Chama Chama

Ah, life. It is rather good. First, in Harry Potter news: I am excited about it.

Summer movie season is about to get started with Ep. III opening. I have my ticket and that alone is pretty sweet. I'm avoiding full reviews right now, but preliminary reports are saying it's awesome.

I watched Episode I last week. In some ways, it was not as bad as I remembered. In other ways, it was just as bad. I think Anakin's "Yippee!" is possibly the worst delivery of a bad line in the history of movies. On the up side, Ewan McGregor was good and Liam Neeson did his best, even when talking about midichlorians. I also didn't realize that Kiera Knightley actually doubles as Amidala--I thought she was an in-the-background Amidala assistant. The difference between the two is now quite obvious.

I also watched Episode II and I have some theories on Anakin's acting. I am 99% positive that George Lucas is behind his acting problems. After all, Luke and Leia were just as wooden in Return of the Jedi. I also think perhaps Lucas wanted him to be flat because he's a Jedi and is supposed to be so in control of himself. He best (acting) scene is when he kills the sand people, and he's not in control in that scene. That is my theory anyway.

In other news, poor Kingdom of Heaven. I guess the world just doesn't want historical epics anymore. Yet I am drawn to it nonetheless.

To sum up: Harry Potter is great. Episode III is getting great buzz and is hopefully great. Kingdom of Heaven--alas.

Put 'Em High

Well, it's that time again--summer time! That means I get to start bombarding all blog readers with endless movie news. Kingdom of Heaven was the #1 movie this weekend, with 20 million. People actually saw House of Wax, but only enough to get 11 million and second place. Even that paltry sum will probably lead to sequel, which is the bad news.

I hope everyone's managed to see the Narnia teaser. I saw it on a kind of fuzzy screen, but it looked awesome. I think the scene at the Stone Table could be really intense. A ridiculous nitpick--the wardrobe is shown covered with a sheet. As I recall, there was no sheet involved in the book. Pshaw!

I just watched the Goblet of Fire teaser tonight. I think they were taking up valuable GOF time with character reminiscing, but the second half showed some great stuff. I really like the sound of Dumbledore in this one, and I'm glad that they went with a more active Dumbledore after Richard Harris's death. I do think Fleur looks about thirteen years old but...who cares about Fleur besides Ron anyway? I'm still waiting for a look at Moody, but I guess he'll probably require some intense post-production work for his eye.

In other news, I saw Hotel Rwanda, which was very good. I also spent a lot of the last week with two hilarious little boys and had a blast. I had some ice cream tonight too. So, life is good. (And Episode III is less than two weeks away!)