[Movie Review] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

I'll start off by saying that I know I haven't posted in a while, and that this review is totally out of the blue. However, I will not apologize simply because I owe you cretins NOTHING. You heard me, NOTHING. Be that as it may, I am generous in my awesomeness, so I have graced you with my presence once more (mostly because of Harry Potter)!

:D!

Anyhow kids, apparently it's time for another ride on the ever present angst-wagon! However, this time it's a magical angst wagon filled with awkward social encounters and teenage jealousy! The joy and utter happiness.

This recent addition to the Harry Potter movie library is actually much better than the last few installments, which had the collective appeal of monkey drivel I may add, but it still seems to lack a certain something. It's something I can't exactly put my finger on, but it's like the movies are more centered on the witty banter and smarmy smarm than the actual plotline itself.

I remember at various times during the movie, as I was made to witness yet another socially awkward scene, thinking "For F***s sake, GET ON WITH IT." Maybe I've outgrown the particular appeal of that portion of the series' content since it took them approximately eleventy kajillion years to come out with all these movies. F*** me, I can't even remember the contents of the book to compare the plotlines of the book and the movie, since the book came out so LONG ago. What I'm trying to get at, is that people who have grown up with the books can't really relate to the movies anymore.

I remember reading about Harry's burgeoning love interests when I was but a wee lad, and thinking, "Well golly darn, I hope that happens to ME someday!", whereas now it's more along the lines of, "It's just a goddamn kiss, why is it so important. F***in kids."

Thus it's pretty odd that I think the movie is overly juvenile while being too serious. It's a conundrum, I know, but that was pretty much my initial appraisal of this much hyped film. You have the social awkwardness and growing romances as the kiddies get to understand their feelings for each other, but then you also get this dark superangst stemming from the whole voldemorte thing. I can call it the voldemort thing because we literally see that nigga like two f***ing times in the whole movie. As far as I could tell, the imagined ron/harry/hermione love triangle was the real plot of the story and this bit about some dark evil wizard was just tossed it to provide some sort of context.

One more thing that no one seemed to notice was that these 17 year old kids were portrayed as being in the woods for weeks at a time with no adult knowing the wiser. What I want to know is how come none of the previously vigilant bodyguards have even come looking for them? Didn't this guy have his own secret service at the beginning of the movie? Yet they can saunter off into the woods and traipse around for weeks at end with no one even trying to find them? I call bullshit.

Maybe it's just the cynic in me, but I had a hard time liking this movie. It was pretty enough, the music was amazing as usual (gotta love that theme song, eh), but something about the underlying logic of the plotline threw me off a bit. Like, really Ron? You have to open the locket to stab it? You couldn't just stab it when it was closed? You do have a magic sword ya know. I'm sure it'll cut through that shit like BUTTAH! I mean, I know Ron is supposed to be a bit of a twit, but I'm sure that even he should be able to figure out that it's probably best to stab said locket without revealing dark hidden magics. Son, I am disappoint.

Now that I'm done my critical babble, I have to admit that I grudgingly enjoyed the movie despite nearly every goddamn person in it dying. They killed off all the kiddy characters if no one has noticed. Hedwig bit the dust, Dobby got epic throwing knifed by Bellatrix and Dumbledore's been dead forever now. It just doesn't feel the same anymore, there's no magical castle of wonder, just a ton of running around trying to kill some evil dude who now has a +9 wand of epicness and wants to shove green lightning up your ass. Reads kinda like a bad WoW quest huh? I know.

One thing even I can't fault though, is the acting. These guys have played these roles so damned long that they're pretty much typecast now. Daniel Radcliffe doesn't play Harry Potter anymore, he IS Harry Potter: whiny SOB extraordinaire! Don't get me started on Hermione though because the things I would do to her, or Emma Watson anyway, are not fit for a PG-13 rating. I'd just hope she has some lube and apricots in her magic bag. Derp.

