked down video of his performance at the US Nationals last month. First of all, he is just freaking adorable. Secondly, while he can't do a quad yet (apparently this is really important) his jumps are beautiful and his lead-ins are full of movement - so unlike that long buildup to the jumps I associate with the Ladies competition. Is this a male thing, or a Jason Brown thing? Third, this kid is full of enthusiasm and he makes frequent eye contact with the audience, something I don't see often in the Ladies either. It always seems like they're looking to the heavens and not at actual people. Basically, the kid is a gem and I hope his career continues to inspire and prosper.

Jason Brown Free Skate, 2014 US Championships




Wednesday, February 26, 2014

11 Most Disappointing Best Picture Winners


This was supposed to be a Top 10 list, but I already cut 13 other contenders and I just couldn't choose between the final 11.


1998
The Nominees: Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth, The Thin Red Line, Life is Beautiful and Saving Private Ryan.
Winner: Shakespeare in Love. As a Shakespeare fanatic, I actually adore this movie and it's audacious mix of bawdy humor and thwarted destiny. All-around amazing performances (even from much-maligned Best Actress winner Gwyneth Paltrow; did Cate Blanchett deserve it more? Perhaps. But Paltrow was sweet and spirited in the role, really very good casting) and a top-notch script from playwright Tom Stoppard. But...
Should Have Won: Saving Private Ryan.  The crime is that this film beat Speilberg's masterpiece, perhaps the seminal war film of this generation. In retrospect, not the perfect film we thought it was at the time, but for that first 30 minutes alone, Ryan should have had it in the bag. Ebert praised it saying, "They have made a philosophical film about war almost entirely in terms of action." I wrote my junior year persuasive essay on the reasons Ryan should have taken the prize over Shakespeare and I have yet to falter in my resolve. No other film has ever gutted me quite like this, except for maybe Schindler's List, another Spielberg classic that was rightly awarded.
Should Have Been in the Mix: A Simple Plan or The Truman Show.


1938
The Nominees: Alexander's Ragtime Band, The Citadel, Boys Town, You Can't Take it With You, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Le Grande Illusion, Jezebel, Pygmalion, Four Daughters and Test Pilot
Winner: You Can't Take It With You. Pretty cute movie based on a stage play; in fact my little sister played the lead in her senior year of high school. It's full of wacky characters and was directed by darling Frank Capra, but it lacks the umph of It Happened One Night or It's a Wonderful Life. In retrospect, a rather insignificant picture.
Should Have Won: The prize should have gone to the technicolor joy of Michael Cudlitz's The Adventures of Robin Hood starring a most dashing and irreverent Errol Flynn, or French master Jean Renior's influential Grand Illusion, and not one of the lesser Capra confections.
Should Have Been in the Mix: Actually, the list of nominees is pretty solid, though not as strong as '39 or '41. They just picked the wrong winner.



1956
The Nominees: Around the World in 80 Days, The King and I, The Ten Commandments, Giant, and Friendly Persuasion.
Winner: Around the World in 80 Days. This was a terrible year all around. And this overblown, though beautiful, travelogue featuring stereotypes prancing about as if they were real characters is just too trifling to be deserving of even a nomination.
Should Have Won: Under duress, Giant. Mostly well-known as "James Dean's Last Film," but directed by the capable and respected George Stevens (better represented by other films such as A Place in the Sun, Swing Time, The Diary of Anne Frank and Shane). About the trials and tribulations of an oil tycoon, it also starred Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor . Good enough I guess, but this movie was a tremendous bore for me.
Should Have Been in the Mix: Lust for Life, John Ford/John Wayne classic The Searchers, Kubrick's debut The Killing, Lawrence Olivier's Richard III, and under known Hitchcock film The Wrong Man.


