Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Director David Yates and the cast of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” have outdone themselves with the sixth installment of the one of the most successful book and movie franchises in the past 25 years. Outside of leaving a couple of things out – I’m not going to talk about certain happenings of the movie because this is not going to be a blog full of spoilers for those who only watch the movies – the movie was almost flawless.

The movie stays for the most part true to the book, and anything that was changed from the book version was changed smoothly to fit the context and mood of the original story. Yates goes in depth with a complex plot that deals with many character struggles while still maintaining the heart that made the world love the sixth book. He does remove some things that people wish were in the movie, but he makes sure that he filmed the most essential things to develop the story in the best possible way that he knew how.

The thing that I was most surprised and delighted about this extremely dark movie was the fact that even though “Half-Blood Prince” is a part of the HP franchise it seemed to start to separate itself from the previous movies. I remember reading the book when it first came out, and after the first chapter I felt the same way. As the characters matured, the book matured; and as the actors got older, the movie grew into a life of its own while still staying true to the heart of the Potter movies. Yates did a great job recognizing this maturity in the source material, and he evolved this movie into something that we had never seen from a HP movie before, complete and total darkness. Of course the movie had its bright and comedic moments (Harry Potter getting drunk or high) but by the end credits the audience was left with the same feeling as it had at the end of “Star Wars Episode IV: The Empire Strikes Back.” We did not have the feel good ending that even though there is darkness in the horizon we can take solace in the fact that we are all doing well at the moment. This time, the ending reached that dark horizon. Evil had prevailed, and it had prevailed easily.

Another great surprise was that these characters, who seemed like poor child actors who were making a toothpaste commercial within a castle during Chris Columbus’ first two movies, have developed to the fullest extent. They have evolved into characters that we can relate to. They are not just people on a page or on the silver screen anymore; they finally go through things and experience the same emotions that people face in the real world every day. Of course things are somewhat different because of the whole magic factor, but now we can connect with almost every character. Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy, gives us a performance that we can feel for. Instead of playing the character that we are supposed to hate, we feel sorry, or at least I did, for the task that is put upon his shoulders. Even though we as an audience don’t like his task we can still sympathize with him for the concept that he has to go through with something that he in his heart does not think he can complete despite the severity of the consequences if he doesn’t.

I can’t wait to see what they are going to do with the two-part finale in the upcoming years, but with Yates at the helm and the actors coming full circle, I can’t imagine either of the last two movies taking a back seat to the greatness that was the “Half-Blood Prince.”

Rating: A

Movie Order: 1) Half-Blood Prince (Yates)

2) Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuaron)

3) Order of the Phoenix (Yates)

4) Goblet of Fire (Mike Newell)

5) Chamber of Secrets (Columbus)

6) Sorcerer’s Stone (Columbus)

YouTube Clips 2, Disney Version

If you guys could not tell I have a soft spot in my heart for Disney, and lately I have been watching some of their old cartoon shorts that I would watch on VHS when I was a little kid. Now, I want to share them with you, enjoy!

Donald Duck Trick Or Treat

Camping Trip

Lonesome Ghosts

Donald Duck and the Gorilla

Der Fuehrer’s Face

Beezy Bear

Applecore

Two Chips and a Miss

The Spirit of ’43

Michael Bay’s Top 3

I knew “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen” came out this week, but I did not realize this movie had a Wednesday release. Anyone who has met either my brother or me knows our feelings about almost any Michael Bay movie and the man’s “directing style.” So, in the spirit of of hating Bay, here are the worst three Michael Bay movies in no particular order because, let’s face it, almost all of them are pretty bad.

1. Pearl Harbor: This movie is an absolute insult to those who were at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and everyone who has spent a single cent to watch this “movie.” True, retelling the story about that infamous is a hard task, but inserting a bad “love” story and hardly actually covering the event is terrible. I don’t want to get into Bay’s retelling of Pearl Harbor because I just want to focus this piece on the “love” story. So, Ben Affleck plays a pilot who falls in love with a nurse (Kate Beckinsale) and he goes off to England to fight in WWII. They write while he’s gone until she gets a letter saying that he died (thank god). She shuts down in depression until Affleck’s best friend, played by Josh Hartnett, finally talks to her. The two have dinner and see a movie and they wind up having the most pointless and unrealistic sex scene ever conceived (I’m sure porn directors cringed during this scene). So let me get this straight, the “great love” story is based off the fact that Beckinsale slept with the first guy that talked to her? I’m sorry, don’t we have another word for that kind of girl? I believe that word starts with an “s.” Great “love” there. As you all know, Beckinsale got pregnant from that one incident in the hanger and the father dies at the end of the movie (take that pre-marital sex!). The only good thing that came out of that movie was that we got to know that any time the kid asks his mom about how he was born she can say, “Well, mommy was lonely and felt really connected to the first guy that talked to me at a diner.” If the kid does not think slut, then there’s something wrong with him.

