A Series of Tubes

I saw Where The Wild Things Are (one of the movies on my anticipation list) yesterday, and I loved it.

Where The Wild Things Are, based on the beloved picturebook of the same title, by Maurice Sendak, tells the story of a young boy named Max who escapes from his home after getting in trouble with his mom, and takes a boat to a land full of huge monsters. He befriends said monsters, and becomes their king. Max is free to do whatever he wants as king, but soon realizes that it’s very difficult to keep everybody happy when you’re in charge. With this in mind, Max returns home.

A couple of things differ between the book and the movie, but the new adaption is startlingly loyal to the original story. The only things that were really changed were the fashion in which Max leaves his home, and the fact that all of the monsters were given unique personalities and stories. In the book, Max is sent to his room without supper after creating mischief in his house. His room transforms into a forest, and in this forest he finds the boat to take him to the land of wild things. The movie, however, takes a much more realistic (and frightening) approach, having Max run away from home after being yelled at by his mother. He makes his way into the woods near his house, where he finds the boat.

The movie’s approach is much more mature than that of the book, of course, and the same is true for many elements of the story. The original book, being a children’s book, doesn’t have enough pages to really explore the ideas of love and parenthood beyond Max simply smelling his dinner from the far off land, and being reminded of his parents’ love. The movie, on the other hand, draws many obvious parallels between the monsters and Max’s predicament with his mother. The monsters, in making Max their king, put him in the same position as his mother, and he soon understands how she must have felt when threw his tantrum.

The cinematography of the film was amazing. I think that if I had directed it, I would not change a single shot. The camera angles used inspired the audience to see from Max’s point of view, the point of view of a child, and imbued the movie with a sense of wonder. The scene in Max’s room, where the camera pans across details in his decorations, and the scene in Carol’s model room both particularly impressed me with their attention to detail.

The special effects in the movie were impressive, because the monsters themselves were (apart from their faces) actually people in costumes, not CGI. This meant that they were not entirely lifelike (for example, the way they jump is somewhat obviously wire-rigged, and their heads cannot turn independently of their bodies), but I think that for this movie, that definitely works. The monsters are, after all, figments of Max’s imagination, so it makes sense for them to be somewhat bizarre and unbelievable in appearance. At the same time, the faces were incredibly realistic. I was able to easily accept them as real creatures whenever they spoke or showed an emotion. The thin layer of fur on their noses, the eyes, the lips…I was seriously impressed. See below or the title image for examples.

My one complaint about the movie is the soundtrack. For the most part, the music was great, and fit the movie pretty well, but there were a couple of songs that were just distracting. For example, when Max runs away from home, the song in the background has a chorus of “animal! animal! animal!” which I felt detracted from the scene. This scene would otherwise be a very emotional one.

But apart from a couple of songs on the soundtrack, I really liked this movie. I was chuckling for a lot of it, and very close to tears a couple of times, too. I would recommend it to anybody who wants their childlike sense of wonder restored for a few hours.

After reading this io9 post (an outraged rant about the new Harry Potter movie), I’ve somewhat revised the opinion presented in my previous post.

While everything I said before remains true, I would like to add that it was, in retrospect, extremely disappointing that there was no funeral for Dumbledore. This scene, in the book, brings almost every living character from the rest of the series back to Hogwarts for the funeral, and it would have been an amazing ending for the movie. Instead, we are treated to a scene in which the population of the school raises their glowing wands to the heavens, and then later, a shot of Fawkes flying off into the distance. No white tomb, no tearful congregation of every amazing character, beast and human alike, that J.K. Rowling has to offer.

Also disappointing, as the article points out, is the lack of a battle between the forces of good and evil. When the Death Eaters arrive, they simply kill Dumbledore, set Hagrid’s hut on fire, and leave with Snape and Malfoy. In the book, there is a rather epic fight scene throughout Hogwarts, where Fenrir Greyback bursts into action, flinging curses right and left into the crowd of teachers and trained students. It’s a great scene, and was ultimately not present, at all, in the movie.

Lastly, to add onto my complaint about Dumbledore’s death scene, Snape was simply not evil. To the casual observer, who knows nothing of the events in book 7, Snape already appears to be a double-crosser for the good side. In the book, Snape kills Dumbledore in cold blood, and truly seems to be evil, to the core. It is later revealed that he is, in fact, a good guy, but in the movie this seems blatantly obvious from his and Dumbledore’s countenances.

I still thought this was a very good Harry Potter movie, and if one had not read the book and known what they were missing out on with the battle and funeral, one would not even notice these problems.

After reading this io9 post (an outraged rant about the new Harry Potter movie), I’ve somewhat revised the opinion presented in my previous post.

While everything I said before remains true, I would like to add that it was, in retrospect, extremely disappointing that there was no funeral for Dumbledore. This scene, in the book, brings almost every living character from the rest of the series back to Hogwarts for the funeral, and it would have been an amazing ending for the movie. Instead, we are treated to a scene in which the population of the school raises their glowing wands to the heavens, and then later, a shot of Fawkes flying off into the distance. No white tomb, no tearful congregation of every amazing character, beast and human alike, that J.K. Rowling has to offer.

