Posts Tagged ‘harry potter’

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I opens this Friday in theaters everywhere (and we mean everywhere), bringing this generation’s most storied franchise that much closer to its epic climax. Those who can’t wait until Friday to see more of Harry, Ron and Hermione (especially Hermione) should be excited to know that FilmJabber has added 25 awesome new movie images from the movie.

Check out the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows photo stills now!

The time is near, that when the Harry Potter franchise delivers its final whisk of the wand. The tension is starting to build, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth entry in the blockbuster franchise, is a key indicator of how the story of Harry, Ron and Hermione will end. David Yates, who also directed the previous Harry Potter film, is back at the helm – as he will be for the final two movies – but there was no certainty that the franchise would end on a high note. After sitting through two and a half hours of the latest Harry Potter, however, I can say with confidence that I can’t wait for the final chapters to arrive.

Read the rest of the Harry Potter movie review.

Here’s something random: Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, has swine flu. His publicist reported that the young man is on his death bed… or, at least, he has the sniffles.

“It has just been confirmed that Rupert Grint has taken a few days out of filming due to a mild bout of swine flu,” the publicist’s statement said, according to this article by the AFP.

Read the full article »

I watched Twilight when it came to theaters. It was surprisingly pretty good, even though it was focused more on the hormones of a teenage girl than on anything more macro such as good versus evil or protagonist versus antagonist (though one would argue that the complexities of a woman cannot be topped).

Following that, I went on to read all four of the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer. I had heard they were good, so I was willing to give them a chance. The first book was good and quite entertaining, as Bella attempted to discover what the mystery was behind Edward. The second book, however, was just OK.

New Moon, which is hastily being made into a movie this year, is not going to make much of a movie at all. The first half of the book is pretty good, as Bella starts up a quasi-relationship with Jacob, her soon-to-be-werewolf best friend. In reality, the book is just a retread of the first one, only with a werewolf in place of a vampire. Bella sure knows how to pick them, doesn’t she? It’s entertaining, but when it devolves into a race to save Edward from the Volturi, it takes a turn for the worse. Meyer ends the book with absolutely no action, and in fact there is only one suspenseful moment in the entire novel. How will this become a good movie? It’s hard to imagine.

Thankfully, Eclipse is a much-better book. Victoria, who has been lurking in the shadows since the first novel, amasses a vampire army to take down the Cullens and kill Bella. The result? A vampire vs. vampire vs. werewolf battle, which, if done right, should be amazing on the silver screen. Eclipse is exciting, smart and entertaining, and will make a perfect finish to the trilogy.

Except… the series doesn’t end as a trilogy. It ends with Breaking Dawn, a shockingly disappointing finish that takes the characters in unwanted directions. Bella finally gets to screw Edward, but not until he’s convinced her to marry at a young age (is this meant to teach young girls a moral lesson? It’s not “don’t have sex until you’re married.” It’s “if you want to have sex, get married so you can have sex.”). Then she gets knocked up, and spends much of the rest of the book lying around on her death bed, so much so that Meyer has to shift the narrative to Jacob to progress the story. Ouch. Eventually, Bella becomes a vampire, and this is the best thing that happens to her: however, how can you top being immortal and wanting to eat other humans?  Of course, Bella doesn’t get to suffer any of the consequences, as her father shrugs off her conversion with minimal conflict (that’s convenient) and she doesn’t have any of the urges a newborn vampire should have.

To cap it all off, Meyer sets up a gigantic battle between the Cullens and the Volturi, and then decides not to have a satisfying finale at all. Harry Potter, the Twilight series is not.

Essentially, the Twilight series is an entertaining series that doesn’t have a plot or much else. Unlike Harry Potter, which carefully and intelligently progresses its stories along to a massive, satisfying climax, Meyer seems more concerned about fitting her frustratingly annoying lead character into a childhood dream of immortality and endless love. The books aren’t bad, but they are overrated, and it’s sad that any young girl may idolize Bella. Bella is annoying, and her attempts to be selfless generally results in her being as selfish as possible. Driven by hormones and a silly, youthful love, she is willing to give up everything, including her family and friends, for her lover. That’s just pathetic.

