Monthly Archives: July 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (no spoilers)

Posted on by
Reply

At LAST! J.K. Rowling’s terrible grip on my soul is free!

“What about the movies?”

DAMN!

Just read Harry Potter 7 and I keep seeing future moments from the movie popping into my head….”I’m so excited” (Atlantis: The Lost Empire).

The book is really elegantly done, and if you haven’t kept up with the books, just the movies, I would applaud your lack of curiosity and/or your strength of character (not spoiling the future movies by seeing the books).

And you know, that’s all I’m really going to say about it, because Harry’s quest is our own quest, and to “spoil” it for anyone with any little hint just isn’t fair.

Although I was right about Snape…ha! “Insane theories one, regular theories a billion!” (Futurama).

I will however dwell on something I read on Wikipedia regarding this whole Harry Potter thing. On July 18th, the New York Times posted an online review of the book. This provoked Potter fans as it was deemed to full of spoilers. Then the UK publisher of Potter, Bloomsbury, says they’re disappointed with what happened in the US. A Bloomsbury spokeswoman went so far as to liken the event to the Boston Tea Party! Even Rowling expressed astonishment and disappointment with the New York Times. Then the New York Times comes back with a bunch of bull; how they feel that “once a book is offered up for sale at any public retail outlet, and we purchase a copy legally and openly, we are free to review it. As for charges that we gave away the ending, that is simply not true. We took great care not to do so, nor to give away significant details about who lives and who dies” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/books/19potter.html). Notice how they carefully word they way around, saying they didn’t give away the ending or the deaths. Spoilers are spoilers, folks. Whether they’re about the ending or deaths is inconsequential. So you know what I get to say again? Damn the New York Times! Stuffed-shirt liberals! ;) Yay. That felt good.

So yeah. Check it out.

GRYFFINCLAW

Posted on by
Reply

GRYFFINDOR:
[X] You’ve never done drugs.
[X] You have a lot of friends.
[X] You get along with everyone.
[ ] You love soccer.
[ ] You love baseball.
[X] You’re into writing and art
[ ] Favorite music genre is rock.
[X] You believe in “innocent until proven guilty” theory.
[ ] One of your favorite colors is red or gold.
[X] Good grades at school.
[X] One of the worst things you can do is lie.
[X] You plan on going to college.
TOTAL: 8

HUFFLEPUFF:
[X] You’re content with mostly everything in your life right now.
[X] You laugh a lot.
[ ] You like to follow trends.
[ ] Politics suck.
[ ] You love to swim
[ ] Water polo is awesome.
[ ] Pink is one of your favorite colors.
[ ] Black is morbid & depressing.
[X] You’re an optimist.
[X] You’re very emotional.
[ ] You believe in going steady at a young age.
[ ] You haven’t made fun of anyone this month.
[X] Loyalty is the MOST important thing in a relationship.
TOTAL: 5

RAVENCLAW:
[ ] You’re depressed to a certain extent.
[X] You love to read.
[X]You appreciate theatre & arts.
[X] Sports suck.
[X] Hate is completely unneeded.
[ ] Indie is your favorite genre of music.
[ ] Every once in a while you have little anger outbursts.
[X] Lying is sometimes okay.
[X] Blue is one of your favorite colors.
[X] Knowledge is the key to power
[X] Sarcasm is the best kind of humor
[ ] People should know what they’re talking about before they talk.
TOTAL: 8

SLYTHERIN:
[ ] There’s at least one person you hate.
[ ] Basketball is a good sport.
[ ] Football is amazing.
[X] Black is a cool color.
[X] You’ve lied about something serious.
[X] You’re a very deep person.
[ ] You have considered suicide.
[ ] You are not very loyal.
[ ] You like heavy metal.
[ ] “They” make school seem more important than it is.
[X] You’re scared to grow up.
[ ] Anger is one of your primary feelings.
[ ] You have trust issues.
[ ] Guilty until proven innocent
TOTAL: 4

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Posted on by
Reply

So I went to the 6:15 AM IMAX 3-D showing at the Irvine Spectrum with my dad and some of his friends and there were roughly 80 people in the theatre. Niiiice!