As for the directing, I did admit that this movie was better than the crud that was OOTP and THBP with David Yates finally stepping his game up a little to make the movie actually enjoyable. It probably helped that they split the movie in two so they can fit J.K.'s twelve million page book into manageable screen time. I felt like the pacing was a bit off and the mood was too dark, but hey It coulda been a helluva lot worse! It could have given you genital herpes =(

Pros and Cons: For this customary part of my review I've gotten others to provide the input for the Pros and Cons!

Guest 1 - Breanna C. Edwards: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (or as they say in Spain - Harry Potter y Las Reliquias de la Muerte) was, in my superior opinion, the best movie installment ever made. Some its good points include:

Soundtrack - I am guilty of being a complete music fanatic and I must say composer Alexandre Desplat outdid himself. The score was spot on, suited the action and the emotions in the film beautifully and drove me almost to distraction (i.e. If Nagini didn’t keep on scaring the crap out of me. What can I say? I don’t usually mind snakes but she’s just...). One of the higher points of the soundtrack was “O Children” performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, which played when Harry and Hermione started dancing in the cute display of pure platonic friendship in punk Ron’s absence.

Voldemort - back in all his delicious evilness with the high gay Michael Jackson sounding voice...but a bit more manlier?Even though I didn’t see him as much as I’d have loved to, the way his looming shadow totally owned the film made it okay. To digress, I was also very happy to see Bellatrix being as psychopathic as ever. Her craziness made Order of the Phoenix for me and she hit it out of the park with her acting once again this time around.

Acting - Overall, all the actors really brought it home. Everyone was completely in role and of course Harry was as gloomy as ever, Hermione as smart-mouthed as ever and Ron as bitchy as ever, though I can’t blame the poor guy. He wasn’t the only one highly disturbed by Harry and Hermione’s soft porno scene.

Guest 2 - Elizabeth C. Joyce: The movie was the darkest Harry potter yet. I mean Dobby died! As well, there was nothing of the familiar. No Hogwarts or any of the more familiar scene places we’re accustomed to. We really see it evolving now, faster and faster. We, the fans, know the end is near. Just like Dobby did.

I liked their adventure into the Ministry of Magic. They are becoming used to throwing spells now, where before they were more tentative about using their powers. I do like the storyline of lookin for the Horcruxes, and they dragged that out just like in the damn book! Now at times it felt too dragged out, like when they were in the woods, on the run. Ok we see how they feel

totally on their own and far from everything and we see Ron’s deterioration until he leaves. But i think this middle part went on a bit too much. And then BAM! Suddenly the action speeds up in the last, what, ten minutes and....Dobby died.

I don’t like JK putting that bit into the story. JUST when he got to the TOP of his confidence that cursed Bellatrix stuck a knife in it.

But I loved the movie because it’s a progression of the story. I’ve been following Harry Potter since it came into existence, and the movies are just really helping to finish off what my imagination started. I so look forward to the next one. It must be concluded in my mind! I need closure!

Consensus: 7.5/10 dirigible plums. I honestly can't say it was a great movie, but neither was it terrible. I find this rating provides as much compromise as I'm willing to allow. If you feel like I'm wrong you can go suck a Deinonychus and come back when you've been properly learned. Son.

P.S. Daniel Radcliffe chest hair lawl.

[Movie Review] The last Airbender.

Well now, I don't even know how exactly to review this movie without being a totally biased douchemonkey. Not that I've ever done that anyway, but hell, this is a tough one.

I'd like to start off by saying that the Avatar series is one of my favourite animated series of all time and that I had always hoped that they would make a movie for it, and was pleasantly surprised when I heard rumour of such a movie.

Now imagine for me, if you will, my shock and f****** horror when I saw the dreaded name of M. Night Shyamalan looming in big 3d letters at the end of every trailer and poster in view.

From that moment on I felt as if I were a father. The father of a healthy, loveable, non-vegetarian child, one that was good at the piano and had a bright future ahead of him because of his paternally derived awesomeness.