2005
The Nominees: Crash, Munich, Brokeback MountainCapote, and Good Night and Good Luck.
Winner: Crash. A very interesting idea with some strong themes and a few good sequences, but as a film it has no business competing with the other nominees. It's point - the racism still exists in spades, even in a city as supposedly liberal as L.A. - is well-intentioned, but the handling is so clumsy and obvious.
Should Have Won: Brokeback Mountain or Good Night and Good Luck. Anything else. Obviously I was pulling for Ang Lee's quiet storm, Brokeback Mountain. It featured the performance of the year, as far as I'm concerned, and told such a simple story so truthfully and sadly. Beautiful score as well. And Good Night and Good Luck was tight and straightforward with a lot of great ensemble work and a story that is still relevant today. But 2005 was one of the great years for movies in general, so it's hard to get too bent out of shape, even if Brokeback will be hailed as the classic for years to come.
Should Have Been in the Mix: A History of Violence, Cinderella Man and Pride and Prejudice.




1941
The Nominees: Blossoms in the Dust, Citizen Kane, How Green Was My Valley, Suspicion, Sergeant York, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon, and One Foot in Heaven.
Winner:How Green Was My Valley. Another film guilty of being only great in the face of game-changing awesomeness, How Green Was My Valley was a respectable film by much-acclaimed director John Ford, but a rather prosaic story about a mining family over several generations. It's a sweeping epic about good, hardworking people, and it didn't piss anyone off.
Should Have Won: That honor went to Orson Welles and Citizen Kane, a movie that pretty much invented (or at least perfected) almost all the film techniques we now take for granted. Too bad Welles based his film on newspaper mogul William Randolph Heart and embarrassed columnist Louella Parsons, a move that garnered a lot of negative press for the film and resulted in it being banned from all Hearst publications. But it is obviously the Best Picture of 1941. Also worthy that year: classic film noir The Maltese Falcon.
Should Have Been in the Mix: The Lady Eve (but overall a solid year, I just wish more people knew about this delightful Barbara Stanwyck comedy).


2001
The Nominees: The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, In the Bedroom, Moulin Rouge, A Beautiful Mind, and Gosford Park.
Winner: A Beautiful Mind. It features a great performance from Russell Crowe - and the last time he was nominated; after being snubbed in competitive years in 2003, 2005 & 2007, his hot streak seemed to peter out - and it's hard for me to begrudge Ron Howard, he seems like such a nice fellow.
Should Have Won: Moulin Rouge or Gosford Park. The former is an in-your-face, manically edited assault on the senses and the heart, and the later represents yet another tremendous ensemble from director Robert Altman, built around a murder at a shooting party in one of those posh, Upstairs/Downstairs houses. Think "Downton Abbey" meets Murder by Death, but infinitely more clever and admirable than either. I also would accept the brilliantly rendered and casted first installment of Lord of the Rings.
Should Have Been in the Mix: Mulholland Drive and The Royal Tenenbaums.


1940
The Nominees: Our Town, The Long Voyage Home, The Grapes of Wrath, Foreign Correspondent, All This and Heaven Too, Rebecca, The Great Dictator, Kitty Foyle, The Letter, and The Philadelphia Story
Winner: Rebecca.  It seems in poor taste to bag on the only Alfred Hitchcock film to ever win Best Picture (not only that but Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, Notorious and North by Northwest weren't even nominated!), and granted, Rebecca has some very creepy scenes in that cold, cruel house, including a menacing performance from Judith Anderson as the obsessed servant Mrs. Danvers. Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent was nominated this year as well, but neither really stacks up against some of the other nominees.
Should Have Won: The excellent line-up of Best Picture nominees for 1940 included The Great Dictator - Charlie Chaplin's divinely funny take-down of Hitler, The Grapes of Wrath - a classic John Ford picture with an iconic performance from Henry Fonda, and the frothy and sharply funny The Philadelphia Story, all more fitting choices.
Should Have Been in the Mix: His Girl Friday (though the list is an embarrassment of riches already).



