#fb tcog

[havithreatendub4]

Johnny Depp #UK Premiere of #Fantastic Beasts The Crimes Of Grindelwald at Cineworld Leicester Square in #London England on #November 13, 2018

#UK #Premiere #Fantastic Beasts The Crimes Of Grindelwald at Cineworld #Leicester Square #London England on #November 13, 2018

[gebo4482]

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald by Arnaud Brisebois / Ken Barthelmey

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

I had a friend create a 10-category, 50-question Harry Potter trivia quiz for my 30th birthday. I have a Ravenclaw tattoo that takes up most of my right forearm. I’ve helped orchestrate an HP-themed baby shower. I’ve held multiple HP movie marathons. And when we were first dating and Wife told me she’d never read the books, I legitimately cried and then blocked it from my memory. When she told me for the second time, months later, I cried again. 

One could say I’m a fan of the wizarding world. 

So here we are, at the second entry in the second wizarding franchise, and the only question really worth answering is, is this a world that’s still worth visiting? Well...

Imagine someone you love - it could be anyone, but as an example I’ll use your best friend. Imagine your BEST friend, whom you’ve shared so much with, whom you’ve gone through ups and downs with. That one. Now imagine that every few months, your best friend’s mom sends you a text, or calls you, or puts up a billboard in your town that seems to be actively trying to get you to hate your best friend. Things like “She kicks puppies” or “One time, she made fun of a homeless man until he cried” or “She told me she wants to set fire to a hospital.” Like, real fucked up stuff. Would you maintain a relationship with that friend? With them both? Or would you cut ties completely and just hold onto the memories of the friendship you used to have?

I’m genuinely asking, because J.K. Rowling seems hellbent on shitting all over the things I love in some twisted effort to make me utterly baffled and repulsed by the world she has created. I never thought I’d say this, but Johnny Depp is the least of this movie’s problems, so welcome to Whose Crime Is It Anyway? where the timelines are made up and the plot points don't matter.

A spoilery summary! Our favorite Hufflepuff Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is asked by Hot Dumbledore (Jude Law) to go to Paris and find Credence (Ezra Miller). You remember Credence, the sweet emo boy from the first movie whose death functioned as the climax of the film? JK JK death is meaningless and impermanent here! It’s the roaring 20s, everyone’s drunk. Newt needs to find him because Grindelwald (Johnny Depp, doing his best impression of day-old potato salad) is also looking for him. Credence is the subject of a prophecy that everyone’s familiar with but the audience, you see, and he’s currently trapped in a Parisian street circus with a woman/snake named Nagini (Claudia Kim, and yes, THAT Nagini). Jacob and Queenie (Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol) also show up again, because they were in the first movie too so they have to be here for this. Jacob’s memory has been restored because...~handwavey reasons~ and Queenie decides to join The Mayonnaise Man’s cause as a wizard Nazi because...she wants to marry a Muggle. Somehow I think she didn’t read the whole orientation flyer. Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz) is engaged to Newt’s brother, Theseus (Callum Turner) but is mostly hanging around to look sad and reveal that Credence couldn’t be her long-lost brother because she killed her long-lost brother by switching him with another baby on a ship right before it sank at sea. And she’s right, Credence isn’t her brother - he’s gone over to the dark side, where the vaguely human amalgamation of cauliflower rice tells him he’s the long-lost brother of Albus Dumbledore! Because why the fuck not, nothing else in this goddamn thing makes any sense anyway.

I would also like to point out I left out at least 40 more characters, many of whom seem to be important but are never named or introduced in any way.

SEVERAL thoughts:

Visually, this world is stunning. The set designers have done an incredible job showcasing new magical settings in rich, vivid detail. The Parisian street circus and the French Ministry of Magic building were particular favorites of mine.

Likewise, the 1927-era costumes are drop-dead gorgeous. This franchise should really be called Fantastic Coats and Where to Find Them.

50 galleons seems so steep. I wonder what the wizarding inflation rate is.

Snakes can fit through bars of cages...

Performances - Redmayne is sweet, but virtually shoved out of the way in his own franchise; Kravitz is cold and removed - is that acting choice secret pain or constipation? Hard to say; Fogler is underutilized, especially after being the emotional MVP of the first film; Sudol is fractured and manic, completely devoid of her earnest warmth from before; Miller barely gets 3 lines, and mostly looks like he’s about to cry; Law is fine as hell and kindly and wise and doesn’t give off weird “I’m going to use children as sacrificial lambs without telling them or anyone else about it” vibes, so that’s already a big step up from the Dumbledore we get in the books; and then there’s Johnny. Johnny “lightly braised tofu” Depp is giving one of his most understated performances in years, to the point that he’s almost...boring? Most genocidal fuckheads are at least compelling speakers, but this dehydrated turnip just sort of glides about, while his followers do dastardly things for him. He doesn’t even kill his own toddlers, he outsources it to his followers. Does nobody believe in honest, hard work anymore? 

Basically all of the details - the set dressing, the costumes, the overall aesthetics and feel of the film - are beautifully realized. However, the foundation is made of smoke and sand and the distant sound of JKR’s maniacal laughter.

Cast and endorse an accused abuser who is teetering on the brink of public collapse? Check. Include outdated Orientalism cliches by casting an East Asian woman as mysterious, dangerous, and literally snake-like? Check. How about a white imperialist Imperius-ing Leta Lestrange's (black African) mother and literally forcing her into sex slavery with no follow-up or reflection on the part of the film or its characters? Check. It’s like some sort of perverse bingo game she’s playing to try to alienate everyone who might have seen themselves in the Harry Potter universe as belonging, because they understood what it was like to be an outsider, to be abused, to be shunned and made fun of and ostracized. Cause fuck all those people, amirite?

