Anyone seen it yet?
*** Update ***
Michael Demmons has.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.
Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.
I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.
… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires
The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.
American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated
fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)
… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP
Let’s finish the job.
Innocent people don’t delay justice.
No one could have predicted…
Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.
There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.
Accountability, motherfuckers.
“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.
Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.
Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?
Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.
And we’re all out of bubblegum.
This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.
Hot air and ill-informed banter
Pb
Nah, I just saw the preview. But don’t waste your money–I hear the preview is free, short, awesome, and pretty much exactly the same. In other news, I hear that you can also judge books by their covers–even when they are made by artists or publishing houses with no relationship to the actual writer.
Stormy70
Why yes, yes I did. I thought it was a very good rendering of the book, but they had to leave some things out due to time constraints. It was visually stunning and the effects were more seamless than some of the previous movies. Lots of humor in this one, and I just love Snape. He cracks me up just by standing there. I would see it again, no problemo.
The previews, however, were a collosal beat down. Superman trailer was boring, and I have seen all the scenes somewhere before. Oh yeah, in the 70s.
The Kong trailer has convinced me to see the movie. Peter Jackson must be rewarded for LOTR alone. He can dine out on that for quite some time. Plus, dinosaurs vs. Kong. Dinosaurs!
Geek/ out
Pb
They’re doing a Superman movie? Neat.
I’ve got to say, Stormy… you’re living proof that one’s political preferences can be completely orthogonal to one’s taste in movies. It scares me a little, yet also heartens me. Maybe we should have met on a movie discussion board.
Stormy70
PB – I have lib family members, but politics have no bearing on pop culture selections. As Mike S always says, we would all probably get along in a bar setting.
No Narnia trailer, though. The theaters know we will be lining up to see it, so they can screw us over by not showing a trailer. Jerks. I had to sit through the entirely boring Theron future movie trailer, where they wear tight vinyl and talk in monotones. I guess we will lose all inflection in our voices in the future.
Stormy70
Oh and it can’t be said enough that Brokeback Mountain is just another chick flick in disguise. I don’t do chick flicks, and Hollywood won’t be luring me in by showcasing Heath and Jake. Not going to happen. It is a chick flick.
The Disenfranchised Voter
I’m sure we would get along fine in a bar. I drink to forget about politics. Ha!
Pb
Stormy,
Well, maybe at least until we have a few drinks, anyway. :)
I’m looking forward to ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’–that was just a fun story, and from the preview I saw on TV, it looks like it might be a fun movie.
As for Theron… are you talking about ‘Aeon Flux’? I wanted to see that–although I’d hope it’d be less like ‘Star Wars: Episode I’ and more like ‘Tank Girl’.
Pb
Stormy,
You just gained that much more movie cred in my eyes. :)
Stormy70
Looks boring, maybe because I am missing the crucial y chromosome. I think that people in the future could actually put some emotion in their voice. I get that it is totalitarian, etc., etc. It just reminds me of this: Bueller?
Bueller? Bueller?
I will catch it on DVD, but someone else will have to pay for it.
I am one of the very few who actually liked Alien vs. Predator. I have no shame. I am a REPUBLICAN!
Perry Como
I’ll join that group. The games rocked too.
Pb
I bet you’ll be sitting around on Christmas watching Die Hard 2 then. :)
Krista
That’s the one that John was getting all hot and bothered over.
I think Snape is fun to watch as well. A girlfriend of mine who lives in Ireland, actually went drinking once with Alan Rickman, and said he’s a delight. I can’t wait to see this movie, and I really can’t wait for the next (final!) book to come out. It probably won’t be until next xmas or something, though.
The Uncredible Hallq
I saw it:
http://uncrediblehallq.blogspot.com/2005/11/harry-potter-and-cinematic-spectacle.html
zzyzx
I liked it a lot as a reading until the end. The tone of the last 10-15 minutes or so (post graveyard) was completely out of wack from where it should have been. I don’t want to give spoilers so I’m going to be vague.
Axien
I saw it. I enjoyed it even though I felt like it skipped alot. Once you get past the begining, it seemed to flow more, although I do agree with zzyzx about the tone.
Off Colfax
The movie itself, I liked. Unlike the roommate, I didn’t go into it with the expectation that it would be even a slight percentage of the entire book, so I wasn’t vastly disappointed. Part of me was slightly disappointed with how much they didn’t put on screen, but the visual effects definately made up for it. (Although they could’ve cut down on the long-as-all-hell first task to make room for more Quidditch, much less the third task.) (Oh, and more comedy out of the bouncing ferret. I was looking forward to that line, and they didn’t even have it in the movie.) Still, I give it 3 out of 4 stars. The worst part about the midnight showing was having to scrape the frost off the car windows.
But the trailer that made me sit up and pay attention was NOT Superman. Personally, by the trailer’s voice-over, I’m under the impression that it will be a less-than-stellar interpretation. Someplace between Batman & Robin and the Incredible Hulk in quality and holding to the actual storyline.
