HP6 = win

quickly, here's my take on the newest installment in the Harry Potter saga - brilliant. Now, more specifically.....

• Jim Broadbent damn near steals the show. I've read many rave reviews on how well Michael Gambon and Helena Bonham Carter portray their characters, but to be perfectly honest, they dim in the wake of the complete range of emotions that Broadbent masterfully brings to the screen. The scene where he describes Harry's mother's "beautiful kind of magic" to Harry is so sincere it feels real...
• I. Love. Ginny. My admiration for the character of Ginny Weasley grew exponentially during the 158 minutes that it ran. Very seldom has an actor/actress been so incredibly effective with so few speaking lines. She's sharp, spunky, sassy, direct, warm, compassionate, and fierce - and she knows when to be which...
• as always, Alan Rickman = genius. His Professor Snape is as effective as ever, dialogue delivered with perfect timing. But now, he's less sleek and more full. Less mousy and more brash. I'm disappointed there were no scenes of him teaching the DAtDA course though...
  
• i was a bit disappointed that there was very little of Luna Lovegood in this film, although I applaud director and screenwriter for infusing the substantial middle portion of the production with pretty much the perfect amount of humor. For the first time in the series (for me at least), the leading triumvirate of Harry, Hermoine, and Ron were actually able to generate genuine humor without a lot of effort and build-up. Well done...
• Hooper's score is flat-out brilliant. I know there are many naysayers about his work with the Order of the Phoenix score, but suffice it to say that this opus far, far surpasses his previous work. Oh, and a tip of my hat to the chromatic altering of just a single note from Williams' main theme. It made all four of the musicians in my row sit up and smile before the flick even began...
• on several occasions this movie reminded me quite vividly of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The appearance of Fenrir Greyback. The complete lack of Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort. The horcrux scene on the lake in the cavern. The abundance of shots from inside Hogwarts' towers instead of the previous films' fixation on its corridors and rooms. Hell - at one point, Dumbledore flat-out looks like Gandalf in a close-up shot...

like I said, brilliant. I actually enjoyed this movie in a much more tangible way than any of its predecessors. Perhaps it was the fact that its been so long since I read the 6th book that I had honestly forgotten much of what happened and virtually all of the detail. Then again, perhaps it's just because they made a great flick.....

seriously - is this getting old or what....?

so what's that, 13 in a row? (insert obligatory Tombstone quote here). Glad Fuhrer Selig decided on that whole home-field advantage thing couple of years back. Maybe that's his way of throwing a big karma-ball back at the league for having to move his beloved Brewers over to the National League. Then again, maybe not (insert obligatory Stripes quote here).....

but in all seriousness, isn't this annual American League bully thing getting a little old? I mean, I didn't even watch the entire game last night because I, like many others, knew it was a foregone conclusion. I watched the 4th-5th-6th stretch, which was enough to see Carl Crawford's ridiculous catch pulling a homer back into the park, then went back to watching Order of the Phoenix in preparation for tonight's theater outing. At that point, it was tied at 3 and, for some reason, I didn't mind flipping it off at all. I mean, I wasn't expecting a replay of last year's epic extra innings extravaganza, but then again maybe I just didn't care all that much at that juncture. Besides, Michael Young and Josh Hamilton were both on the bench by that point, and barring a miracle of Moses-ian proportions, the Rangers ain't making it to the World Series.....

i know everything goes in cycles, but this is getting out of hand. It's almost like the NFC dominance in the Super Bowl of the 80s and 90s. Sooner or later, the Colts and Pats get good and then the stinkin' Steelers go back and win a couple. Don't get me started on that. It would seem to be even more of a toss up in baseball. I don't know why, it just seems that it should. But, here we sit, with the AL racking up its 13th straight victory in the mid-summer classic. Suddenly I'm reminded of a scene from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead where one of em's flipping a coin over and over again only to watch it fall on heads every time. It's actually quite funny. Yeah, that about sums it up, now doesn't it....?

off to the late show of Half Blood Prince tonight with the peeps, so I'm sure there's a review from the cheap seats coming soon. Hopefully it won't have to be along the same vein as my Revenge of the Fallen review. Oh, and ten points to Gryffindor for whoever comes up with the two quotes from the first paragraph.....

couple of things.....

just a couple.....

• if you haven't seen CBS' Harper's Island, do yourself a favor and get it. It's a short, 16-episode one-time series that's the closest thing to a brilliant TV thriller since Twin Peaks...
  
• Rock Band is awesome AND close to playable on expert. Guitar Hero World Tour is awesome and close to unplayable on expert. However, despite the differences in gameplay, creating characters that look like your friends is far and away the best part of both games...
• Magnum, P.I. was the the absolute best show that featured the absolute worst acting. And great music. It's a lot like Miami Vice in an astonishing amount of ways...
• Half Blood Prince had better feature a LOT more of Luna Lovegood. Her character is bloody brilliant and a much-needed change-of-pace from the grim seriousness of the rest of episode five...
• how in the name of all that is good and holy have I not in my thirty-plus years on this earth realized the sheer delight that is coffee made in a french press..?
• Alan Rickman is easily the most underrated actor of the modern era. Perhaps of all time...
• you know you've been using your iPhone/iPod touch too much when you hit the spacebar twice on your computer and expect a period to magically appear...

uh, yeah. Like I said, just a couple of things.....

transformers 2: revenge of the critics.....