One that was ripped from my arms and subjected to brutal torture and eventual death at the hands of the third rate hack that goes by the name of M. Night Shyamalan.

From the conception, I was afraid that this movie would fail horribly. The casting for this farce was controversial and overall ridiculous. The source material is based in a predominantly asian world with scattered shades of brown making appearances throughout. However, Shyamalan, in a bout of typical retardocity, absolutely insisted on an all white primary cast. This being solely because that's how he "saw " them.

You heard me right.

The director deviated from the source material behind a cult classic based on his own personal vision. If that wasn't heinous enough, he insisted on rewriting the very personalities of several key characters because he thought they were better that way.

So, gone are the goofy, inept, charming Sokka and fat, peaceful, silly General Iroh that we knew and loved for their moments of brilliance and overall inanity. They were replaced by an adept, stonefaced warrior named Soakah and a tall, thin, monkish General Eeroh. Why, you may ask?

Ask M. Night Shyamalan, because I really don't know.

He murdered the two comedy relief characters, changed their names and replaced them with annoyingly serious doppelgangers.

Now, even if the actors were wrong for the characters, and the characters were wrong for the story, you would expect at least some decent acting to shine though, right?

Wrong. The dialogue is more forced and awkward than jacking off for a semen sample, and together the actors manage the emotional credibility of a dead barracuda. I won't mention any of their names, because honestly, they'll want to forget they ever appeared in this movie. I hear that guy that played Aang is claiming that Shyamalan threatened to sexually molest him if he didn't star in it. True story, bro.

The special effects are "meh" at best, and the film's claim to being 3d is hilarious. You could watch it without the glasses and not miss a thing. So you miss two or three flying rocks - oh, teh horr0r.

On top of that, the lackadaisical soundtrack also disappoints. Every song has a generic feel to it and there is nothing that makes you say "Ok, this was meant for this movie." They might as well have picked up a $9.99 "Epic movie" soundtrack and threw the songs onto the video reel while they played Call of Duty.

Alas, I wish this was all I had to complain about, but there were so many other small things wrong with this movie that it disgusted me to have to watch it. From the showing of the Fire Lord's face (Weren't the Fire Nation supposed to be chinese-ish anyway? I felt like asking that guy for a slurpee and a pack of cigarettes.) to the lack of screen time, and personality, of Appa and Momo, to the omission of Katara's jealousy of Aang's waterbending skills, to the downplay of Sokka and Princess Yueh's relationship. Seriously, that last part bugged me big time. In the series that nigga had to work hard to get his bitch, shankin' some bigger niggas n shit, provin himself to her father n shit, getting over his personal inadequacies to discover that he's a good guy despite not being a prince n shit. Now he just walks up to her and says "You my girl." and everyone's okay with that.

The f***?

This is where I would usually put my Pros and Cons section, but I find that nary a battle has been fought that was that one sided. Instead, I shall make a list of what M. Night should have done to make a great movie.

The Last Airbender (directed by Niron Khan):

1. Cast people that look like the characters.

2. Pronounce things like they should be pronounced.

3. Not leave out majour characters like Jet and the Kyoshi warriors.

4. Make the movie longer than an hour and a half. 20+ episodes deserve at least 2 hours.

5. Scratch the whole 3d aspect and divert that budget to the special effects.

6. Not changed the water elemental ending to a giant wave. F****** Nickelodeon was more hardcore. Aang was supposed to have killed some niggas n shit.

7. Write the characters so they have some sort of personality.

8. Hire Hans Zimmer.

Consensus: 1/10. I have no idea how M. Night Shyamalan managed to take a great source material like Avatar and leach away all personality and wonder out of it. It's like he made a checklist of things that were great about the series and systematically f***** them up.

Some people said that not even M. Night Shyamalan could f*** up Avatar. They said that it just couldn't be done. They said that the movie would at least be decent, but you've proved them wrong.

Bravo, M. Night. Bravo, indeed.

[Movie Review] Prince of Persia: The sands of time.