1989
The Nominees: Field of Dreams, Driving Miss Daisy, My Left Foot, Dead Poets Society, and Born on the Fourth of July.
Winner: Driving Miss Daisy. Jessica Tandy won Best Actress - and good for her, the oldest competitive winner until Christpher Plummer in 2011, and Morgan Freeman plays her loyal driver and friend. But the movie presents a nostalgic look at the good ol' days when blacks were the help and respected and protected their employers more than deserved. A rather old-fashioned choice for 1989.
Should Have Won: My personal preference is for the nostalgic, hopeful and elegiac Field of Dreams, a film that is now etched in our collective consciousness forever. But I also wouldn't have minded Born on the Fourth of July, Oliver Stone's damning crusade for Vietnam veterans and featuring the first really exciting performance of Tom Cruise's career. It was bold and fearless, an achievement for which Stone was awarded Best Director.
Should Have Been in the Mix: Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing. (Also, The Little Mermaid :))


1952
The Nominees: High Noon, Ivanhoe, The Greatest Show on Earth, Moulin Rouge and The Quiet Man.
Winner: The Greatest Show on Earth. A bunch of big Hollywood names (including James Stewart, Betty Hutton and Charlton Heston) dramatize the backstage antics of group of circus performers. Fun and colorful, sure. But so slight.
Should Have Won: High Noon. The ultimate story of the beleaguered hero standing up to evil all alone. Gary Cooper rightly won Best Actor for his performance, and the film is revered for its message about standing up for what is right in the face of personal harm.Told in real time (a bold choice for a Hollywood Western) it features the major film debut of Grace Kelly, a sharp script, a dazzling technical brilliance.
Should Have Been in the Mix: SINGIN' IN THE RAIN!!! For heaven's sake!


1968
The Nominees: Romeo and Juliet, Oliver!, Rachel, Rachel, The Lion in Winter, and Funny Girl.
Winner: Oliver! The sad truth is that Oliver! just isn't very fun. The music is a slog to get through and I was bored and fast forwarding things less than halfway through the movie. And don't get me started on that exclamation point; I don't care if it's in the "original Broadway production" title - that exclamation point is a pretentious whore in it's preposterous attempts to glam up a fairly serious and bleak Charles Dickens novel!
Should Have Won: Romeo and Juliet or Funny Girl.  Yes, I love the Zefferelli version of Romeo and Juliet, my favorite film from 1991-1993. Vibrant and lush, great Mercutio and Tybalt, fantastic locations. And Funny Girl - and Barbra Streisand's dynamite comedienne performance - is a musical that actually earned an exclamation point!
Should Have Been in the Mix: Kubrick's Future Hall of Famer, 2001: A Space Odyssey (I'm not really the biggest fan, but I can't deny it's relevance, influence or invention in the film cannon).



2000
The Nominees: Gladiator, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Chocolate, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Winner: Gladiator. God, did I hate this movie during my freshman year of college. I thought it decent entertainment in the theaterbut after refreshing my palette with more creative and lively films, to see this formulaic, poorly CGI'd and dingy gladiator epic (anchored by an admittedly strong performance from Crowe and some great score from Hans Zimmer) take the grand prize was to say the least, a disappointment.
Should Have Won: Traffic or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. After being blown away by the audacious artistry and heartbreaking showmanship of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and then being further impressed, and warily worn down by the circular games and power ploys of Soderburg's Traffic, I knew where my loyalties lay. For some reason, this year sticks a craw in my gut like no other. How the Academy could have not recognized these highly superior films for the masterpieces they were will forever remain a mystery to me.
Should Have Been in the Mix: Wonder Boys, High Fidelity and Almost Famous.




Just missed the cut: Forrest Gump, My Fair Lady, Gigi, Chariots of Fire, and The Last Emperor.