Transformers 2 reviews are useless because no Transformers 2 review will ever stop people from seeing Revenge of the Fallen. A Transformers 2 review truly means nothing, for if Transformers 2 reviews could stop big box office, Michael Bay would be out of work. Michael Bay lives on his movies being critic proof, and Revenge of the Fallen reviews are no exception. But that hasn't stopped critics from decrying in their Transformers 2 reviews that Bay may have gone to the bottom of the barrel again.

--Robert Dougherty, Associated Content Arts & Entertainment writer

first off, let me get a few things out of the way. I love the first Transformers movie. I have it on my iTouch and I watch it at least three times a month. I've been looking forward to this sequel for at least six months. I've seen every single episode of the 80's cartoon series that spawned the movies. And yes, I was in the audience last evening for the midnight premiere of said movie, the first such midnight premiere I've attended since The Return of the King. OK? So, I'm not the most unbiased movie-watcher. However, I am and avid movie-goer, movie-owner, and movie-quoter, so I'm sure got just about as much clout as any other schmoe on the internet who criticizes movies. That being said.....

here's my beef: why is it that some people think every single movie ever made must be a piece of quantifiable art that fits nicely into the established canon of liberal cinema that already exists? Couple of things - 1. there's a reason that independent film festivals exist. 2. there's also a reason that people are willing to drop $18.50 for a ticket, popcorn, and beverage and lose three hours of their life in the process. 3. there's a reason that said people in thing #2 ain't dropping said $18.50 to lose said three hours to see said independent films from thing #1.....

why? One word - entertainment. It's the same reason that the fiction section of the bookstore is twice as big as the non-fiction, history, and biography sections put together. I have a personal library of close to 1,000 titles, and I'd safely say that at least 70% of those fall firmly into the category of escapist fiction. When will critics not only realize, but accept and celebrate the fact that Americans enjoy movies which dabble (or in this case, dive in head first) in the fantastic in order to provide us with three hours of absolute entertainment....?

but, as so often is the case, hubris is more present off the screen than on. From Mr. Dougherty's quote above, it would seem that critics just can't avoid the acceptance that we as consumers don't mind spending our money on anything less than Citizen Kane meets Pulp Fiction. And, if we are, then it must mean that we're idiots, blind mindless rats that are complete product slaves to the CGI god that makes Optimus Prime actually look like he's real. Even though he's not real. And we know he's not real. In real life. Really.....

therefore, for my own edification and entertainment, here's a smattering of reviews from around the mystical ether we call the internet aimed at Michael Bay's newest attempt to turn our brains into jell-o. I'll also throw in a jab or two.....enjoy:

Roger Ebert: "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

funny you only remember the leg-humping part, Roger. Apparently, you spent the rest of the movie searching for FHM's Megan Fox cover and your Bob Dole-signed industrial size bottle of Viagra.....

London’s Daily Mirror: Pure mindless adventure mayhem that sticks firm and hard to its winning formula.

well, at least he's honest about it without the metaphor-laced bile that accompanied Ebert's tired diatribe.....

Hollywood Reporter: Shia LaBeouf gets little chance to show what charm he might have. Meanwhile, Megan Fox has little to do except look great in a tank top and tight jeans while running in slow motion through flying sand.

i have no problem with either of those things. Period.....

London Daily Mail: Virtually all the dialogue is inaudible, drowned out by battles, explosions and gargantuan lumps of metal crashing into each other. I noted down a few morsels: ‘Punkass Decepticon, any last words?’ ‘The boy will not escape — we have him in our sights!’ and ‘There’s another source of Energon on this planet; the boy can lead us to it!’ I have no idea why I wrote those lines down, still less what they mean. I was just grateful to be able to hear them.

step one: get a hearing aid. Step two: put on the hearing aid. Furthermore, if you can't understand simple sentence structure, then maybe you shouldn't be writing reviews for the London Daily Mail. Let me break it down for you - "There's another source of Energon on this planet" means just that. You don't even have to know what Energon is to understand the fact that evidently in this flick, there's more of it on earth. "the boy can lead us to it," probably means something like the boy knows where it is and if they follow him, maybe they can obtain said resource from him. See how easy that was....?

Shiznit.com: Somewhere toward the end, when you realize the plot literally centers around magic dust, you’ll feel ever-so-slightly silly for enjoying it.

agreed in part. The pixie dust thing was a bit ill-advised, but nowhere near so much so as the post-death, purgatorial visit to Optimus' long-lost family who evidently have the power to not only send you back to life from death so long as you possess said pixie dust, but also to reassemble the key that said pixie dust was before it became said pixie dust.....

SciFiNow: Unlike the summer’s other big robot movie, Revenge Of The Fallen does have a personality, but it’s a frightfully detestable one. It celebrates all the wrong things with ferocious gusto, marking a new type of low for blockbusters.

wrong things? What wrong things? I'm not kidding myself into thinking this is the next Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but what's wrong with a story about teamwork, friendship, and sacrifice coupled with the most absurdly-brilliant CGI battle sequences ever....?

