HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER!!!

So that was fun!  Upon reflection, I would have to say that this was FOR SURE my favorite movie so far.  Mostly because it successfully combined two of my great loves, Harry Potter and depressing movies, but also because there actually wasn't anything really wrong with it?  I mean, sure, they left a couple things out, and there was definitely some laughably awful and misguided use of CGI in a certain pivotal dramatic scene (seriously, HAHAHA!), but overall?  SO GOOD!  Here are some THOUGHTS I had about it:

• It looked really nice!  So many pretty camping locations! 
• Lots of good acting!  Especially from Ron.  He was acting up a fucking STORM in there!  If you had said to me way back when the first movie came out "Hey Lauren, who do you think will act up a storm in the second-to-last movie?" I would have been like "I dunno, Hermione's eyebrows?  But not Ron, definitely not Ron!" BUT THEN JUST LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!
• There was a Nick Cave song featured prominently in that one part!  How very unexpected but also strangely appropriate!  Nothing says "GLOOMY!" quite like Nick Cave.
• Speaking of which, the music was really nice!  Or, the SCORE, I should say.  I don't usually notice these things, but during that part where they're running through the forest and there is a very noticeable lack of jaunty chase music, I thought to myself "Oh wow, this is a really nice score!" 
• DOBBY!
• Neville was there!  When I sort of went to meet Neville the other day I thought about asking him if he was even in the movie he traveled to Chile to promote, but that did not happen.  But he was there (for five seconds!)!  And he was being a total badass!  I don't remember what he said but I remember thinking "Oh look at Neville!  How very Gryffindor of him to say that!"
• DIRIGIBLE PLUMS!
• Luna and her dad!  
• A++ on the massive amounts of CREEPY oozing out of the Bathilda Bagshot scene.  So good!
• What happened to Dean Thomas???  He was supposed to be hanging out with Luna in the Malfoy basement!  THIS REALLY BOTHERS ME.  I mean, I suppose it's a good thing that my biggest complaint is that they forgot about DEAN THOMAS, but still.
• HEDWIG EXPLOSION!  THE FUCKING HEDWIG EXPLOSION!!!

Also, while we're talking about Harry Potter:

• So, this morning I bought like three Harry and the Potters albums (actually, one was a FREE remix album!) because it turns out they are all only 5 bucks over here and that is very reasonable!  So good!
• Here's a fun link! 
• AAAAAAH I CAN'T WAIT FOR JULY!!!

Can we just talk about how cool our president is?

Seriously, he is such a cool guy.  Forget politics, let's just look at a few reasons for why he is possibly the most awesome American president yet:

1)  He's a Harry Potter fan!  Look, here he is saying he is "excited" for the last book!



Yay!  Plus, he name-dropped J. K. Rowling in his speech on education:  "Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published."  Yay!  This is great not only because, duh, Harry Potter is great and anyone who likes the books is fine by me, but also because Obama must have learned the Lessons of the Books and we can count on him never being a Cornelius Fudge or a Scrimgeour.  Yay!

2) He celebrates Talk Like a Pirate Day and HE ACTUALLY LET A PIRATE INTO THE WHITE HOUSE!!!

3) He likes Juanes!  "He’s a terrific musician," Obama said.  "He puts on a very good concert."

4) He probably likes Kanye West!  Sure, he called him a "jackass," but whatever, I'm just impressed that HE ACTUALLY KNOWS WHO HE IS and is up-to-date enough on definitely-not-that-important news like the Taylor Diss to give an informed opinion of the situation!  (But really, he probably has a few Kanye songs on his iPod.)  And also, by calling Kanye a jackass he showed us that he is really on the pulse of the Nation's Opinions of Kanye West (a very important thing to be on the pulse of)

5)  This picture!

(dork.)