Mostly wizardry with Harry Potter’s big-screen debut

By Caroline Thomas/Special to The Malibu Times

Fans were anxiously waiting, anticipation was building, the movie hype was saturating, and finally, Harry Potter (the film) arrives and, happily, it lives up to the daunting expectations … mostly.

Amid the garrulous pomp of a record-setting movie and merchandising campaign, it’s hard to accept that the film would be anything but great, but “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” will leave its mark on the box office, even if it is only fairly good.

The film opens on Privet Drive, home of the drippy Dursley family, muggles (non-magic people) who are reluctantly raising young Harry Potter. Harry’s witch and wizard parents have been killed by the evil Voldemort, also known as “you-know-who”–even uttering his name is too awful. Unfortunately, life with the Dursley’s takes up a good part of the first hour without much playing to its full potential. There is an amusing snake that Harry unknowingly bewitches, and the mass owl arrival is quite a sight, but at this point only the earnest potential of Harry (played tenderly by 11-year-old Daniel Radcliffe) keeps the audience engaged.

Mercifully, Harry is whisked away on his 11th birthday by the loveable giant, Hagrid (well-cast with Robbie Coltrane). It is time for his wizard training at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but first a shopping spree in Diagon Alley where gruesome goblins run the bank, and magic wand shops date back to 386 B.C. Here, the rich special effects emerge in an intriguing Dickensian street scene. Maybe if director Chris Columbus had stayed a little closer to Dickens and a little farther from the styles of his previous hits, “Home Alone” and “Mrs. Doubtfire,” the film might have an edge that could have led to greatness.

On the Hogwarts Express, Harry meets his future comrades including Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) who amusingly finds everything “wicked!” and the loquacious Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), who grows on the boys after they save her from a gargantuan troll. The kids are all well-played and cast including Harry’s archenemy, prep boy Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), who sniffs, “Some wizardry families are better than others,” to which Harry boldly retorts, “I think I can tell them apart for myself!”

Hogwarts is where the magic begins–literally, and onscreen. There are some stunning scenes that will surely amaze even the imaginative writer of the four best-selling Harry Potter novels, J.K. Rowling. The enchanted great hall with its suspended candles and changing sky is just as one imagines in book one. The Escher-like staircases and animated paintings are all part of the mystique of the novel.

The adult cast is appropriately eccentric but severely underused. Richard Harris and Maggie Smith as professors Dumbledore and McGonagall seem perfectly cast, yet their characters never show much depth. Similarly, Julie Walters as Mrs. Dursley and Alan Rickman as the questionably evil professor Snape are two of the best character imports, but limited dialogue prevents them from reaching their potential.

Fans will be content with screenwriter Steve Kloves’ (“Wonder Boys,” “The Fabulous Baker Boys”) dedication to the novel, but adding some filmic originality wouldn’t have hurt.

Chris Columbus tends to get by with simple emotionality in his films and the sometimes uneven editing and overwrought John Williams’ soundtrack don’t help matters. What does help is a contiguous visual style, and a few magnificent Hogwarts moments, like the Quidditch match (think soccer on broomsticks) that plays with all the excitement of the pod-racing scene from most recent “Star Wars” installment.

The film is rated PG but is suitable for all but very young children, with very little reliance on violent thrills; the only exception being the loudest chess match ever filmed.

Not that Warner Bros. needs advice–after a $90 million opening weekend–but … a little more wizardry devoted to the dialogue of Harry Potter Number Two, please, and we’ll all be back for more.

Malibu is now facing two critical issues that will have tremendous impact on our community. First, the extremely close defeat of the bond issue will force the city to seek creative solutions to meet our desperate need for family parks, playing fields, and a community center that will serve all our residents And second, the Coastal Commission’s draft of Malibu’s Local Coastal Plan will require the city to double its efforts to exercise local control over the amount and type of development that will be permitted in our city. Each of these issues will be paramount in our attempt to restrain high-density commercial development and improve, not diminish, Malibu’s quality of life

I feel the last year and a half has given me the experience needed to help resolve these issues. Therefore, I am announcing my candidacy for reelection to City Council in 2002 and pledge to attack issues, not people, and concentrate on solutions, not problems.

Sharon Barovsky

Councilmember

Thanksgiving Day

Above the earth and through the clouds

To grandmother’s house we fly

The crew in locked in, I’m on my third gin

Oh! What a friendly sky!