Well now, it's pretty much a scientifically proven fact that video game based movies suck more dick than a polynesian crack whore, and as such, I was predisposed towards hating Prince of Persia before I'd even seen it.

In fact, such was the extent of the discrimination that nobody wanted to go with me to witness this travesty. In the end I went alone, sacrificing myself so that others may know how much this undoubtedly laughable attempt at film-making would gargle testicle.

Surprisingly however, it wasn't that bad. Sure, the storyline resembled the game's about as much as my nutsack resembles Abraham Lincoln, but who wants a word for word adaptation of a video game as a movie? Might as well replay the game so you could at least pause it every time a pair of tits pop up.

One thing that annoyed me from the get go was the star wars rip off in the opening narration. "A long time ago and in a place far, far away" or something along that kettle of fish. Persia really isn't that far away, especially if you're living in the middle east or central Europe. Oh wait, I forgot, Americans think they're the only people that have televisions. My bad...

Now, despite a few of the supposed "A-rabs" looking so goddamn caucasiany, I found the film's cast to be rather believable. Prince Dustbin (Jake Gyllenhaal) was somewhat snarky and slightly angsty but lacked the princey asshole-ishness that had been one of his major personality traits in the video game, which ended up just making him look like a naive daddy's boy for just about the whole f****** movie. It's probably because Gyllenhaal thought he was shooting another Brokeback mountain and forgot to bring his big boy pants.

Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) probably did more than her fair share of keeping the audience entertained with her rebellious antics and tight corset. A corset that was ultimately far too tight, judging by the lack of tits in the movie. Don't get me wrong though, I would string her ukulele any day.

The storyline progressed well enough, despite the somewhat clichéd plot twist that resulted in the Vizier/Uncle being the villian all along and betraying Prince Dustpan in order to go back in time and do something or the other that may or may not have involved cackling evilly. It was such a give away too, I mean, the guy had a bald head, goatee and waxed eyebrows. He was obviously the bad guy. It could only have been more obvious if he wore a neon sign and pranced around handing out leaflets that colourfully illustrated his sinister plot with helpful notes detailing exact methods of execution thoughtfully penned in.

Then, of course, there was the token black guy. You know, that guy who sacrifices himself for the sake of his light skinned comrades so they can wipe a tear from the corner of their collective eye and say "Poor Deshaun, he was such a jolly good bloke, eh wot?" and share a moment of sympathy for the helpful negro.

Despite my nitpicking, I have to admit that I was actually entertained by the movie. Director Mike Newell managed, in my opinion, to maintain a somewhat steady pace and keep the audience interested long enough to stop them embarking on a 4 month journey to the slopes of Tibet in a search for their spirit animal.

Pros: Reminds me of Aladdin; Good Parkour scenes; Good pacing; Decent acting; Decent Action scenes.

Cons: Clichéd and fairly predictable; Lack of tits; Mediocre Special effects; Questionable casting.

Consensus: 6.5/10 Token black guys. Good popcorn flick, while nothing to write home about, at least provides more entertainment that was expected from a video game adaptation. I would probably watch it again and might not mind some sort of sequel. Provided it has tits and possibly llamas.

[Tech] Jaws of Rape.

Here's another entry for Niron's list of unnecessary inventions, since people don't seem to want to quit making absolutely retarded things out of some sort of deluded sense of altruism. Kinda makes me wonder if half the world's population has LSD in their water supply and nobody wanted to tell me.

Now, an anti-rape condom may seem like a good idea, in theory, but that's all it is. Theory.

Any brain addled chimpanzee can see that after the first few incidences of this working any competent rapist will take preventative measures against the "Rape-aXe". A slightly less brain addled chimpanzee will be able to tell that some of the possible repercussions would be worse than the problem we started out with in the first place.

In fact, here are some probable scenarios:

1. The patented "Rape -o- Meter" - Can be made easily at home using a stick, stop sign, shovel or a convenient phallically shaped cactus. Now you can check for anti-rape devices by jamming a broom handle in the victim and removing the device. After the preliminary check, rape proceeds as planned. Now every rape victim gets violated with an inanimate object first!

