Harry Potter and the Order of the Half Blood Prince

Frustration and Love. 

Two ways to sum up the next two movies in the series. 

These movies are when the kids start changing into adults, despite almost dying time and time again.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is my least favorite of the movies. It also just happens to be my least favorite book, one in which J. K. Rowling decided to torture the hell out of the audience, by giving us an angry emo Harry, an evil witch Umbridge, more torture, long pages of the same thing over and over, tons of useless of subplots, and lots of pages of the same damn thing over and over. It is bad.

The movie doesn't score much better. In this case, it is because most of what they cut to make this movie the shortest in the series is a lot of the stuff that made the book tolerable. What's left is amended and incomplete. In fact, it feels like half a movie, and that is a huge reason why this is my least favorite.

It's not that the acting is bad. The kids kick ass and the adults are amazing. The new character of Umbridge  is played so deliciously evil by Imelda Staunton that it is going to be hard  to see her in anything else without being pissed off at her for her treatment of Harry and the Gang. The character is just so nasty, and Imelda just hits the right cords to make her just so unlikable. Plus the addition of Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood really adds another level to this growing cast. She is so enduring in her obliviousness and innocence. She is great fun to watch on screen. On the evil side, Helena Bonham Carter is brought in as Bellatrix Lestrange and just hits it out of the park. She is evil and crazy and creepy as hell to watch. She is great fun. 

Harry Potter Week

This was the way to usher in the last movie in the series. 8 movies, 4 days. Seeing them in a theater filled with other fans who want to be there. Seeing the films in order really helps show how the films improved and how certain mistakes that were left out that later came back to haunt them. You get to see the kids grow up and you get to see them deal with loss and hurt.

This was the way to see Harry Potter! I am so glad that my family was able to enjoy this experience. It won't happen like this again.

---MGS

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Fire

With the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, there was somewhat of a shake up when it came to the making of these movies. Chris Columbus decided to bow out as director of the third film and the search began for a replacement to take over the next film. Loads of names were tossed around, but with a big project such as this, there is always names that come and go.

In the end, they settled on Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, know for such films as the critcially acclaimed Y Tu Mama Tambien, which is known for its extreme sexual content, and the film adaptions of A Little Princess and, afterwards,  Children of Men. To me, he didn't really seem to fit the expected mold. There was just something about the way he adapted A Little Princess that never sat well with me. It always felt like it went way to far away from the source material, but not in a terrible way, just enough hat it felt like it was only giving slight nods to the book. I was more than a bit worried.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is an interesting film. It shows that sometimes the established and expected norm can change, and with it comes a big breath of fresh air. Except for the fact that there is a huge budget behind this thing, this could amost be a fanasty indepant film, as it has that sort of sensabilty to it. 

Chris and his films felt a bit tired after the second film. Chamber still had too much presentation in it, it still had that weird paint by numbers feel, it still has very little in the area of surprise. In some ways, it was getting dull. This was apparently an assessment shared by others. 


After the second movie, somebody felt the need to want to re-launch the series, even taking it as far as redesigning parts of the established school buildings and designs. Alfonso's Hogworts, while still very similar to its earlier versions, have changed just enough to be quite noticeable which is both frustrating and interesting. Still, they are good changes, some welcomed, in fact.  An example of this being Hagrid's hut is further away from the school and down a hill. Such a simple change that makes the grounds, and therefore the castle, feel that much more spread out. Hogwarts isn't just a little place for students to go and study. Hogwarts is now a huge and spread out compound where people go to learn magic. 

'nuff said'

--MGS

Harry Potter and the First Two Movies

Harry Potter films are debatable. Ask any fan and they will tell you which one they like above the rest, and which one they aren't too crazy about. A good test would be, if that movie is on and you just happen to come upon it, do you turn the channel, because that is the film that you just don't want to watch, or do you continue watching it, because you just can't get enough? 


Having watched these recently again on the big screen, I am able to make a judgement call of my own.


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is not my favorite. 

And why is that, you ask?


Sorcerer's Stone is an uphill battle the entire time. From the moment the movie opens, it has a very presentation feel to it. What do I mean by that? Simple, everything feels like it has to be announced before it is allowed to continue. Of course, this was done because of this being the first movie, it needed to have its characters, setting, and situations set up and brought the audience. If you haven't read the books, it does its job very well of giving you a lot of information. However, since this movie came out before the series was even half done, some of the choices that they went with feel out of place and lacking. Going back and looking at this movie feels like polite to a television show that will run for many seasons but is slowly, over time, began to ret-con itself.


The movie begins with the set up of this world, via John Williams' score and the arrival of Albus Dumbledore, here played by Richard Harris. Within the first five minutes we are introduced to Albus, Professor McGonagall (who is introduced to us via these words: "It is nice to see you this evening, (pause) Professor McGonagall." Now that we are properly introduced...), Hagrid, the word Muggle, Privet Drive, and Harry Potter as a baby. It's a lot to take in. A lot!