Bill Dowey

The Life of Nelson Riddle

By Peter J. Levinson/Billboard Books: 288 pp., $21.95

By Pam Linn/Staff Writer

More than just a biography of Nelson Riddle, Peter Levinson’s “September in the Rain” is a comprehensive history of American popular music.

From his apprenticeship as a trombonist and arranger for the big dance bands of the ’30s and ’40s through his hugely successful recordings during the ’50s and ’60s, Riddle’s influence was pervasive. These were the years when everyone’s favorite song was most likely a ballad sung by Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole or a jazz tune by Ella Fitzgerald. And supporting those wonderful vocals were Riddle’s rich harmonic lines. He always wrote to make the singer sound good.

During his big band days, Riddle was paid for his arrangements, but many were ghost written, with the bandleader taking the credit. By all accounts an unassuming guy, Riddle never objected, never pushed himself or hired publicists to do it for him. Levinson recounts in his preface that after profiling Riddle for Los Angeles Magazine in 1962, he joined a Hollywood public relations firm and suggested to Riddle that they represent him, but Riddle declined.

After the Beatles TV debut in 1964, pop music and the recording industry changed forever, and the era of the singer/songwriter began. Although his arrangements were featured on many more recordings with Frank Sinatra, Riddle was left to write for TV and movies.

From the time he studied composing and orchestration with classical composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, he had always said film scoring was his first love. He won his only Academy Award (of five nominations) in 1975 for the score of “The Great Gatsby.”

After some lean years, Nelson’s recording career made a brilliant comeback in the 1980s with pop star Linda Ronstadt, a collaboration that produced three gold and platinum albums and earned him one of his three Grammy awards.

Universally respected among musicians, he was also well liked for his even temperament, which made it possible for him to work with volatile personalities like Tommy Dorsey and Sinatra. Unlike Nat Cole, who was easy going, relaxed and kind, Sinatra sometimes belittled and berated Riddle in front of the orchestra. He took the abuse without rancor, often saying, “He doesn’t really mean it.” Even so, the break with Sinatra, when it finally came, was painful.

The book also gives some insight into Riddle’s troubled first marriage to Doreen, with whom he raised six children (another died in infancy) in Malibu, and her struggle with alcohol addiction. They finally divorced in 1968.

After working together for about a year with Rosemary Clooney on her TV show, they began a serious affair that lasted six years. It was for both the most intense relationship of their lives, next to their marriages. She would refer to him many times as, “The love of my life.”

The depth of their feelings for each other was evident in the recordings they made together, the most outstanding of which, Levinson writes, was “Love.” “Clooney selected all the songs for the album, which was recorded at the height of their relationship and, inspired by Nelson’s superb writing, Clooney turned in the most passionate performance of her entire recording career.”

But the most beautiful album he ever arranged, Levinson writes, was “The Wonderful World of Antonio Carlos Jobim,” recorded in 1965. “The tenderness and sensuality that predominated throughout this recording … revealed how much Nelson and Jobim were soul mates.”

Rich in anecdotes, the book quotes hundreds of musicians who worked with Riddle during the early big band years and later followed him to Hollywood to work in studio orchestras.

Composer Herschel Gilbert recalled, “I was enamored of the way he wrote. He wrote right in the parts–I could never do that-most composers can’t do that. In other words, he wrote a trumpet part, wrote a second trumpet part, and wrote a third trumpet part and kept it all in his head. That’s a highly advanced way of scoring.”

That facility was probably what enabled Riddle to turn out the incredible amount of work he did on tight deadlines for weekly TV shows, movies and recording dates.

Of the musicians who knew Riddle well, many have praised “September in the Rain” as capturing the essence of his genius.

Perhaps his friend, pianist George Shearing said it best: “Peter Levinson has put a beautiful frame around a portrait of a beautiful man. It is a long overdue tribute to this lovely, talented man, who lived with so much tragedy in his personal life but still gave us all such love and happiness through his talent as a musician’s musician.”

Peter Levinson will read and sign copies of “September in the Rain” Saturday, Nov. 24, 2 p.m. at Borders Books 1360 Westwood Blvd. 310.475.9204.

My wife and I have lived up Las Flores Canyon for 25 years. Our experience has been that it’s not if an accident will happen, but when. Tragically, another accident occurred a few days after the garbage truck went off the road.

In the case of the garbage truck, my suspicion is that his brakes failed or he was carrying too much weight. Maybe this was from failed maintenance or from mechanical defect. Hopefully, the investigators will be able to make that determination. Unfortunately, the vast majority of accidents are from unmitigated stupidity, mostly on the part of the motorists and to a small part the blame can be placed upon the county.