Nope. Happy Feet. Penguins lay down the boogie to some down home dirty funk? And another Robin Williams animated movie? At the same time? I’m so there. Even if it doesn’t come out for a full year yet.
Dodd
Just got home. I enjoyed it and, as said above, the effects and action sequences were spectaular. My issues are more with characterization than with scenes not included (my main criticism of Sorcerer’s Stone was that they hewed too slavishly to the book for fear of offending kiddie fans, so I can’t fault them for doing it right in later ones). Spoilers follow….
Krum and Fleur are cardboard cutouts. To a certain extent, Krum is supposed to be, of course, but neither has enough screen time to develop one iota. All we have to go on about who and what they are is what others tell us. Worst: the word veela does not make an appearance and the only hint of that rather significant part of her character is in Ron’s paleness after he asks her out. Neither seems like much competition for Harry (for that matter, only the first task comes off as especially difficult). And I often don’t recognize this Dumbledore sometimes – Dumbledore is calm and steady always; this one is often downright overwrought.
But don’t let that stop you from seeing it. It’s very good moviemaking, really.
Angie
I took my boys to see it today. We enjoyed it, but as was mentioned before alot was missed. But that is to be expected.
guyermo
I thought it was good. Not as good as the last one, but eons beyond Chris Columbus’s renderings. I was extremely impressed with Ron and Hermione’s acting in this one. I was so glad to see Ron used for something other than comedic effect. Hermione displayed an excellent range of emotions, much more convincing than Harry in the last one.
But i’m too tired to do a proper review (not that you guys want one anyway). If you’re a fan of the books you should enjoy the movie. And can we put Bill O’Reilly in Ron’s dress robes? PLEEEAAAASSSEE????
Stormy70
Alas, I’ll be at my Mom’s stuffing myself silly and drinking copious amounts of nog and wine.
When we spent Christmas in the nineties with my husband’s family, all us “kids” would watch the Star Wars trilogy on USA all day long. Good times. This was before DVD players, of course.
John Cole
Can I just say that I am so down with the idea of dancing animated penguins that I might as well buy my ticket now.
M. Scott Eiland
I thought it was an excellent adaptation, with the inevitable choices to be made in making a movie two and a half hours long out of a book that could easily have produced a film twice that long. Best change: more time invested in the first and second challenges than JKR did in the book, particularly a protracted chase scene with some great special effects. Downsides: not much time spent letting us get to know Harry’s opponents (particularly Fleur’s background and the reason why Ron was so taken with her), and a lack of time developing some of the themes near the end of the book that will be important in Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix. The latter objection may be dealt with in Phoenix itself when it comes out in about eighteen months, but that remains to be seen.
guyermo
all of whom appear to be voiced by robin williams
Birkel
It was quite entertaining.
The teenage angst scenes were funny without making me feel sorry for the obvious embarassment.
4 stars out of 5.
(But Prisoner of Azkaban is probably still my favorite.)
Greg
Seen it twice, once at a early preview, and today with my kids. Spectacularly done. It’s sad so much had to be cut out of the book, but there really wasn’t any other way.
Mary
I laughed, I cried, I seriously considered a Fred and George sandwich.
(Did I say that out loud?)
Krista
Mary – glad to see I’m not the only one with a bit of a crush on those two.
Dave Ryan
From my site,
Just got back from a midnight screening of the latest Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Goblert of Fire. Why a midnight showing, you ask? I worked at my job untill 11pm, and it made sense to catch it behind my work than to drive 50 miles when I’m at home.
I’d have just waited for it to come out on DVD like the others.
But this movie, while grown up and aiming for an entirely different audience, worked in some places and didn’t at the same time. While the movie was both visually appealing and had some nice nodds to King Kong, it felt a little rushed and perhaps a little too chop-friendly.
No sense of time flowed through the movie—maybe one of my biggest quarrels with it. Every movie dealt with the transition gently, easing into each season and making the year believable. Now, because of page-per-minute constraints, the year flew by unbelievably, as if in the same day in instances, and made it feel a little awkward.
Add to some truncated scenes and poorly executed opportunities, you’ve got some problems. But they were easily matched by its successes—the kids are growing up, and so are their realities. The movie dealt with teenage angst well, for what it showed, and made the movie more adult.
So while I enjoyed the movie, I daren’t say I like it just yet. Perhaps another showing, perhaps not—but for now, it’s a good movie for what it is, just don’t expect anything brilliant.
Shygetz
Saw it a couple of days ago. I thought it was okay. The pacing was far too frantic, and most of the scences were not given enough time to develop. Even if you had never read the book, you could tell that they cut this thing cruelly to come in at under 3 hours. It was like watching the 30 Second Bunnies version of Harry Potter. They probably should have made it into two movies–as it was, the whole thing was just too rushed. 3.5 out of 5 stars.
BIRDZILLA
Bware when FAWKES THE PHOENIX flys over your head he may have a accedent just like most birds have