Saturday, July 18, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Prince Harry is a Half Blood Prince.
Sorry, what I mean is, here's my review of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (David Yates, 2009)
16-year-old Harry Potter is now in Sixth form at Hogwarts. However, with Voldemort still at large, now with a growing entourage of Death Eaters out to get him, he could be forgiven for putting academics at the back of his mind. Danger is brewing aplenty, including a very ominous meeting occurring between Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother, and the ever-ambiguous Professor Snape. What's more, the teenagers Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ron's sister Ginny struggle with their feelings for each other, causing a complicated mess of emotions. Dark times, indeed.
As with all five of its predecessors, Harry Potter VI is suitably pretty to look at, a masterclass in the art of gliding cinematography. Filmed in ominous navy hues, it lacks the strokes of life that the earlier films' bright colours evoked, though, with such grim themes as death, murder, power and hidden secrets, it seems about fair, and makes me wonder in what colours the final installment will be painted. Handheld camera is employed in the odd scene and this gives the film a grainier edge, which is done well. At times, one wonders if David Yates fancies himself a bit of a Terrence Malick with the odd lingering shot too many, and on the whole, it contributes the the visual flair of the film, which is surprisingly sensual at times, yet harshly austere at others. One cannot fault the CGI, however, which intricately creates some of Rowling's best ideas - the dreams sequences are atmospheric and chilling, Weasley's Wizarding Weezes looked like a place that every child wants to go to. Sound also plays a big role in Harry Potter VI; in a few crucial scenes it is employed to create a menacing presence and the claustrophobic, nauseous sound effects, coupled with the images, do just that.
The cinematography, however, is not the only reason I derived pleasure from looking at this film. On a superficial level, there are two other rather nice things to look at in Half-Blood Prince, and I do believe their names are Tom Felton and Rupert bunging Grint. Rupert Grint gives yet another stellar comedic turn; without giving too much away, a scene where he consumes something intended for Harry and bears the consequences is one of the funniest things you'll see in the cinema all year, and it is Rupert's impeccable timing that gives it such warm humour. On the other end of the spectrum stands Tom Felton. Rather, stands Tom Felton in a black suit, hair gelled back, an expression on his face that is both terrifying and terrified. In Half-Blood Prince the novel, I felt real pathos for Draco, no matter how nasty a person he was, and thankfully this has translated onto screen. Felton gives a terrific performance, in one vital showdown we see the side of him that has hidden behind the bullying demeanor for so long.
Sadly, the rest of the cast are not so talented. Emma Watson, after many years, still has no clue how to act. It's very sad because in the books, I absolutely adore Hermione, and in the sixth book I found her loveliest, both caring and perceptive to Harry's feelings for Ginny as well as vulnerable in her own love for Ron, as well as completely oblivious to just how amazing she was, which of course made her even lovelier in my eyes. Emma Watson conveys absolutely zero of this, and instead spent the entire film getting on my tits. Speaking of which, Miss Watson's babylons give a supporting performance in Slughorn's Christmas party, which should please the lads. Emma Watson will be pleased to hear that another actress has surpassed her poorness in acting. Whereas Watson overacts to the point of incredulity, Bonnie Wright is so dull that she could put out a fire just by looking at it. Her lack of chemistry with Radcliffe is absolutely embarrassing. Daniel Radcliffe himself seems to be battling against the waxwork model of himself at Taussads for the accolade of being most wooden actor. There are some scenes in this film which require a level of emotional maturity and empathy, and Radcliffe just reverts to what can only be reading the lines off the autocue. Nice.