I’m probably the most satisfied with this book’s adaptation because it’s the one I remember the least. When I first jumped into Harry Potter, books 1-3 were already out and by the time I had finished book 3, book 4 was available and I readily devoured it. But after that, it was a long wait for this one, and I was even slower in reading it. So bits and pieces of it flashed back to me while watching the film, but not as much as, say, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (see my movie review)

The flame communication special effect was different this time around and I’m not sure why….

Didn’t the Thestrals (the invisible horses attached to the chariots that carry students from the Hogwarts Express train station to Hogwarts proper) look a lot like hippogriffs? But, you know, like dead emaciated hippogriffs? Eh, no quibbles really, just curious.

I loved seeing the stag much more clearly in Harry’s Patronus charm. I’m glad they were able to include it, and I loved the

The beginning of the movie threw me off a bit as I couldn’t remember exactly that we weren’t in one of Harry’s dreams and that it was Dudley standing there in silver chains.

Speaking of dreams, I really enjoyed the way Harry’s nightmare’s were pulled off, but some of the transitions into those dreams were awkward. The only one I can think of now is where Ron, Hermione and Harry are all laughing at Ron’s lack of emotional depth and then it kind of cuts to black and we’re in Harry’s nightmare. A lot of the transitions in the first hour/hour-and-a-half felt really awkward like that.

I loved the final battle…it felt really kinetic and was an awesome illustration of what was happening in the book. My only quibble is…

Spoiler Alert! (place and hold your mouse over the bar to see)

Bellatrix Lestrange used the Stupefy curse to knock Sirius into the mysterious archway (a jet of red light signifies either Stupefy or Rennervate according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_potter_spells)). I guess the filmmakers made it the Avada Kedavra curse to simplify the plot - can't muck about with Harry wondering, "Where did Sirius go?" and such. I was also really sad when Sirius is showing Harry the family tree and starts saying things like, "When this is all over, we can be a proper family". DAMN YOU J.K.!

And of course, I can’t talk about the film without screaming about the pink, cat lady: Dolores Umbridge. A fantastic villain that demonstrates the dangers of politics and fear mongering, I was so happy when her character gets…oops! Almost gave it away! Don’t worry, she gets hers in the end.

The only musical pieces I can really remember are when the Weasley twin’s tear up Hogwarts with their fireworks and some of the credit music (really fun guitar licks), but I really enjoyed the underscoring – it was all well done.

Oh. And I’m frustrated because I have to see the movie again because half of the dialogue was imperceptible. No it wasn’t noisy in the theatre…it was just too damned early for understanding a think British accent.

I don’t like 3-D movies very much unless it’s a battle scene because my eyes must be all screwed up or something. Unless my eyes are constantly bouncing around the screen, I start to see through the 3-D illusion, which is very frustrating. Also, I just think it’s hilariously cheesy how they have to cue the audience into using the glasses with flashing symbols on the screen. Hilarious.

Every time I looked at Maggie Smith (Professor McGonnagol), I whispered a silent hope that she doesn’t die before the films are finished. We already lost Richard Harris…don’t make us replace another lead actor (even if her parts are very small).

All in all, a very enjoyable film.

Live Free or Die Hard and Transfomers

Posted on by
Reply

Live Free or Die Hard
Bruce Willis is fantastic, although based on the trailers, I had to ask the question, “When did John McClane become a supercop?” But in the movie, what happens to him is very plausible within the Die Hard motif – wrong place, wrong time.

Justin Long is very funny and very heroic.

Kevin Smith is priceless as teh king of all internets hackorz.

While ranting and railing against the PG-13 rating, I have to agree that the one “Yippee-Kay-Ay-Motherf*cker” was well placed and that the action and violence was about equal to the R ratings of the other Die Hard films. Which leads me to ponder what has happened to the MPAA’s rating system? Did violence just get more acceptable?

Directed by Len Wiseman! Yay Underworld! And he’s married to Kate Beckinsale. The guy’s got it all…so not fair ;)

There was a section in the middle of the movie (right after the bad guys blow up the power plant to try to kill Willis and Long) where Long was out of sync. It was like the continuity guy was on union break or something and made me really sad.

Yeah for the free running super bad guy! He echoed the super blonde from the first Die Hard and I was disappointed at his quick death in the end. Also the romance between the head bad guy (yay for Timmy Oiliphant) and his 2nd in command echoed the third Die Hard. Yay for nostalgia!