We have had three friends drive off the road, all motorist stupidity. The first was a GI Jane in her hot new BMW who couldn’t handle the hairpin turn just below the Mia Flores home. The second was someone driving while his brain was addled with alcohol and couldn’t act quickly enough to one of the turns he encountered. The third accident was by a driver whose brain was disconnected from marijuana and I think he forgot that you’re supposed to turn the wheel when you come to a curve.

I know this sounds disgustingly cynical, but outrageous disregard for safe driving up and down Las Flores Canyon is a common occurrence. The sheriff’s department, if they had the time, could probably fund a large part of its budget just by handing out tickets on Las Flores. I have driven up and down this road at least once every day for 25 years and can state categorically that the road cannot be negotiated safely above 35 MPH.

I mentioned the county also being at fault. To start with, the turn off PCH heading south onto Las Flores is terrifying. To make that turn, you must sit in the turn lane on PCH as cars, going 50 to 65 MPH, fly around the turn just across from Duke’s restaurant. Then there’s the signal at the turn. It does three different things. Usually it turns yellow at a time when the traffic headed north has been stopped by a red light. The denizens of the canyon know from experience that they can then make the turn off of PCH onto Las Flores safely. At other times, a green arrow comes on indicating it is time to turn. This happens with no predictability. And still at other times, although rarely, the south lane has a green light while the north lane has a red. As you sit there, it is unclear if it is safe to make a turn.

Next, a short way up the road, just before The Malibu Times, is an apartment building. Parking is provided for tenants in a space cut off the road. However, the spaces are too short and the rear ends of the cars sometimes project out into the road. Someone coming up Las Flores has to swerve out into the other lane to avoid hitting these cars.

Finally, there is a hairpin turn just after Gorge road that is a blind acute angle cut against the cliff where there is no play to move over whatsoever. The cliff is loaded with rocks that do not appear to be too stable. A parabolic mirror should be placed at that turn, or at least a warning sign.

In closing I want to mention one of the obvious dangers that exist on PCH itself. Many of the exits from the various shopping malls that line the highway are made blind because parking is allowed too close to the exit. If a car or worse, a truck, is parked in that space, a driver has to edge out into traffic before he or she can see if the road is clear. I would suggest that someone from the third grade be hired to scrutinize these locations and fix the problem because that is all the education it would take to see how dangerous these situations are. But if history is any indication, nothing will be done until more needless deaths occur.

Howard Ziehm

The United States Postal Service wants to send a message to the American people: we are alive and well and continuing to deliver America’s mail as we always have through every crisis in this nation’s history.

Employees of the USPS are also sending a message of hope and courage by going to work every day and processing and delivering the mail that is vital to our economy and to our lives. We are proud of our employees and their dedication to serving the people of America.

The CEO of a large national company recently wrote to express his thanks to the Postal Service and applaud employees for their “bravery, resolve, and accountability.” He added that employees of the USPS were “among the growing list of today’s heroes in America … and are an integral part of all our lives.”

The Postal Service is an integral part of America’s life, and we have no intention of allowing terrorists or anyone else to change that. We will continue to be at your office, on your doorstep, and at your mailbox every day, and we will continue to do all we can to ensure that postal employees and the mail are safe and secure.

We have adopted tough, new measures to protect the public and our employees, including purchasing new mail screening technology and protective gear for our employees. The equipment will be used in select areas to kill any biological agent, including anthrax, inside or outside mail. USPS also has ordered the environmental testing of 230 postal facilities around the country to make sure they are not contaminated, and thousands of postal employees have been tested and/or are receiving antibiotic treatment as a precaution.

Realizing that knowledgeable employees and citizens using their common sense is the best defense against these threats, the Postal Service is educating the public, employees, and businesses on how to handle the mail safely. We have sent 145 million postcards to households throughout the country explaining how to safely handle suspicious mail. The postcard is posted online at www.usps.com.

The Postal Service also is investigating to see that justice is done and is vigorously pursuing all leads, threats, and hoaxes. And we are offering a $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of terrorists who attack the mail. Citizens can provide tips by calling 800-CRIME-TV.

President Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and that is as true today as it was when America was facing World War II. Of course, we are facing real dangers in America today, but it is not the first time, nor will it be the last. What we must not do is give in to people who would have us live in fear. An open and free mail system is an American treasure worth fighting for. We must keep living our lives and going to work, and for the Postal Service that means delivering America’s mail just as it has for 226 years.

Mary Jane Smith

Postmaster, Malibu