Thankfully, in a world where badness is balanced out by good, there are some truly talented performances in Half-Blood Prince. Everything Miss Evanna Lynch touches is magic, her Irish accents only contributes to her sense of whimsical charm, and I thought it inspired for the filmmakers to kit her out in a lion costume pre-Quidditch game; she looked adorable. You can tell Helena Bonham Carter is having a whale of a time as Bellatrix, as she reeks havoc all round and generally brings the house down, and Jim Broadbent captures Professor Slughorn very well. The screenplay is a bit duff, the film feels too episodic and disjointed and as ever, too much of the novel has been omitted. However, the episodic nature is not totally bad; in a few scenes, we see Draco lingering around the sidelines menacingly, which is a nice little touch. The humour, when it comes, is welcome - Rupert Grint the court jester, and Jessie Cave, as Lavender Brown, his clingy girlfriend, is utterly hilarious. There are also moments which genuinely scared me. Therefore, I find myself saying what I always say when another Harry Potter movie comes out: I was entertained no end, I laughed and giggled, I fancied Rupert Grint and despised Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson. Except this time, I have two more things to add: Tom Felton is completely beautiful and when we were treated to that Tarantinoesque shot of his feet I just wanted to bung, and omg, someone get Bonnie Wright an acting lesson. And a meal or two. And a decent haircut. When all is said and done, however, it sits my favourite film of 2009 so far.
16-year-old Harry Potter is now in Sixth form at Hogwarts. However, with Voldemort still at large, now with a growing entourage of Death Eaters out to get him, he could be forgiven for putting academics at the back of his mind. Danger is brewing aplenty, including a very ominous meeting occurring between Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother, and the ever-ambiguous Professor Snape. What's more, the teenagers Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ron's sister Ginny struggle with their feelings for each other, causing a complicated mess of emotions. Dark times, indeed.
As with all five of its predecessors, Harry Potter VI is suitably pretty to look at, a masterclass in the art of gliding cinematography. Filmed in ominous navy hues, it lacks the strokes of life that the earlier films' bright colours evoked, though, with such grim themes as death, murder, power and hidden secrets, it seems about fair, and makes me wonder in what colours the final installment will be painted. Handheld camera is employed in the odd scene and this gives the film a grainier edge, which is done well. At times, one wonders if David Yates fancies himself a bit of a Terrence Malick with the odd lingering shot too many, and on the whole, it contributes the the visual flair of the film, which is surprisingly sensual at times, yet harshly austere at others. One cannot fault the CGI, however, which intricately creates some of Rowling's best ideas - the dreams sequences are atmospheric and chilling, Weasley's Wizarding Weezes looked like a place that every child wants to go to. Sound also plays a big role in Harry Potter VI; in a few crucial scenes it is employed to create a menacing presence and the claustrophobic, nauseous sound effects, coupled with the images, do just that.
The cinematography, however, is not the only reason I derived pleasure from looking at this film. On a superficial level, there are two other rather nice things to look at in Half-Blood Prince, and I do believe their names are Tom Felton and Rupert bunging Grint. Rupert Grint gives yet another stellar comedic turn; without giving too much away, a scene where he consumes something intended for Harry and bears the consequences is one of the funniest things you'll see in the cinema all year, and it is Rupert's impeccable timing that gives it such warm humour. On the other end of the spectrum stands Tom Felton. Rather, stands Tom Felton in a black suit, hair gelled back, an expression on his face that is both terrifying and terrified. In Half-Blood Prince the novel, I felt real pathos for Draco, no matter how nasty a person he was, and thankfully this has translated onto screen. Felton gives a terrific performance, in one vital showdown we see the side of him that has hidden behind the bullying demeanor for so long.
Sadly, the rest of the cast are not so talented. Emma Watson, after many years, still has no clue how to act. It's very sad because in the books, I absolutely adore Hermione, and in the sixth book I found her loveliest, both caring and perceptive to Harry's feelings for Ginny as well as vulnerable in her own love for Ron, as well as completely oblivious to just how amazing she was, which of course made her even lovelier in my eyes. Emma Watson conveys absolutely zero of this, and instead spent the entire film getting on my tits. Speaking of which, Miss Watson's babylons give a supporting performance in Slughorn's Christmas party, which should please the lads. Emma Watson will be pleased to hear that another actress has surpassed her poorness in acting. Whereas Watson overacts to the point of incredulity, Bonnie Wright is so dull that she could put out a fire just by looking at it. Her lack of chemistry with Radcliffe is absolutely embarrassing. Daniel Radcliffe himself seems to be battling against the waxwork model of himself at Taussads for the accolade of being most wooden actor. There are some scenes in this film which require a level of emotional maturity and empathy, and Radcliffe just reverts to what can only be reading the lines off the autocue. Nice.
