Harry Potter, Bruno, etc
Some more movie reviews.
Also, I’ve discovered the poll feature on wordpress, so I guess I’ll be including some somewhat relevant polls hopefully with each post that I hope you participate in (because polls are no fun if I’m the only one that votes!).
- HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE – (2009)
Dir: David Yates; Star:Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson etc
Sixth installment in wizard series about young Harry and company having to endure Voldemort’s return to power. Brilliantly paced alternating between ominous darkness and relationship building comedy, a balance that is sustained through to the end, making this entry compelling and very enjoyable. Yates’ direction here is crisper and more graceful than any of the other films, stylish and dark yet not overbearingly or indulgently so. Now that the characters and actors have matured it feels much easier to accept their various follies and emotions. New guest star Jim Broadbent is irresistable as Horatio Slughorn, and Tom felton is more odious (but in an elegant way) than ever as Draco Malfoy. The tone of the very ending however, felt unnecessarily light and sappy which really seemed inappropriate for its context, although the climax cracks like thunder. The best of the series so far.
- BRÜNO- (2009)
Dir: Larry Charles; Star: Sascha Baron Cohen
Baron Cohen follows the same formula as 2006′s Borat but with the gay Austrian fashion enthusiast Bruno heading to Los Angeles on a quest to become famous. Most of the comedy again stems from unaware participants reacting to Bruno’s antics, as well as the expected gross-out gags that push the limits of what everyone is comfortable seeing. It is at times very funny, at other times you can tell it’s just playing the same formula for more laughs. The main problems here are the non-cohesive social commentary that is only occasionally alluded to (whereas it was a fundamental aspect of Borat), the off putting aggressiveness of the title personality (Borat’s lovableness gave that movie an odd charm), and the fact that all of the jokes were basically based on either Bruno’s homosexuality or the fact that Austria was once part of Nazi Germany. This all leaves the movie lacking and second rate both to it’s superior brother Borat and as a comedy in general.
- THE HURT LOCKER – (2009)
Dir: Kathryn Bigelow; Star: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie
A US army bomb squad in Iraq must put it all on the line in a seemingly endless series of encounters before their service rotation ends. They’re joined by a new, almost pathologically cavalier bomb defuser whose gung-ho attitude makes him the best and most frightening at what he does. It’s very suspenseful and edgy throughout but at its best when it combines this with insites into the defuser’s motives and personality. Unfortunately this doesn’t really come through until the very end, so it feels underdeveloped in that regard. Still a fresh perspective on the war that provides an ample and effective dose of tension.
- THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD – (2009)
Dir: Sean McGinly; Star: Colin Hanks, John Malkovich
Washed up magician/mentalist/entertainer Buck Howard (Malkovich) continues to tour the nation (from Bakersfield to Akron!) with his out of fashion act when the bright but searching Hanks joins him as his road manager. Along the way he learns about managing Buck and more importantly about himself. A delightful comedy anchored by Malkovich’s disarmingly zany and quixotic performance and Hanks’ good intentioned normalness. An intelligent comedy for discerning adults that’s infectiously good natured and simply fun to watch.
- BLINDNESS – (2008)
Dir: Fernando Mierelles; Star: Julianne Moore, Mark Rufalo, Alice Braga, Gael Garcia Bernal
Bleak adaptation of Fernando Saramago’s novel about a global epidemic of “White Blindness” that spreads blindness virally and without a cure. The first afflicted are quarantined in a sanatarium to fend for themselves, including eye doctor Rufalo and his wife Moore who can actually see although she pretends to be blind to stay with her husband. The social dynamics within the sanitarium are interesting, and trouble arises when Bernal decides to rule the sanitarium with a ruthless fist. This would have been tolerable, but Moore’s character makes it simply frustrating since she has the capability do something about every situation yet she inexplicably does not, for the only apparent purpose of allowing the movie to continue to drag on. If she stopped being a panzy nurse for her husband she could actually utilize her eyesight, but then the movie never would have been made, although it would have made a lot more sense. Mierelles’ slick direction is inspired, but he fails to make this anything but mediocre.
- QUARANTINE – (2008)
Dir: John Erick Dowdle; Star: Jennifer Carpenter
Television reporter Carpenter spends the night documenting the lives of some local firefighters, accompanying them to a call at an apartment complex where a strange virus has broken loose, only to find that the city has placed the complex under quarantine and no one can leave. Then the infection spreads (via rabid zombie-like people no less). It’s all told through her cameraman’s lens a la Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield which works well to lock the audience inside the quarantine as well. I’m a sucker for these kinds of movies, and the horror/suspense is tangible for the first half, as are the frightening social dynamics, but this wears off by the second half as we begin to realize that it’s going to predictably end the same way all of these “handheld in-movie camera” movies end… That, and Carpenter turns into a whiny baby by then, which is just annoying. At least she’s relatively attractive.
Tags: harry potter
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