(Damn the '70's were awesome!!!! Not a single entry from the 1970's on this list, because while the winner wasn't always my personal favorite, it's hard to find fault with such strong lists of nominees. Take a look at this list of films nominated between 1971 and 1977: The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange, The Last Picture Show, Fiddler on the Roof, The Godfather, Cabaret, Deliverance, The Sting, The Exorcist, American Graffiti, The Godfather Pt2, Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville, Rocky, All the President's Men, Network, Bound for Glory, Taxi Driver, Annie Hall, Julia and Star Wars.)




Thursday, February 20, 2014

Chris Pratt Coming into his Own



Literally 3 nights ago I was watching Moneyball and thinking how Chris Pratt has really been playing the Hollywood game smartly. He played to his fratboy-douchebag image in Wanted and 10 Years, slowly became one of the most beloved characters on "Parks and Recreation," took solid supporting roles in Oscar-nominated films 3 years running (Moneyball, Zero Dark Thirty, and Her) and topped it off by voicing the lead character in the box-office smash The Lego Movie.

And now the trailer for the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer has dropped, impressing us with Pratt-abs, and making us laugh with great comedic chops and the clever use of "Hooked on a Feeling." On top of that, Pratt is the lead in the upcoming Jurassic Park reboot scheduled for release next year.





But for me, Pratt will always be Bright Abbott, the doofy, big-hearted lunk from the erstwhile WB's "Everwood." He was charming, spotlight-stealing, and always provided the biggest laughs. Here's to you, Bright! Hope your movies don't suck!




Tuesday, February 18, 2014

12 Actors Who Were Unable to Capitalize on an Academy Award Nomination


I usually think that an Academy Award nomination means an actor now has access to a larger variety of roles than previously available. It's an opportunity to vault oneself to the next level. Some actors are perennial nominees (think Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, and Meryl Streep) actors we know will be delivering strong work throughout their careers. This is not a list about those people. This is about smaller actors, many who have the ability to become big stars, who somehow let their chance slip away though a series of poor film choices. I have not included many foreign actor candidates because the prospect of a Hollywood film career would always be a stretch for an indie star of South America or Japan (we were never gonna be hearing much about Fernanda Montenegro, Adriana Barraza or Catelina Sandino Moreno again, at least not in the mainstream). There are also many candidates I didn't include because I think the Oscar nod gave them exactly the career they deserved. Take Thomas Haden Church: before his nod he was mostly known for playing a one-note character on an '80's sitcom. After his nod he has worked in a series of successful supporting parts of much higher quality than his previous career, and also more suited to his talents. This is just a sampling of the squandered opportunities out there. (And it should be noted, I do not always blame the actor for the loss of these opportunities. Sometimes, shit happens.)



 
Terrence Howard: Nominated for Best Actor in Hustle and Flow (2005)
An actor with so much promise, such great charisma and such presence, in the years immediately after his nomination (in the banner year of 2005) he took supporting roles in Four Brothers, Get Rich or Die Tryin', August Rush and Awake. He got a big break in 2008 as Tony Stark's best bud Colonel "Rhoady" Rhoads in Iron Man, a part he lost to Don Cheadle in the sequel due to contract and money disputes. Lately he's been seen in The Company You Keep, Prisoners, Lee Daniel's The Butler, and The Best Man Holiday, all respectable ensemble roles. But Howard has the ability to play in the big leagues with Denzel Washington and he is miles from that. The accusations in his personal life surely did him no favors either.


 
Kate Hudson: Nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Almost Famous (2000)
Hudson is most definitely a bonafide A-lister (or at least she was for 10 years after her nomination) but never again has she shown the kind of vulnerable determination of her Almost Famous role. She had a lot of high-profile gigs (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Raising Helen, The Skeleton Key, Bride Wars, You Me & Dupree) and has most recently been found shilling for television's "Glee." The last challenging part she took was in 2002's The Four Feathers, which didn't work out for anyone involved. In fact, looking at some of these movies, many of them commercial flops (Le Divorce, Something Borrowed, Alex and Emma) I'm amazed she stayed on the A-list as long as she did. Unfortunately we may never see anything as promising as Penny Lane from Hudson ever again.