Also disappointing, as the article points out, is the lack of a battle between the forces of good and evil. When the Death Eaters arrive, they simply kill Dumbledore, set Hagrid’s hut on fire, and leave with Snape and Malfoy. In the book, there is a rather epic fight scene throughout Hogwarts, where Fenrir Greyback bursts into action, flinging curses right and left into the crowd of teachers and trained students. It’s a great scene, and was ultimately not present, at all, in the movie.

Lastly, to add onto my complaint about Dumbledore’s death scene, Snape was simply not evil. To the casual observer, who knows nothing of the events in book 7, Snape already appears to be a double-crosser for the good side. In the book, Snape kills Dumbledore in cold blood, and truly seems to be evil, to the core. It is later revealed that he is, in fact, a good guy, but in the movie this seems blatantly obvious from his and Dumbledore’s countenances.

I still thought this was a very good Harry Potter movie, and if one had not read the book and known what they were missing out on with the battle and funeral, one would not even notice these problems.

I saw the new Harry Potter yesterday, the sixth in the series. Long story short, I liked it very much. Not quite as much as the third movie, but enough to blow away #5 for second place. The film was much darker than the previous ones, just as the book was darker than the others, but it certainly worked, and made sense. Sirius Black, Harry’s only decent family, was killed at the end of the fifth book/movie, and the Death Eaters are on the rise as Voldemort gains more and more power, so it is only fitting that the movie be as dark as it is. Caution: Spoilers follow.

The movie did a very good job of compressing the sizable book into 2.5 hours. My main complaint about the fourth movie is that it seemed to flash by, never really managing to stay in one place for more than a thirty seconds. The fifth movie was much better with pacing, amazingly fitting the largest book in the seven-part series into a decent-length movie. Now, the sixth movie accomplishes the same feat as the fifth (even if there is less to cram in, there is still a lot of action for a 2.5 hour movie). Admittedly, there were a few places where it felt a teensy bit jumpy (mainly the skipping from Hagrid’s hut to the pensieve shot, and other Dumbledore meetings), and a couple of areas that I would have liked to see much more of (a longer Felix Felicis scene and more from the Half-Blood Prince’s potions book), but the movie overall was very well-paced, I thought.

I loved the special effects in the film, particularly the new pensieve. Memories now appear as black, cloudy swirls on a misty blue background, similar to the appearance of the liquid memories swirling in the bowl. It has a much more magical air to it than the pensieve of previous movies. The movie is full of these black swirly cloud effects, as the Death Eaters also appear as trails of black smoke when they are flying. This addition is a great touch, in my opinion, because it gives the dark lord’s servants a much more powerful, mysterious air than before. The actors portraying the Death Eaters did an extremely good job, particularly the one portraying Fenrir Greyback. The unbreakable vow scene, on a related note, was superb. I never quite understood this scene in the book, but in film it was crystal-clear.

My one major complaint about the movie was that they changed the ending. In the book, as soon as Harry and Dumbledore return from their journey to get the horcrux, the death-eaters are at the school, and Dumbledore paralyzes Harry under the invisiblity cloak, forcing Harry to watch while Snape murders the headmaster. In the movie, Dumbledore simply instructs Harry to hide below, where he actually encounters Snape before the deed is done. This may not seem like that big of a change, but it means that Harry did nothing to stop Snape from killing Dumbledore, even though he easily could. In the book, Harry had very little grounds for blaming himself for Dumbledore’s death, but I feel that in the next movies (and yes, there are two movies left – The Deathly Hallows is being split in half, to draw it out a bit longer), the fact that Harry could have done something to save his beloved headmaster is going to make him even more angsty than he already is. This is disappointing, as the angst-ridden teenagers in the books and movies are the worst part of Harry Potter.

I enjoyed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince very much, and I think that anybody who enjoyed the sixth book will not be disappointed by this movie.

Why do I still think the third movie is the best? That’s simple – I’m a sucker for time travel.

I saw Brüno today, the sequel to 2006 comedy Borat, and found it hilarious. Compared to the first film, which I didn’t enjoy much at all, this movie was lightyears ahead. I found myself choking with laughter on more than one occasion, which honestly surprised me. I was expecting more of the same humor as we saw in Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen, as one of his characters, interacting with real people, in ridiculous situations), which is exactly what I got. This time around, however, I found it much less offensive and much more humorous.

That’s not to say that the movie won’t be offensive for many people, it most definitely will be. Brüno, an openly (and extremely) homosexual fashion designer/TV host from Austria, travels all over America (and the Middle East, Austria, and Africa) in a quest to become world-famous, encountering many a homophobe (including most of the state of Alabama and former Presidential Candidate Ron Paul) along the way. The movie is meant to expose the ridiculousness of the homophobia in many people, and satirize the homophobic, ultra-macho culture in much of America (especially near the end, when Brüno, claiming to be a changed man, now straight, hosts a cage-fighting match as “Straight Dave”).

The movie was amazing, but it is definitely not for anyone. It’s rated R for a very clear reason, and I was stunned that it managed to get only an R. There is plenty of full-frontal nudity and a number of extreme close-ups too, if you know what I mean. The one thing standing between this movie’s rating and an NC-17 is a couple of black circles covering key areas during the numerous sex scenes in the film.

Still, Brüno was a great movie. I would highly recommend it to anybody that can take the extreme nudity and antics.