2. The Violent Consequence -The rapist, upon discovering the vaginal venus flytrap attached to his breeding apparatus proceeds to beat the victim to death with the nearest miniature canoe, and then abandons the scene. Now every rape victim gets violently punished for wearing the device. Possibly with a Rape-Axe. Heh.

3.The Misleading Bitch - Misuses the product for personal reasons, possibly by luring men with promise of consensual sex, then threatening them with the prospect of calling in a rape when the device takes hold. See #2 for possible ramifications.

Now in addition to these gross oversights the designer claims that the use of this device will definitely lead to an arrest since the rapist would need medical assistance to remove the device. However, one look at that piece of Taiwanese trash leads me to believe that any retard with a pair of scissors could free his schlong from it's silicon oppressor with the utmost of ease.

Aren't South Africans just so adorable when they try to contribute to society? D'aww.

[Movie Review] Robin Hood.

Every movie nowadays endeavors to be a gritty, realistic film firmly entrenched in angsty drama that tries to force us to relate to it's plethora of emotional skulduggery, like a teenager wearing black lipstick, tight leather and assuming the name "RavenWing" in a desperate cry for attention. It seems that we've reached the point of modern storytelling where older, successful movies are remade simply because people working in the movie industry are too busy snorting buckets of cocaine and having their way with young Filipino sex slaves to actually come up with something new and/or innovative.

The old Robin Hood movies were light-hearted cheery offerings, quick of wit and tongue in cheek, depicting the adventures of that old scalawag Robin of Loxley and his band of Merry Men as they stole from the rich and gave to the poor with many an act of derring-do and other anarchic phrases that I can't possibly be arsed to remember.

I am sad to say that I find none of these things in this newest of remakes.

The movie tries so hard to keep up with this new tradition of being all dark and grungy that it completely abandoned the endearing qualities that made Robin Hood such an enjoyable tale in the first place. There are no acts of thievery committed in the name of the people, well except for that one part that I wasn't too awake for, the humour is forced at best, and Robin Longstride (Russel Crowe) is stoic, iron faced, granite ballsed, and marble titted at the best of times.

I'm somewhat of the mind that Crowe thought this was Gladiator II and decided to reprise the emotional capacity of an orphaned brick.

Speaking of bricks, who the hell decided to cast Cate Blanchett as Maid Marion? She's about as attractive as a cracked toenail, with all the sharp angular edges to boot. I will admit that her performance was pretty decent, but I kept waiting for her to drop her sword and stab someone with those razor edged cheekbones.

The rest of the cast gave credible performances, with the band of Moderately-Amused Fellows(too many of the buggers to list), and Sir Godfrey (Mark Strong from Kickass! :O!) filling out the roles necessary to keep this 2.5 hour titan plodding onwards.

Now I might seem to be judging harshly, but f*** you, that's what I do, and that's exactly what the movie feels like to me: A badly paced, blundering leviathan straining to be something more. Something it could have been if only Director Ridley Scott hadn't tried to make an all the rage origin story and maybe actually, possibly, deigned to make a film about Robin f****** Hood.

In fact, this movie has so little to do with the legend that the Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Somethingortheother) isn't even the villian, which leads me to believe that they could have changed the names of the characters, titled it "Kingdom of Heaven: The part that happened in the woods" and nobody would have ever noticed.

The movie itself taunts you further by proclaiming at the end that "The legend begins", and this actually made me angry, very angry indeed. Why did the legend begin in the last 10 seconds of the movie? It's obvious they're setting up for a sequel, like every other f****** movie that comes out, and frankly I would prefer to see that movie than this crud that just seems to be filling in the timeslot before the real story begins. I'm pretty sure they could have cut down this entire movie into 20 minutes then continued with the tale of Robin Hood and come out much better for it.

Pros: Moments of Good Movie occasionally shine through; Decent action scenes; Some good plot elements; Possibility of sequel that may actually be relevant.