Adrien Brody: Won Best Actor for The Pianist (2002)Post Oscar win, he had a decent run of box office success with The Village (however much maligned, it still pulled in $114 million) and King Kong, but his leading roles in The Jacket and Hollywoodland went largely unnoticed. He stepped out of the box with roles in indie fare like The Brothers Bloom and The Darjeerling Limited (a personal favorite), but wasn't really able to parlay his talent into any mainstream longevity. Between 2009 and 2013 he took part in a list of mostly forgettable films ranging from Wrecked to Splice and apart from a great cameo in Midnight in Paris, went largely unseen. Here's hoping this year's The Grand Budapest Hotel proves to be a more successful venture.


 
Rachel Weisz: Won Best Supporting Actress for The Constant Gardener (2005)
Weisz had a varied career as a character actress before her win, and there were many high profile roles in the years after including the rebooted Bourne Legacy and Oz the Great and Powerful. She also continued to take interesting parts in smaller films such as The Brothers Bloom and the experimental adventure The Fountain, with then-fiancee Darren Aronofsky. But for an actress with the charm to pull of a daffy librarian in The Mummy, realistically sweep Hugh Grant off his feet in About a Boy and off course play the moral crusader in The Constant Gardener, not to mention being one of the most beautiful woman in the world, while not always playing to that - and well as being Mrs. Daniel Craig, I just think she deserves more than second banana roles in duds like The Lovely Bones and Dream House.



Mickey Rourke: Nominated for Best Actor in The Wrestler (2008)
This isn't really fair given the massive train wreck his career was before the nomination, but it hasn't seemed to open very many doors for him either. He was the villain in the worst Iron Man, the villain in the forgettable Immortals, and part of the male-fantasy abomination The Expendables. Everything else is straight direct-to-video D-list. He has a part in the much anticipated Sin City: A Dame to Kill For; he could use it. Almost wish he'd won that year instead of Sean Penn cause I very much doubt he will ever be nominated again.


 
Clive Owen: Nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Closer (2004)
Wasn't Clive Owen supposed to be our next leading man? He was in contention for the Bond franchise for Pete's sake! Post-nom he had a pretty good run including Sin City, Shoot Em' Up, Inside Man and one of the seminal films of the last 20 years, Children of Men. It was looking pretty good, even with an ambitious flop like Derailed or Duplicity thrown in. I remember there being a lot of pre-award buzz around his performance in The Boys Are Back in 2009, but the film must have had a small run in theaters because despite mostly decent reviews, I never heard anything else about it. And after that, the most buzz-worthy thing on Owen's resume has been the TV movie Hemingway and Gellhorn. Owen should be right up there on the A-list with Daniel Craig, Tom Hardy, Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt; his skills are in the same league.


 
Virginia Madsen: Nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Sideways (2004)
I think this is less a fault of Madsen's and more an indication of the lack of women's roles for actresses between 40 and 60. Madsen has had a long and productive career as a character actress, so perhaps a vault to Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock-level roles was always going to be a stretch. But just watch this beautifully acted scene from Sideways and tell me she doesn't deserve better than "the wife" roles in Firewall, The Astronaut Farmer, The Number 23 and Red Riding Hood.


 
Cuba Gooding Jr.: Won Best Supporting Actor for Jerry Maguire (1996)
Whatever there is to say about the quality of roles picked, Gooding certainly did work, consistently, in the decade following his nomination. There were strong, but standard supporting roles in As Good As It Gets and What Dreams May Come; attempts at historical drama in critical bombs Men of Honor and Pearl Harbor; and then the descent into "anything for a paycheck" roles in everything from Snow Dogs and The Fighting Temptations, to Boat Trip and Daddy Day Camp. Maybe this was all we should ever have expected from Cuba Gooding Jr. and he has indeed made what success was available to him. But I would have liked to see him in another role that was full of life and joy again and not all this hammy shit.


