Snapshot

Big weekend. A lot of media events I'd been anxiously awaiting came to pass. I'll go into more detail about each in later entries, but to sum up:

The Excellent: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I went to the midnight party with my daughter. She made her very own feather-tipped magic wand and got her picture taken. We made it home with gobs of give-aways including half a dozen pairs of Harry glasses and at least that many green stretchy bracelets with the release date immortalized in plastic.

I finished the book at 3 a.m. Sunday morning. At this point I'm not going to go into detail because it's still way too early to reveal spoilers. Suffice it to say, I think this might be my favorite installment yet, and I can't believe I now have to wait two years until HP #7.

The Very Good: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Absolutely loved Tim Burton's interpretation of this movie. I completely disagree with every critic who thinks Johnny Depp's performance was a weak link. I found him captivating. The man is amazing in how he manages to convert himself into characters so completely over the top.

I had to laugh at my DH, who didn't appreciate this version. In fact, he prefers the original Gene Wilder movie over this. He kept saying "It's just the same as the old movie. There was hardly any differences." To which, I kept trying to explain to him that both movies are based on the same book, which would mean a humongous amount of repetition. I don't think he couldn't figure that out, more that he couldn't understand what the point of a re-do is if nothing is that much different.

Give me Johnny Depp. Please.

The Slightly Disappointing: Breaking Point

No surprise to people who visit me regularly that I was anxiously awaiting this latest Suzanne Brockmann title. I actually finished this on Wednesday, and I've started a pretty lengthy review which I will post at a later date. Again, suffice it to say that of all the Troubleshooter books, this one falls to the bottom of my list as far as preferences go.

Yeah, I know. You're betting I didn't go outside at all this weekend. Well, it was really hot!!