Cons: Has about as much to do with R.Hood as a potted plant has to do with telemarketing; Russel Crowe isn't cut out to be "Merry" and his ever changing accent is laughable; The good parts were held hostage by a series of extremely boring negotiations and tomfoolery; Special effects didn't look like they were good enough for a film with a budget just shy of Avatar's; Possibility of a sequel that may be just as irrelevant.

Consensus: 5/10 Guffawing Chaps. This may come as a surprise since I ripped on the movie so much, but don't get me wrong, it's by no means "terrible", it's just not "great" either. You can watch it, I guess, but I won't force you, nor will I berate you if you actually choose to watch it.

In retrospect I'm probably being overly harsh because I genuinely love Gladiator and to see Ridley and Russel betray me makes me a very sad panda indeed. I had felt that with them making another movie I would presented with a chocolatey egg of legendary wondrousness filled with the creamy goodness of prime storytelling. Instead I cracked open the chocolatey egg and found the man eating snails of mediocrity gnawing at my face.

[Tech] A tale of Youtube.

After the Surra De Bunda post left me stupified by how coarse out culture has become, I've realized that it has pretty much always been that way. As the famous adage goes "Sex sells.", and apparently it's selling faster than fried chicken at a Black Power march.

Racial hilarity aside, I rewatched Eric Prydz's "Call on me" video for about the ten trillionth time today and this only served to confirm my dwindling opinion of human marketing strategy. The video is literally 3 solid minutes of scantily clad women (and one questionably homosexual male) suggestively shaking their bits around in giggling obliviousness. You're led to wonder if they're all in some sort of hallucinogenic trance induced by reduced bloodflow from all the skintight spandex.

Not that I have a problem with any of it though. The video has a total of around 8 different words repeated on an endless loop but yet you will watch it repeatedly, simply because you can't stop mindlessly ogling the blonde in the front that appears to have a bit of black twine stuck between her buttcheeks.

I estimate I'm on my 300th viewing.

This possibly makes me a hypocrite.

F*** you, you can't judge me.

Also a point of comparative interest is the fact that the number one viewed video on Youtube is Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" music video, which really boggles my budgerigars, since I really didn't think around 230 million people could possibly have watched that pile of odd tosh. I mean, I personally love the dark, quirky, somewhat disturbing randomness of the song, but I doubt a number nearly equivalent to the entire f****** population of the United States of America could have watched it. Pretty soon she'll reveal her plans for tyrannical rule, and you little lambs, will follow your psychotic, bug-eyed mistress to the end.

Maybe soon, we'll see some real Youtube talent rise to the top of the list though, because some shit is just too awesome to be ignored.

Fight the power!

[PSA] Brevity and Clarity.

This will be my first post in a few days because I had temporarily abandoned Boredom-ville in pursuit of, well, things of moderate excitement.This lead to questions about why I hadn't written a post every day for the past week, which shines some light on a very presumptuous misconception.

I may have written a post every day for a week or so, but the average release rate will be approximately 3-4 posts per week, alcohol and hookers allowing, so don't get your knickers in a twist if I don't release something every night because I'm out having some sort of a vague mockery of a social life.

In fact, there's about the same chance of me releasing a post on a friday or saturday night as a choir boy has of surviving sunday school with his anal virginity intact.

Har Har.

On that topic, I find it hilarious that a pastor can be considered the pillar of the community, do the world of good for his people, and generally be a miniature jesus for 20 years, but if he dares to sleep with just one teensy choir boy, he's condemned for being a total sod. It's amazing how people always remember the worst about someone.

In fact, that's generally my job, remembering the worst about every one of you. So toe the f****** line before a bitch gets smacked.

Now I'm having a fairly bad case of writer's block, probably stemming from the 3 martinis I've just had, so excuse the brevity and possible bad humour of this post. Actually, forget that, f*** you guys.

Now back to your regularly scheduled retardation.

P.S. I'm sorry. I really do love you all, in a vague, possibly sexual way.

=D!