Thankfully, in a world where badness is balanced out by good, there are some truly talented performances in Half-Blood Prince. Everything Miss Evanna Lynch touches is magic, her Irish accents only contributes to her sense of whimsical charm, and I thought it inspired for the filmmakers to kit her out in a lion costume pre-Quidditch game; she looked adorable. You can tell Helena Bonham Carter is having a whale of a time as Bellatrix, as she reeks havoc all round and generally brings the house down, and Jim Broadbent captures Professor Slughorn very well. The screenplay is a bit duff, the film feels too episodic and disjointed and as ever, too much of the novel has been omitted. However, the episodic nature is not totally bad; in a few scenes, we see Draco lingering around the sidelines menacingly, which is a nice little touch. The humour, when it comes, is welcome - Rupert Grint the court jester, and Jessie Cave, as Lavender Brown, his clingy girlfriend, is utterly hilarious. There are also moments which genuinely scared me. Therefore, I find myself saying what I always say when another Harry Potter movie comes out: I was entertained no end, I laughed and giggled, I fancied Rupert Grint and despised Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson. Except this time, I have two more things to add: Tom Felton is completely beautiful and when we were treated to that Tarantinoesque shot of his feet I just wanted to bung, and omg, someone get Bonnie Wright an acting lesson. And a meal or two. And a decent haircut. When all is said and done, however, it sits my favourite film of 2009 so far.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Book 2: The Gatecrasher (Madeleine Wickham).
Fleur Daxeny is 40 years of age, immoral, beautiful, and very devious. To this day, she has gotten through life by "gatecrashing" funerals - that is, spotting the grieving widower and charming her way into his life, and Gold credit card. Richard Favour is her latest prey - he, still feeling the ripples of the death of his wife Emily, a woman he deified but never truly knew, falls head over heels in love with her, and she, spotting an easy cash in, leads him on. This is no simple shag-and-rob situation however, as we are introduced to his dysfunctional family: his terrified, unconfident adult daughter Philippa, trapped in an unhappy marriage to her domineering, cruel husband Lambert; his growingly apathetic teenage son Antony, his quiet, martyr-like sister-in law Gillian, and a secret of his wealth, a wealth that even the most goldigging can only dream of.
Madeleine Wickham, aka Sophie Kinsella, author of the Shopaholic books, does like her social satire, and this is certainly one of her finer efforts. She captures the many facets of the comfy Surrey life - daily trips to the clubhouse, wherein the members initially judged Fleur as the harlot she is, before slowly succumbing to her charms, as well as the tragic realness behind the forced smiles - Philippa and Lambert's marriage is one of the saddest strands of any of Wickham's creations, and as Lambert's harshness to his wife increases, so does Philippa's self-loathing. Key to any good book, however, is a protagonist we can know and love, and Fleur mos certainly is *not* that. In my eyes, she was nothing short of a Jezebel, who needed to die asap (preferably, crushed by all the money she conned out of her many conquests.) Such was my dislike for Fleur, that I also didn't take to her daughter, Zara, a pretentious 13-year-old who speaks with an American accent and smokes joints, but in an effortless way, mind, so she must be cool. Her "romance" with her mother's boyfriend's son, Antony, bordered on paedophilic, and the way the two of them "shared a bed" was a horrible prelude to what Will and Lyra were to do a few years later. Nice. That said, there were two characters I didn't want to stab. Gillian, the deceased Emily's long-suffering sister, was a curious one. At the start, she was painted like the holier-than-thou woman who's sister has just passed away, and takes to judging the woman who tries to fill her shoes. As the book goes on, however, we see how she suffered under the control of her sister, who, despite having many friends and admirers, turns out to be a nasty piece of work, one who made her daughter feel worthless, made her son feel conscious of his birthmark, and never warmed to her husband. The husband, Richard, is the other only good character. Bland at the start, strokes of colour are added to his personality as time goes by. He is a geniunely good man, perhaps not the best parent, but he recognises his folly just in time.
