"Mischief Managed!"

Thank you, Harry Potter.  Thank you, Ron and Hermione.  Thank you Dumbledore and Snape.  And especially-- thank you, J.K. Rowling for all of the years filled with wonderment and surprise.  They have been phenomenal years full of laughter, tears, shock, and amazement.  I don't know what Ms. Rowling has up her sleeve next, but regardless, she has left a legacy for many generations of Harry Potter fans, now and in years to come.

Many people have been saying that the last HP movie is the "End of an Era" and in a way it is, being as there will be no more new Harry Potter books or movies (as least that's what we're being told at this point). But, somehow, it doesn't feel over  to me.  Not because I think J.K. Rowling will change her mind and write a "Harry Potter: The Next Generation" series (although I would be first in line to buy it!).  It's just the fact that Harry Potter will truly  never die.  Voldemort always said that only he could live forever, but Harry's really the one who is immortal.  And thank heaven for that!

I'm so glad that we can always re-enter the Wizarding World through the books and movies.  I'm thrilled that I can read the series again and again and always enjoy it.  I love that the movies are a time capsule of the books, through which we can re-live the stories whenever we feel so inclined.  I'm grateful that all of the main character's actors (excluding the amazing  late Richard Harris) were able to continue through the entire film series.  Their dedication to their characters and the HP series, as a whole, has always been inspiring to me.  I thank them for their devotion.

It took me a few days to get this post written, and in that time, I've already seen the movie twice (I hope to see it at least one more time in theaters, maybe twice more!).  I don't do midnight showings, and usually Bookworm doesn't either, but she made an exception for Harry!  She's been a huge fan of the books since I started reading them to her as a youngster.  She went with a friend and they dressed in costume.  Bookworm has never been one for conformity and although she would have preferred to dress up as Bellatrix LeStrange, she decided to go as a less popular character.  I got her to pose for me in her Lavender Brown costume, before she left.

I, on the other hand, took TeenStar to see it on opening day (to preview the PG-13 rating for Jabberjaw) and the following day we took the whole family (minus Bookworm) to meet up to see it with my mom and brothers & their wives.  

My very favorite thing about this last installment of the movie series is that Severus Snape finally gets his due.  I've known since reading 'The Deathly Hallows' that all of my suspicions were true.  I always knew he was a good guy!  I've always been a HUGE Dumbledore fan and couldn't believe, for one minute, that Dumbledore could be duped, but not Voldemort.  It just never made sense to me.  And I was right. 

Finally... all of the the non-reader movie fans know the truth, as well. Of course, it changes the way you look at him when you go back and read and watch, but thus it is with any good reveal.  It was a good bit of mischief on J.K. Rowlings part, and as Jabberjaw said as we turned off the car in our driveway after returning home from the movie, "Mischief Managed!" 

We all had a good laugh at that!

Movie Review-- Disney Pixar's Cars 2

I'll just start off by saying that I didn't love it as much as my 10-year-old son did.  Compared to a lot of the mind-numbing, drool-inducing, waste-of-time movies marketed toward kids, that Hollywood puts out these days, it was very good.  Compared to other Pixar movies... not my fave.

I have to say I was a little disappointed.  The look of the movie was fantastic.  The story, on the other hand, was lacking.  The computer graphics were amazing, the animation superb.  Nothing less than you would expect from the Pixar Studios.  They did a great job with making a whole imaginary "World of Cars" with 'car-ified' characters traveling to exotic 'car-ified' locales.  Where I think the makers of the movie 'took a wrong turn' was in trying to make it more exciting, they lost sight of what was so endearing about the first movie.  The focus was much more on eye-popping action and less on the characters we have come to love and cherish over the years.

My son really enjoyed all of the 'spy action' including lots of shooting and explosions.  What was that?  Shooting and explosions?!  Are we talking about a Disney/Pixar movie or Die Hard?  To say that the movie was as far from Radiator Springs as you can get would be an understatement.  It really felt like it was tailored more toward adults than kids.  The story set-up was much too deep for kids under about the age of seven to understand and during the times when there wasn't a lot of action going on, the story often dragged.  Some of the violence seemed inappropriate for children and I personally felt that what Cars 2 had in action, it lacked in humor.  I only remember laughing out loud less than a handful of times.  I seem to remember most other Pixar movies having a lot more comedy.

