& speaking of Harry Potter IV, nacho crimes aside it was an enjoyable if long fillum, with Mike Newell the director managing two important things:
– editing JKR – book IV was where the gigantism sets in and though to be fair a lot happens, a lot of that lot doesn’t NEED to happen. Newell knows that what a lot of the Potterites come for isn’t the action as such – they know what happens – but the visualisations. So you can cut out incident but not characters. The result is a film packed with individuals who get the merest handful of lines to impose themselves, and with old characters who are barely re-introduced. It shouldn’t work as well as it does but luckily…
– Newell turns out to be very good at compression, establishing character and subplot very quickly and dismissing them just as quickly. So even though his screen time is minimal, someone like Cedric is much more likeable and believable than his featureless book version (he’s actually the most typical public school type in the films so far, and I felt a weird pang of nostalgia watching him).