And that’s just the offensive choices from a purely political standpoint. How about the offensive choices regarding more trivial matters like linear time and space - like Dumbledore teaching Transfiguration, not DAtDA. Or like Professor MacGonagall being born in 1935, yet somehow teaching at Hogwarts in 1927. People apparating inside Hogwarts. Complete reversals of characters’ personalities and motivations. Characters being introduced and never seen again (where did Bunty go?? Did she die???) Characters NOT being introduced and never seen again (what up Jessica Williams, super psyched that you’re here, sure would be neat if I knew who the fuck you were playing or why that person was important!) If the references are meant for fans’ benefit, it fucking BACKFIRED, because most HP fans I know aren’t looking for a convoluted soap opera where babies are switched, people have secret brothers, everyone's amnesia gets reversed, and people come back from the dead.

Now that I think about it, the practice of confronting a boggart is super problematic. Like people have traumas. It's not all spiders and snakes, Dumbledore! God, Hogwarts pedagogy is shit.

I’m still not convinced that Jude Law’s tasty Daddy Dumbledore could possibly still be in love with this tuna salad sandwich from a vending machine at the DMV. That flashback in the Mirror of Erised is supposed to be full of longing but all I could think was, “is this how straight people think gay sex works?” Would have loved to hear that day in the writer’s room. “Maybe we could have them kiss?” “Too gay. What if they exchange blood vows and hold hands to form a magical amulet?” “Nailed it.” *everyone high fives and chugs a Red Bull* 

There’s just...so much. So much that I wish were different. I don’t quite know how it’s possible for a film to explain both too much and not enough, but here we are. The Crimes of Grindlewald isn’t just a title, it’s a prophecy of what audiences are forced to endure here - it’s not just separating art from artist, it’s not just cultural exploitation and othering, it’s not just queer erasure, it’s not just overplotted and underwhelming narrative, it’s not just cheap shocks and winking references. The rap sheet just keeps getting longer and longer, and I have to wonder when, if ever, Rowling will atone for these crimes.

[emeraldspiral]

Just imagine if the Harry Potter books were written like TCoG;

Book 1: We find out it wasn’t Snape who was after the Philosopher’s Stone, but we don’t learn the alternate explanations for his suspicious behavior. Quirrel is revealed to be the bad guy only to the audience and not Harry. We have to wait for the next movie to find out what’s up with Voldemort being on the back of his head or what attacked Harry in the forbidden forest or how the troll got into the castle, or any of the other strange goings on that were Quirrel’s doing.

Book 2: In the last paragraph of the book it’s revealed that Tom Riddle is Voldemort. This is the only mention of Tom Riddle in the entire book.

Book 3: No build up of Hermione seemingly appearing from nowhere and having classes scheduled at the same time. She just blinks in and out of existence along with Buckbeak at the very end of the book, says she did it with a time-turner, and that’s all the explanation we get. Also, no absences from class during full-moons, no establishing that werewolves even exist in the HP universe, and Lupin goes by a pseudonym the entire book.

Book 4: Portkeys are never established before the end of the tournament. Barty Crouch Jr. is never mentioned until the scene where his polyjuice potion wears off.

Book 5: We find out that Harry was switched at birth with his twin who was the real “chosen one” Voldemort meant to kill that night, and that chosen one was Ginny, even though it’s literally impossible for her to be his twin.

Book 6: Draco actually wasn’t up to anything in the room of requirement, it was his mom the whole time and she kills Dumbledore.

Book 7: Harry isn’t a horcrux. The last one is just the snake. The twist is that we thought the snake was Nagini, but it just turns out to be the python Harry freed from the zoo. We actually never met the real Nagini because she died before the start of the series proper.

[viggos-mortensen]

zoe is so gorgeous as leta lestrange ajdjsndjsjfjd i'm literally hit with a case of them heart eyes

[lemony-pickett]

Newtina end scene :’) They looked so nice

[fllourishandblotts]

You’re welcome.

[throwaway3844893]

girls that girls that

say hiiii say bruh

[jaskiersbeloved]

In conclusion I miss Theseus Scamander

[hyacinths-bridgerton]

[ai-adler-blog]

Fantastic Outfits and Where The Fuck Can I Find Them

[havithreatendub4]

Johnny Depp with fans during the #UK Premiere of #Fantastic Beasts The Crimes Of Grindelwald at Cineworld Leicester Square in #London England on #November 13, 2018

[gebo4482]

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald by David Freeman

[knockturnallley]

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald | November 18th, 2018

[s-git]

One thing I did like about Crimes of Grindelwald was Jude Law’s expression when Dumbledore was looking into the mirror of Erised. I had expected it to be sad, maybe disgusted, angry, confused. Instead there was this profound sadness and pain, but the hint of a smile & to me it just really seemed as if he was fully aware of this weakness of his (the former love for Grindelwald, even the remnants of it that he continued to feel to this day) and he was able to forgive himself for it. So, so nuanced and bittersweet.

[only-joking--i-am-fred]

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them: Kelpies are very evil and dangerous. Do not go near them. Evil. Like to appear as horses. Evil horses.

Newt Scamander: I'm gonna ride that bitch