I did enjoy that the Pixar group stayed true-to-form with a plethora of inside jokes (little things tucked into the scenery and wording) that only the adults would get, but I was sorry to see that they stepped too 'far off the beaten path' as far as the original characters were concerned.  Unlike the extremely popular Toy Story series, Cars 2 did not give us enough screen time with the original cast of characters from the first installment.  While both Toy Story 2 & 3 brought on new characters, they also made sure to keep the original characters center stage.  While it's true that it would be impossible to bring Doc Hudson back without the late, great Paul Newman, he was not the only interesting character, besides Lightening McQueen and Mater, in the first Cars movie. What kept us coming back for more with the Toy Story series just wasn't there in Cars 2.  I doubt seriously that the Toy Story sequels would have been quite as popular if they had only featured Woody and Buzz.

This latest offering from the folks at Disney/Pixar would have been more appropriately marketed as a Mater movie.  Basically it was 'The Mater Show' and really wasn't worthy of being labeled as a Cars movie. We saw very little of any of the original characters, other than Mater and Lightening McQueen, and what we did see of Lightening McQueen, I found extremely disappointing.  Whether it was due to writing, directing, or acting, or a combination of all three, Owen Wilson's character-voicing of the beloved race car was sullen, bland, and flat-out depressing.  His lines were uninteresting and delivered that way. Even his trademark "Ka-chow!" sounded like he just couldn't be bothered.

If you haven't been out to the theater yet to see it, save your money and wait for the DVD.  As a Pixar fan, I feel it's still worthy of adding to my DVD collection but it will never be one that I sit down to watch anytime my son puts it on.  It doesn't matter how many times I've seen "A Bug's Life", "Monsters, Inc.", or "Finding Nemo", I never tire of them.  Those, along with the original "Cars" and the "Toy Story" series, are classics that I find myself getting sucked into every time we watch them.  "Cars 2" will end up being like so many other kid movies my son watches: mindless noise droning on in the background while I go about my day.  In other words... 'nothing special'.

Movie Review-- Pirates 4: On Stranger Tides

I've seen Pirates of the Carribean 4: On Stranger Tides  twice now. I have to say I enjoyed it much more the second time around. This is due in part to the fact that once I'd seen how it differed from the first three movies, I could enjoy it on it's own merits. If you view it as a stand-apart feature from the first three, it's quite enjoyable, but if you try to compare it, it makes it a little harder.

Johnny Depp, of course, reprises his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, the loveable, quirky pirate who always seems to find a way to get out of any situation. Captain Jack was still quirky, still funny, and still continued to surprise the audience with his ability to creatively improvise. One of the few complaints I had about the movie, after the first viewing, was the fact that Jack seemed to lack some of the “loony-ness” that attracted fans to him in the first three movies. During my second viewing, it occurred to me that his character could afford to be a little more on the “schizo” side in the earlier films because he had Will and Elizabeth to help him out and cover more of the straight-man role. Since Captain Jack was the main character in this installment, he didn't really have the luxury of being the zany sidekick.

I was also skeptical, on my first viewing, of how the directing was going to be. I was hugely fond of the fantastic job Gore Verbinski did in the first three films and wasn't sure if Rob Marshall could pull it off. Marshall is most known for his background as a choreographer in musical theater and did a fantastic job directing the movie adaptation of the Broadway musical, Chicago. It seemed quite a leap to go from musicals to action movies, especially such a beloved series such as Pirates. Again, when I judged it as a stand-apart film, I really thought Marshall did an amazing job.

I thought Penelope Cruz was fantastic and brought a rich, latin romanticism to the story. She and Depp had amazing on-screen chemistry. Kudos also go to Ian McShane, who played Blackbeard with a real subtlety that is often lost in big budget summer action movies. I have to give Marshall further directing credit on this point. The character could have very easily been overplayed, making him seem more cartoonish than scary. It was also fun to see a return of Captain Barbossa, surprising us once again with a twist in his loyalties.

All in all, it was a fun, entertaining movie that I feel very confident in recommending, especially if you have been a fan of the original three. If you are in any way a fan of Captain Jack or Johnny Depp, as well, this is a film not to be missed. It is full of plenty of twists, turns, and swashbuckling action. I definitely plan to add it to my DVD collection.

If you haven't seen it yet, don't wait. It's definitely worth the bucks to see it on the big screen. If you saw it once and weren't sure it lived up to your “Pirate” standards, I encourage you to give it another try, at least on DVD when it comes out in a few months.

Regardless of your opinion of the film, I promise you'll never look at mermaids the same way again... I know I won't!