 
Elisabeth Shue: Nominated for Best Actress in Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Shue had a few high profile gigs in The Saint, Cousin Bette and Deconstructing Harry, but mostly a lot of horrible roles in horrible films like The Hollow Man, The Trigger Effect, Molly and Hide and Seek. In recent years, in between standard mom roles, she's managed to make fun of herself in Hamlet 2 and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," but watch Leaving Las Vegas again and tell me she isn't worthy of so much more. We're talking the star of Adventures in Babysitting! Where's the respect?


 
Mira Sorvino: Won Best Supporting Actress for Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
Apart from the sublimely brilliant Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Sorvino's post-Oscar career careens from failed experiment Mimic (an early Guillermo Del Toro picture) to the nauseatingly bittersweet At First Sight. These may be the kinds of big-name roles she could expect, but the quality was sadly lacking. There has been nothing noteworthy in at least 10 years, and though her IMDb page is full of roles, I only recognize a handful.


 
Burt Reynolds: Nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Boogie Nights (1997)
Reynolds had been trudging through standard comedy fare, mostly trading on his former good looks, when Boogie Nights came along and showed a true thespian hiding behind the swarm and swagger. Unfortunately Reynolds turned right around and took every pitiful paycheck role in sight, eventually stooping to self-parody in The Crew and The Dukes of Hazzard. Nowadays he pops up in cameos on every Fox animated television show.


 
Minnie Driver: Nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Good Will Hunting (1997)
Part of Driver's appeal was the very cool part she was given to play in Good Will Hunting. Skylar was witty and confident, but heartbreakingly honest and vulnerable, with the kind of "one of the guys" cool we all wish we could pull off. And Driver had the goods before that as well - check her out in the little know Circle of Friends with a charming Irish accent and 30 lb. weight gain, or as the - again - very cool object of John Cusack's affection in Grosse Point Blank. She eventually took a few good roles in films like Return to Me and the television series "The Riches," but has been mostly slumming it in unsatisfactory supporting roles in everything from Ella Enchanted to Conviction. Her latest venture is the Fiona role in the television remake of About a Boy; it looks atrocious.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

A Dance Between Friends

 
 



HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PT. 1 (2010)


I know a lot of people thought Harry and Hermione were going to kiss in this scene, and I suppose that is a fair interpretation. But this scene never felt sexual to me at all. What has often gotten lost in the Harry Potter fandom - at least the movie fandom - is that Hermione and Harry are best friends. Ron is his best mate, but Hermione is his best friend. And this scene felt like the most natural thing in the world for Harry to want to do. They are both sad and disheartened, missing Ron, and he tries to cheer them both up with a funny little dance. The way he looks at her is so grownup, like he has taken all of the lessons and heartache over the previous six years and he knows that life is going to continue being hard - that is a fact of life for Harry Potter - but they can make the best of it, have this one light moment where they get to be the eighteen year-olds they actually are and not the saviors of the world. It helps that the song is Nick Cave's "O' Children," a beautifully melancholic, but also hopeful song with something of gospel in it.

And even more than the brief moment of levity, I love how quickly it ends, that reality comes back too soon. Ron is still gone, they still don't have the answers they need, and a little dancing won't change that. That too felt so grownup - so sad for them that their innocence is over and they can't ignore or put off the real world any longer. They are now part of it; they are adults. That realization is crushing, not only for these characters, but for those of us in the audience who have watched them grow up, who have watched this fun little kid series become something to be taken seriously, something that will break your heart. In eight wonderful films, this is my absolute favorite moment. Not quidditch, or the end of Voldemort, or Ron and Hermione's kiss or even the most delightful smile of young Daniel Radcliffe getting to become a wizard. This is the moment that made it all real for me.