Total Film: For all its faults, Fallen is genuinely more enjoyable than the summer’s other giant-robot picture Terminator Salvation. In contrast to McG’s portentous, po-faced tone, Bay works in a likeable strain of knowing humour that makes the two hour-plus running time fly by.

finally. Minus the "u" in humor and the Terminator slight, I'm completely on board here....

IGN.com: Don’t get us wrong, we love Michael Bay and the particular grab-bag of delights only he can bring to blockbuster movies; huge explosions; quick, intense dialogue; lingering, pornographic shots of both girls’ asses and military hardware. 90 minutes of Bay-ness makes for a thrilling flick, but if the clock starts ticking past the two hour mark and beyond, it all becomes just too much; your mind and senses need a rest.

i don't disagree, but mostly because that past-90-minute-mark for me came at about 2AM after I'd been cheering wildly for the Horns in Omaha for three-plus hours.....

News of the World: “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever… It’s bigger. Badder. Boobier. And many other words beginning with B, including boneheadedly brilliant… And that, readers, is Michael Bay's latest film in a nutshell. Stupid and proud.”

easily my favorite review. There's nothing wrong with being absurdly stupid. Especially in the summer in America, where kids are out of school, baseball is the only sport left going (no, soccer and the WNBA don't count), and guys like me are watching and writing about movies based on a decades-old cartoon series about talking robots instead of finishing the revisions on their dissertations. Oh, well I might be alone in that last one.....


bottom line = if you liked the first one, you'll love the second one. It's two and a half hours that bounces back and forth between the fantastic, the serious, the absurd, the brilliantly funny, the potentially sad, the stupidly slapstick, and most importantly, the tremendously entertaining.....



roll. out.

mom always said it was nice to share.....

so, I decided to take a look at some of the more well-known peeps (at least at this point) who share in the absolute glory that is being born on the 4th of June. With all apologies to Chancellor Gillett's more pin-up girl themed list (which is perfectly acceptable (and perhaps sometimes preferable)), here goes:


1975 - Angelina Jolie. Despite her recent annoying habit of occupying celebrity news for her insatiable habit of adopting third-world children, her work in Hackers, Gia, Pushing Tin, Tomb Raider, and Original Sin has given her a permanent top-5 spot alongside the likes of Rita Hayworth and Anne Bancroft in my list of all-time hottest actresses.....


1936 - Bruce Dern. One of my all-time favorite antagonist portrayors, Dern is probably better known to all of you for his work in flicks like Monster, Mulholland Falls, and Diggstown. However, he is a major player in two of my all-time favorite westerns: Hang 'Em High and (pictured above in) The Cowboys.....


1969 - Horatio Sanz. One of the all-time most underrated funnymen to ever grace the cast of SNL, Sanz was one of the few bright lights in the early post-Farley years of the skit comedy show's history. His impressions of Gene Shalit, Ozzy Osborn, Ron Jeremy, Rosie O'Donnell, and Kim Jong-Il remain some of my favorite SNL moments.....


1932 - John Drew Barrymore. A troubled man, sometimes actor, and recluse throughout his life, Barrymore will always be best known for the man who fathered him and the daughter he fathered. His father John Barrymore was one of the greatest actors of stage and screen in the history of both, famous as much for his portrayal of Hamlet as for his striking profile. Barrymore's daughter, of course, is Drew Barrymore, most famous for her roles in E.T., The Wedding Singer, and Charlie's Angels. I've never been nearly as big a fan of hers as I am of her grandfather, but her recent role as the voice of Brian's ditzy girlfriend Jillian on Family Guy is certainly helping.....


1966 - Cecilia Bartoli. The personal favorite opera singer of my theory teacher, advisor, and friend Robert Krause, Bartoli is hands-down one of my all-time favorite musicians. Her performances in Cenerentola and Le Nozze from the early 90's were some of the first opera recordings I ever heard, and were instrumental in opening up my ears to the genre.....



1798 - on the downside, the famous Italian adventurer (spy) and writer Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt died on this day in Bohemia, estranged from his home city of Venice because of some portly fellow named Bonaparte. Often referred to as "The Great Lover," Casanova's name has now become synonymous with over-amorous gentlemen, notably Hugh Hefner, Bill Clinton, and Pepe Le Pew. Appropriately, he was portrayed in the 2005 film "Casanova" by Heath Ledger. What, too soon....?

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well, that's all folks. Here's to a productive, satisfying, and enjoyable rest of the day. I suddenly just had a flashback to the 80's ABC series thirtysomething. I remember watching that show every once in a while, having no idea what was going on, and thinking that people who were thirty-something (like my parents at the time) were O-L-D. Twenty years later, I think I may have become Gary Shepherd, just without the job.....

Wow.....

Two months is a long time. I'll remember how to do this sometime soon.....
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Submission....!

as of 11:15PM this evening, I have officially submitted my DMA document for an electronic format check from the Graduate School here at UGA. Only two more steps to go. The light just got a little brighter.....