As the film progresses, it does introduction after introduction. Here's Ron, here's Hermione, here's the train, here's the hat, here's Draco, here's Quidditch, here's Nick, here's Snape, here's the story of Voldemort, here's Voldemort. It just goes on and on, which is why this film is such a challenge. The filmmakers HAD to do this stuff. They were required to do this stuff. They had to give us the old "Now coming to the stage, give a warm welcome for..."


The acting is, to be quite frank, wooden. Now, I am not talking about Alan Rickman or Maggie Smith and although at times there is a bit overacting they both rock their parts into greatness. No, I am talking about Ron, Harry, Heromine, Draco, and the rest of the kids. Basically, they are all trying, and you can see that on screen. I feel bad for them as they have so much weight and expectations on them as actors bringing these characters to life. One can almost say, that they got close to blowing it. Close.  But the dialog mixed with the so-so direction of, "now stand here, don't look towards the camera, and deliver the line," pretty much vindicates them. Chris Columbus is having trouble pulling off performances that don't feel distant and unrehearsed. Then there is the lack of development for such entities as Nick and the ghosts, the other kids in Gryffindor, and the main "villain," Quirrell. Basically they are given very little screen time, and for the most part, ham it up. Like I said before, it's rough.


I want to hit on the special effects here for a moment. I know that this was 2002, but those effects are terrible. The CGI looks cheap and not finished. The lack of motion capture makes these characters look like they live in a video game and the creatures that they meet are done so bad that they are actually distracting. And don't get me started on the Neville flying scene. Oy! Thank goodness they fixed this in later movies. 

Begin at the beginning...

Somebody I was talking to told me that they hated origin stories. I was confused because doesn't an origin story help set up important characters? Doesn't an origin story take the audience from knowing nothing of what they are walking into, to giving us all the details that we need to form an opinion of the character and their ways? I don't understand how somebody, especially a person that claims to enjoy superhero movies, can even say that they hate origin stories. After all, it all has to begin somewhere. 


I don't mind a good origin story movie when it comes to superhero films. After all, how do you introduce that character to a new audience, or an audience that doesn't know much about that character? Sure, you can take the approach that dropping the audience into the story forthright will make it more appealing. And maybe it could, to some of the audience. However, not giving anybody a place to start with is dangerous, and may lead to even more issues with the movie.

How'd you like a nice Hawaiian punch?

When The Green Lantern came out, I shared my view of this movie in a recent post. It wasn't a bad film, per se. It just didn't have anything terribly good to offer. It was an origin story, showing Hal Jordan's journey from a reckless pilot to a superhero saving the day. This movie had the task of giving us Hal before, during, and after he becomes this new hero. Some of it worked, Sinestro for one, and some of Oa as well. But most of it didn't. And therein lay the problem here. GL is an origin story that causes troubles, because at the end of the film, you still don't really know who Hal is, what the Green Lantern can truly do, and who the Corps really are. There are more questions than answers, and that feels like a cheat and a cop-out of sorts.

Cars 2: or Pixar puts on the brakes...

I am not going to review the movie. There seems to be very little need to do that sort of thing. I enjoyed it, critics hated it, various audiences are split.


No, I am going to talk about the importance of this film, from my perspective.

If you didn't cry during this scene, you have no hope

Cars 2 is not going to win any awards. Nor should it. This is not because it is a bad movie, it's really not. No it is simply because it isn't a normally high end Pixar film. Those movies, ones like UP and Toy Story 3 and Wall-E, those win awards. Those are movies that carry with them messages of hope and wonderment, while taking it's audience on a marvelous adventure into the depths of the filmmakers imaginations. Those stories take animated characters and flesh them out enough that you care about them, about what happens to them, and what will become of them long after you have left the movie. Those stories are the best live-action movies, starring animated characters. In other words they are gold.


Cars 2 is not in that category.


No, Cars 2  is just fun. It's not brilliant, it's not thought provoking, it's just fun.

team fortress 2

I really don't know why it's called "2." Nobody I know knows about Team Fortress 1. Team Fortress 2 is a war game where you can play as 9 different people: the heavy, who has a mini gun; the soldier, who has a rocket propelled grenade; the spy; who has a zapper, a knife, a disguise case, and a pistol; the pyro, who has a flamethrower; the medic, who has a saw, a syringe gun, and a thing that gives health; the engineer, who has a wrench and tool box; the scout, whose only good attribute is that he can run really fast. There is also the demoman. who has explosives, and the last is the sniper, and guess what he has ... did you guess sniper rifle? Well, you're totally WRONG! He has a sub machine gun, a machete, and, yes, a sniper rifle.

-adevlupes