Fact: America loves They Might Be Giants.

We saw Harry Potter and the Title I've Never Really Cared For last night. I don't have time for an especially long review, but I'm curiously of two minds about it. Visually I think it's by far the most disappointing of the adaptations—David Yates gives every scene a washed-out, sickly color that, whatever his artistic intentions, is completely ugly, and there is almost none of the manic Hogwarts exuberance that characterizes the earlier films. (This time around Hogwarts is pretty much just a really old, dank castle with the Cloisters' unicorn tapestry inside.) The script, too, tinkers with the original book in ways that are almost always to the story's detriment, with foreshadowing so blatant it's practically trolling the film itself—and several of the child actors seem alternatively bored with the material or unable to pull off what is required of them. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the film? Quite a bit, actually; there are a few really nice moments that are genuinely funny (as opposed to kid-funny or Harry-Potter-fan-funny) that by themselves almost single-handedly drag the film back towards "good." None of the other films, for my money, have been able to hold a candle to Alfonso Cuarón's Prisoner of Azkaban—the only film in the series that I'd suggest is an objectively great film—but this one is good, or at least good enough.

Busy week ahead, so posting will be comparatively light except insofar as I allow the Internets to distract me from my work. We'll see how I do.

A few links:

* The U.S. has apparently launched not-at-all-October-Surprise forays into Syria and Pakistan.

* Barack draws a record 100,000+ crowd in Denver. (See photo.)

* NBC numbers man Chuck Todd is having an increasingly difficult time keeping "objectivity" in the face of Obama's overwhelming advantages; here he is on Meet the Press talking about the early voting explosion and the possibility of African-American voter participation in the neighborhood of 95-100%.

* More early voting buzz: the latest official numbers show Democrats taking a lead over Republicans in the votes already cast, 871,251 to 818,799. As early voting tends to favor Republicans due to the disproportionate absentee balloting of military voters and the elderly, this is good news.

* Jewish voters in Pennsylvania have been warned by the state GOP not to make the same mistake their German ancestors did in the 1930s and '40s. There is so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin.

* Who will replace Obama as the senator from Illinois? Jesse Jackson, Jr., wants the job, despite fears that he may be unelectable statewide.

* The Ann Arbor News endorses *nobody* for president. Well done, sirs.

* And the Internet has created its most bizarrely Dada meme yet: Robocop on a Unicorn.