A curious book - for a chicklit, it evoked far more feelings than it should, and made me pine for the female characters of Sophie Kinsella - as selfish and materialistic as Becky Bloomwood ever was, she would never intentionally string a man along so heartlessly as Fleur does. Above it all, however, there is a heart - Zara, pleading with her mother to ditch her man-hopping a settle down, reminds us that, when all is said and done, home is where the heart is.
Monday, July 13, 2009
I have a new movie star crush.
I can't even bring myself to say who it is, 'cos I've spent, like, the last two years slagging him (and his acting) off. I still can't believe it, frankly. Ick.
Two days to go.
In two days time, I shall be in the cinema with my mate, watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Can't wait!
Also, I started a Summer job today, so sadly won't have enough time to write blog entries.
"Bitch's blog entries aren't any good anyway", I hear you say.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Selected photos from China.
Just the four this week.
Screening Log: 
6th July - 12th July
6th July - 12th JulyBody of Lies (Ridley Scott, 2008)
Terrifically taut thriller by the master, it begins with a bombing, ends with a grim torture scene and features a whole lot of complex twisting and turning throughout. Generally speaking, it's about CIA officers Ed Ferris (DiCaprio) and Ed Hoffman (Crowe) and their attempts to catch terrorist leader Al-Sa-leem, with the help (or not) of the head of Jordanian Intelligence (played by Mark Strong, looking more like Berbatov than humanly possible). DiCaprio is at his most bungtastic in this movie; poor man gets the shit kicked out of him, but he exudes a Noble sense of wanting to do the right thing and his pursuit of Golshifteh Farahani's character, driven by love rather than lust, is adorable. The film does drag a little towards the middle but has a massive crescendo and ends on a semi-high, so all round, a rewarding watch.
Happy Feet (George Miller, Warren Coleman, 2006)
UGH. I honestly do not know what I was thinking when I initially rendered this film cute, it was painfully irritating and nothing less. Just so, so bad. The voice cast, though containing the smidgen of talent, clearly all just regarded this film as a cash-in and no-one gets out of autopilot, especially not Robin Williams, who pissed me off, so hard. The "environmental message" was the most contrived thing ever. Hate.
Girl with a Pearl Earring (Peter Webber, 2003)
Over my time in China, I gave Tracy Chevalier's novel a few more readings, and loved it so much each time round that it has now taken proud spot as my #1 book. The film, however, left much to be desired. As with Happy Feet, I'd previously liked this film, but it really does not hold up to repeat viewings. Scarlett Johansson is the film's main problem, she has none of Griet's awesomeness, and instead spends much of the film looking utterly gormless. The sets, cinematography, costume and Alexandre Desplat score are beautiful, as expected, but the film was just so blah compared to the source material and I'm tempted to believe it missed the point of the book exactly. Alakina Mann, so brilliant in The Others, made a convincing bitch here, though, and it was cool to see a young Anna Popelwell in action. But God, Scarlett Johansson needs to stop acting asap.
17 Again (Burr Steers, 2009)
At 17 years of age, Mike O'Donnell (Zac Efron) is a high school basketball player who, by the High School Musical definition of happiness, has it all. Popular, the leading payer on his team, and has the love of a beautiful girl. Things are smooth sailing for him until, on the day of the biggest match of his life, he abandons the match to be with his girlfriend, who has just dropped the bombshell that she is pregnant. Twenty years on, however, a disillusioned Mike (now played by Matthew Perry) has it far from perfect. His wife is divorcing him, and his two teenage kids are going through the token phase of hating and/or feeling embarrassed by their dad. To add insult to injury, he has just been passed over for promotion at a company he's worked at for the last 16 years. In a rainy night when trying to save an old man from falling into a river, he falls in, and in doing so, finds himself in his 17-year-old body. To all intents and purposes, he is 17 Again.