The only reason I’m dwelling on the moral aspects of the story is because I’m disappointed by the general story arc of the books. They’re written by a woman for girls – and I am neither a woman nor a girl – so I understand that I’m not in the target audience. But when you write a story about vampires and werewolves and don’t follow through with such things… well, it’s embarrassing that this series is compared to Harry Potter.

In the devastating hole left by the retreat of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Disney’s Bolt and Summit’s Twilight have moved into feast on the potential box office dollars left behind. The movies – both of which aim at younger audiences (Bolt at considerably younger) – had been staying clear of the coveted November 21 release date out of respect – or -fear of the sixth Harry Potter flick. With announcement that that highly anticipated film was being pushed back to summer 2009, the coveted date was scooped up by the two films, which now look to take advantage of Thanksgiving weekend to earn some extra dough.

This is a good opportunity for Twilight, which is based on an allegedly popular book series about a normal girl (the gorgeous Kristin Stewart) who likes to screw around with vampires. OK, to be fair, she’s monogamous and prefers to share her time with just one vampire (Robert Pattison, who actually lays claim to being the first profound death in the Harry Potter franchise), but you get the point. There’s certainly some buzz around the picture, but having known nothing about the story other than what Summit’s marketing reps tell me, I don’t really see the big deal.

Personally, I don’t think Twilight is going to be the massive picture that some expect it to be. It’s definitely going to get a boost from the Thanksgiving weekend, but is it going to be a valid replacement for Harry Potter? No. The “franchise” doesn’t have the same name recognition that made Harry Potter so successful, and while it looks decent, it doesn’t look that much different than a dozen other teeny bopper horror movies that have come before it. General audiences aren’t going to be that motivated to go see this one, except for a lack of other entertainment.

Only time shall tell.

Just kidding… Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will not be delayed that much, but to the horror of Harry Potter fans around the world, it was announced today that the movie would indeed be shifted from its November 2008 release date to Summer 2009 – July 17, 2009 to be exact.

Warner Brothers said it moved the film to take full advantage of its box office capabilities by releasing it in the summer, though frankly I’ve always regarded the November releases to be more successful. I can’t back that up with statistics, but according to today’s release, the last Harry Potter movie – which, in my opinion, was by far the worst of the franchise – was the second highest grosser, and it was released in the summer.

Reading between the lines, though, this release date push probably signifies production delays, perhaps from the various strikes and de facto strikes that have ravaged Hollywood over the last year. I can’t imagine that Warner Brothers would simply sit on a finished Harry Potter movie for eight months, as not only would it be denying them hundreds of millions of dollars, but would also be asking for piracy.

As a Harry Potter fan, however, I am hugely disappointed that the movie has been pushed back to 2009, especially since Warner Brothers had just started to whet our appetites with teaser trailers and the like. Word is that the planned November 2010 release of Part One of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has not been affected by this delay.

The Associated Press is reporting that an actor who played a minor role in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has died after being stabbed to death. Eighteen-year-old Rob Knox was killed when he got involved in a fight outside a bar. Allegedly, a 21-year old suspect, who has been taken into custody, pulled a knife and stabbed Knox to death.

Knox played Ravenclaw student Marcus Belby in the new Harry Potter movie. The article does not indicate whether Belby already filmed his scene, though, with the movie set to release in less than six months, one would assume that he had.

Fourteen teenagers have been violently killed in London since the beginning of the year.

There’s good news and bad news about the upcoming finale to the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

The good news is that the Los Angeles Times is reporting that the movie is being split into two movies, the first to be released in November 2010, the second in May 2011. I truly feel this is not simply to capitalize on an extra $400 million worldwide – the book was massive, and to remove much if any of it to fit into a two-and-a-half hour movie would be a travesty. Now with 4-6 hours to play with, Warner Brothers can create an epic two-part movie series… Of course, the first half of the movie is going to be immensely frustrating, just like Kill Bill: Vol. 1. That is going to be an agonizing six months, let me tell you.

The bad news is that David Yates is signed on to direct these films. Does Warner Brothers really think this guy can handle the epic finale to the Harry Potter franchise? He already did a piss poor job on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; why would Warner Brothers hire the crappiest director of all the Harry Potter movies to do the last four, and subsequently most important, films in the franchise?

If Yates ruins Harry Potter, I will be massively upset.