2. Transformers: It was a pain sitting through this movie. Yes, the CGI, Megan Fox’s looks by the car and Shia LaBeouf”s parents were good, but that was about it. The story was nonexistent, the dialogue was terrible (“this is like ten times cooler than “Armageddon” and “lubrication” lines were cringe-worthy) and all of the jokes were extremely stupid. Bay did not include any of the components that makes a good movie, and relied only on the special effects to make the movie interesting. Even though this movie made a lot of money and the sequel will make another fortune, it does not mean the movies are good. Please, people, when you watch either of these movies, don’t turn off your brains and say “ooooo, look at all the pretty colors.” Think when you are in the theater, and you’ll see that there is little to be desired past Fox and the CGI.

3. The Island: I only saw this movie once and did not really care for it in theaters, but the concept was at least a little clever, so we know that Bay did not come up with the idea. All I really remember from this movie is that these two clones, played by Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, escape from their secluded hive and there, people are out to get them and McGregor’s character meets the “real” him (I don’t know, it’s stupid). As those the two are in the middle of running and hiding they find enough time to have Bay’s trademark pointless sex scene. The major problem with this sex scene (and what I’m about to say will make me look like a pig) is that even though Johansson said that she would go topless for it Bay thought doing that would be unnecessary. I’m sorry, Bay (you don’t get the title “mister” before your name because you lost all of your man cards forl ife by denying the world of the greatness that is Scarlett Johansson) but what were you thinking? Not only did it make people wonder why they were having sex, it made them what was the point of sitting there and watching it while at least pretending to care about the two characters. The ending was very predictable and anticlimatic, but there was a car that the movie company was trying to plus for a product placement or something (shocker). In the end, “The Island” was pointless, and whatever message Bay wanted to convey was lost within the first half hour. This movie probably would have been good and rewatchable if it were under different direction because the acting was fine and the story could have been developed more if someone else was calling the shots.

Honorable Mentions: Bad Boys 1 & 2

Also, during research on imdb.com I found that Bay made his directoral debut in 1990 on this piece of cinematic genius (probably his best movie). Just click on the link to find out where Bay got his idea for using Megan Fox as just a prop rather than a character.

A Couple Disney Movie Thoughts

Since I have nothing better to do with my two-and-a-half hour drive from DFW to Norman, Okla., I spend a lot of time listening to music from Disney movies of my childhood. In my most recent trip up, I spent almost the entire time listening to two “Greatest Hits” CDs, and during that time a couple of things popped in my head about some of these movies.

Why does Gaston pursue Belle when he has three blonde triplets dying to be with him?

I understand this may be one of those thoughts where I seem like a pig just for wondering this, but just look at the facts. 1) Gaston is “the man” of the entire town (because nobody in a wrestling match bites like Gaston); 2) Belle is considered the outcast of the town just because she reads and is a free thinker (it’s a pity and a sin, she doesn’t quite fit in); and 3) these blondes are madly in love with Gaston.

Based off the facts, there’s no reason other than Belle is beautiful and she is “the best” that Gaston is going after her. Those three blondes, who in cartoon France aren’t too bad looking either, are way out of the league of the rest of the guys in that small village, and combined, they’re just shy of being a “30.” But outside of being lifted up by Gaston with one arm at a bar, he hardly notices them. That could be because we know very little about the three (they could be the town prostitutes, but they seem too high class for that) and if we don’t care for them outside of being background characters, then why should the most manly guy in town?

In the end, Gaston wound up dying because of Belle and the Beast, so wouldn’t it have been more practical to go for the three blondes who already hang on every little word he says? We’ll never know, and that’s the saddest thing of all.

Ursula should be considered the greatest social scientist of all time.

Yeah, she is evil and tried to take over the sea and get revenge on Ariel’s father, but she did something that many people have wanted to do over the years: take away a woman’s ability to speak and see if the man will still love her. Granted, that probably wasn’t her original intention for swapping Ariel’s voice for making her human, but that’s what happened during their agreement made during “Poor Unfortunate Souls.”

When Ariel became human, she lost her ability to speak until the man of her dreams kisses her. The only catch is that she didn’t have all the time in the world. If she didn’t get the kiss in I believe three days, then Ursula would turn Ariel back into a mermaid (I have to believe this was the origin of the concept of the Repoman from “Repo: The Genetic Opera”).

Now, guys, let me ask you this: if you could have a girl for three days and she did not have the ability to speak, wouldn’t you be in heaven? I know that I would. Just think, there would be no fighting, no nagging and none of the other things that go along that cause so much stress and confusion. Ursula made (as the joke goes) the perfect woman.

If Ursula did not use the entire situation as a distraction to take over the sea, the experiment would have been great. We would be applauding her findings rather than condemn her evil plans.