Terrifically taut thriller by the master, it begins with a bombing, ends with a grim torture scene and features a whole lot of complex twisting and turning throughout. Generally speaking, it's about CIA officers Ed Ferris (DiCaprio) and Ed Hoffman (Crowe) and their attempts to catch terrorist leader Al-Sa-leem, with the help (or not) of the head of Jordanian Intelligence (played by Mark Strong, looking more like Berbatov than humanly possible). DiCaprio is at his most bungtastic in this movie; poor man gets the shit kicked out of him, but he exudes a Noble sense of wanting to do the right thing and his pursuit of Golshifteh Farahani's character, driven by love rather than lust, is adorable. The film does drag a little towards the middle but has a massive crescendo and ends on a semi-high, so all round, a rewarding watch.
Happy Feet (George Miller, Warren Coleman, 2006)
UGH. I honestly do not know what I was thinking when I initially rendered this film cute, it was painfully irritating and nothing less. Just so, so bad. The voice cast, though containing the smidgen of talent, clearly all just regarded this film as a cash-in and no-one gets out of autopilot, especially not Robin Williams, who pissed me off, so hard. The "environmental message" was the most contrived thing ever. Hate.
Girl with a Pearl Earring (Peter Webber, 2003)
Over my time in China, I gave Tracy Chevalier's novel a few more readings, and loved it so much each time round that it has now taken proud spot as my #1 book. The film, however, left much to be desired. As with Happy Feet, I'd previously liked this film, but it really does not hold up to repeat viewings. Scarlett Johansson is the film's main problem, she has none of Griet's awesomeness, and instead spends much of the film looking utterly gormless. The sets, cinematography, costume and Alexandre Desplat score are beautiful, as expected, but the film was just so blah compared to the source material and I'm tempted to believe it missed the point of the book exactly. Alakina Mann, so brilliant in The Others, made a convincing bitch here, though, and it was cool to see a young Anna Popelwell in action. But God, Scarlett Johansson needs to stop acting asap.
17 Again (Burr Steers, 2009)
At 17 years of age, Mike O'Donnell (Zac Efron) is a high school basketball player who, by the High School Musical definition of happiness, has it all. Popular, the leading payer on his team, and has the love of a beautiful girl. Things are smooth sailing for him until, on the day of the biggest match of his life, he abandons the match to be with his girlfriend, who has just dropped the bombshell that she is pregnant. Twenty years on, however, a disillusioned Mike (now played by Matthew Perry) has it far from perfect. His wife is divorcing him, and his two teenage kids are going through the token phase of hating and/or feeling embarrassed by their dad. To add insult to injury, he has just been passed over for promotion at a company he's worked at for the last 16 years. In a rainy night when trying to save an old man from falling into a river, he falls in, and in doing so, finds himself in his 17-year-old body. To all intents and purposes, he is 17 Again.
Zac Efron has the happy challenge of playing a man trapped within a lad's body, and he's actually surprisingly good. He's certainly no where near as irritating as Troy Bolton and manages to bring the odd chuckle. The scene where he stands up to the school bully whilst defending his son/friend is done with such youthful swagger that you can't help but warm to him, and it's quite clear that Efron himself feels more at home with PG-13 material. The concept, though nothing new, is done in such an unassuming way (with a heart-warming sequence featuring Mike/Mark teaching his son/friend basketball) that the film is a joy to watch and the cheesy parts are forgivable. Predictable and easy, it won't stretch the brain cells but is a very watchable number.
Now that I'm back in England, I hope to see a lot more films, including a trip to the cinema to see the latest Harry Potter film on Wednesday, so, next week, hopefully I'll have more than four films to write about.
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