You may be the Chosen One, mate, but this is a whole lot bigger than that.
The last Harry Potter movie (the Half-Blood Prince) was the first one to leave me genuinely cold when it was over. The first part of the film seemed to fritter about with various pieces of business until finally getting down to brass tacks in the last 30 minutes or so. I had to wonder if the connective tissue between these scenes was more apparent in the printed word and just didn’t translate readily to the screen.
The bloom of whimsy is off the Hogwarts rose as things get all dark and serious. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) has several problems to contend with. Dementors are chasing him. The Ministry of Wizards wants him expelled. Hogwarts has been taken over by Delores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), a perky Torquemada in lavender. Hermione (Emma Watson) is now taller than him and Lord Valdemort is raising an army again.
Probably by design, this Potter movie lacks some of the charm of the previous films, as its themes and situation are considerably darker and more threatening. Harry seems to spend most of the story out of step with the rest of the cast and Radcliffe is up to the task of making us feel his vulnerability and isolation.
This chapter hasn’t been as well reviewed by others as the previous ones, although it is definitely superior to the first two. I think the lukewarm reception comes from those unfamiliar with the Potter mythos and not expecting the darker turns in the story, as well as those who have memorized the books and take umbrage with the filmmakers daring to condense the story down to a manageable cinematic length. Given the number of balls that author J. K. Rowling has given director David Yates to keep in the air, he’s done about as good a job as anyone could have in bringing the story to the screen.
Speaking of your parents, were they alive, how do you think they’d feel? Proud? Or concerned that your attitude shows, at best, a pathological need for attention, at worst, psychotic death wish.
The Harry Potter films have been, on the whole, getting progressively better with each installment. The first step was ditching the more commercially-minded American director Chris Columbus in favor of two filmmakers whose work you would not normally associate with these fantastic elements. For this fourth chapter, they chose British director Mike Newell, probably best known for the violent mob drama Donnie Brasco.
Cheese!
After the recent glut of CGI animated films, it’s rather refreshing that none of this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature are computer generated. Two of them, in fact, use the relatively ancient technology of stop motion while the third is a traditional animated film from Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki. I don’t know if there’s any cosmic significance to the fact that both of the stop motion nominees feature the vocal talents of Helena Bonham Carter, but let’s pretend that there is.
Wallace and Gromit‘s first feature length film is probably the odds-on favorite to win the Oscar, which would make it the animated duo’s third Oscar, having previously taken two for Best Animated Short. Director Nick Park‘s uniquely British and whimsical sense of humor filled the increased length easily.
This list… is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.
I first saw Schindler’s List in the theater a few months into its initial run and just days before its sweep at the Oscars. When it was over, I witnessed something I’d not seen much in years of movie going. As the credits rolled and the lights came up, the audience filed out in an almost reverent silence, like mourners leaving a state funeral. Clearly, the film had the same impact on everyone else in the theater that it had on me.
I thought you spies knew everything.
Only God knows everything. He works for Mossad.
When a film goes out of its way to portray an entire industry as the epitome of rapacious evil, barely two steps above drowning orphans in a river, you have to at least speculate that the filmmakers might be stacking the deck a little in favor of one side of the argument. Fortunately, The Constant Gardener works quite well on the level of a pure thriller, so you can accept for two hours that its heroes need their corrupt pharmaceutical companies like Luke Skywalker needed Darth Vader.