Tim Russ as a Homeland Security liason. Yay Tuvok!

29*4 = 116 stunt people. Yowzers!

Transformers
This movie was enjoyable mostly because I love the concept. I never read the original comic books or watched the original cartoon series. The only exposure I had to the concept was the CGI animated series Beast Wars, which had the main characters of Optimus Prime and Megatron, but beyond that were about robots who changed into animals duking it out. But the concept is lots of fun and I really enjoyed the movie’s execution of it. The plot nicely incorporated core elements of the Transformers while also putting its own modern twist on it which I thoroughly enjoyed.

That being said, the movie does tend to drag on a little bit. If I had my druthers, I would cut or severely limit Anthony Anderson and John Turturro’s roles and snip Sam (Shia LeBouf)’s parents here and there. Action movies tend to drag past the two hour mark (this’un clocks in at 2 hours and 24 minutes when it could easily be an hour 45).

I think the town they call Mission City, Nevada was used (at least in part) in the filming of Michael Bay’s last film, The Island. I distinctly recognize the ground floor of the building that Shia runs into during the battle royale from the part where Ewan McGregor shoots himself.

All in all, very enjoyable popcorn flick. Not the greatest movie of all time, but not a tragic slaughtering of Transformers (of course, pure blood transformer fanboys are MORE than welcome to challenge me on that) as predicted by Penny Arcade.

Brief Recap of My Birthday Extravaganza

Posted on by
Reply

Disneyland for a Monte Cristo sandwich at the Cafe Orleans, then an hour fifteen wait for the subs. Then go home, get all dressed up and truck it out to LA for Maxwell Demille’s Cicada Club party/bash/thing.

Robert Picardo (the Doctor from Star Trek Voyager) sang a couple of songs and he wasn’t bad actually. His first “set” was “Swinging on a Star” and “San Fernando Valley”, so he gets like 50,000 bonus points right there because those are two freaking awesome songs that I absolutely love. Then I accidentally kicked him later while doing 20′s charleston – oops! He also made a great star trek joke about three gay Klingons – Maxene, Patty, and LaVerne (The Andrews Sisters) before singing either “Drinking Rum and Coke” or some song along those lines.

Richard Halpern
Awesome performer – oh mammy!/muquin

Rusty Frank was great tap dancing all over the place, the Hollywood Hornets busted out the Big Apple, and Dean Mora and his orchestra were incredible – can’t wait for live album (hopefully they recorded last night’s performance).

I did get recognized for my birthday and the band/crowd sang to me, but no birthday dance…oh well.

All in all a very enjoyable celebration (even if I was very tired).

Evan Almighty

Posted on by
Reply

I got sick of the trailer for this movie way before it came out (I think because I kept going to movies and kept seeing the trailer and all those movie posters with Steve Carrel in the Marilyn Monroe pose ala Noah). I didn’t really have a problem with the concept at that point because I had enjoyed the positive Christian message in Bruce Almighty and expected the same from this one, but as the trailer/posters/etc. kept intruding in my life, I think I became so sick of it I tried to translate my annoyance at the promotions into genuine dislike for the movie based on the fact God saying He wouldn’t flood the Earth ever again. Through this transference of dislike I became convinced that this movie was just horribly wrong and that I would hate it. Well I’m glad to say that I enjoyed this movie very much. It has a nice, positive message that I feel positively reflects the best of Christianity.

But beyond that, the movie is a standard replay of those man-loves-job-more-than-family-goes-through-life-changing-thingy-and-becomes-closer-to-his-family (Dr. Doolittle remake, The Santa Clause, etc.). It’s an enjoyable flick with a positive uplifting message and an exploration of modern society’s acceptance of God (can you go into Congress and say God told me to build an ark?).

What were those pocupine like creatures that started following him?

In the first large animal shot, lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

And anteaters are well featured, so ZOT!

The baboon monkey creatures that were featured were either the same or very similar to the ones that humped The Rock’s face in The Rundown.

Jonah Hill’s big breakout was the movie Accepted. In the thank you’s, one of the people thanked is Bartleby Gaines, who was Justin Long’s character in Accepted. Coincidence? I think not!

Previz company named Persistence of Vision – awesome.