Cribfest and praises

Harry potter and the Goblet of Fire (In Hindi it is Aag ka pyaala, if you please!): It is dark, literally. The movie looked like the Lord of the Rings, or Batman and Robin---no sunlight.There is no brightness except in the ball scene. Parvati and Padma Patil’s dresses weren’t very pretty. But the awkwardness of the boys was very cute!
· They did away with Winky altogether! Also Ludo Bagman.
· And why was the maze task reduced to just the bushes closing in? What about the Sphinx and the skrewts and all the other dark obstacles?
· Why did they show Barty Crouch Junior with Voldemort in the first scene? Why did they show Barty after the Dark mark? We were not supposed to know it was he who shot out the dark mark!
· They even cut the Quidditch world cup match, Veela included…That was a great disappointment!
· They never even showed the dementors. Well, maybe they did not want to show them sucking the soul out of Barty Crouch Jr.(though they had no qualms in so doing in P of A)
· Nor did they show Harry giving Fred & George his Triwizard winnings for their joke shop, saying that the world needs more laughs than ever because Voldemort had returned.
· They showed Barty Crouch Sr. lying dead in the forest, whereas after his son (Barty Crouch Jr.) kills him, he is supposed to transfigure his father’s body into a bone and bury it in the forest.
· Neville gives the Gillyweed to Harry, whereas Dobby is the one who does so in the book. This is not a quibble, it is important because the false Moody thinks Neville will do it, but he doesn’t---so he has to take the Dobby route(by revealing the Gillyweed option to Mcgonagall in Dobby’s hearing.)
· I pictured Moody with a very craggy face, with more scars! And what price the sleek aluminum leg instead of the wooden one?

If I ever write a book, and if it ever gets made into a film, I’ll probably hound the filmmakers to death and not let them change anything! On second thoughts, the film maker has some creative licence too!
Talking of books, I just finished reading “One night @ the call center” by Chetan Bhagat. I liked it better than “Five point someone” in terms of humour and optimism. The passages with the boss were rich! Reminded me a bit about Dilbert. There is creative use of fonts, for which the author thanks Microsoft. MS also features on two levels in the story. All in all a good read. I will even go so far as to say that it is almost the book equivalent of Dil Chahta Hai.