Tuesday, July 24, 2012

harry movie mania.

You're going to be seeing a trend in my blog for the next week.  Sometimes when Nick leaves I leave too.  I go to Hogwarts.

In today's blog post I'm going to be ranking my favorite and least favorite Harry Potter films.

My favorite film of all the franchise is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.  With the exception of the cringe worthy dancing scene between Harry and Hermione, there is no bad part to that movie.  Upon watching it for the fifth... or sixth... or seventh time I still managed to cry three times.  Once when Hedwig dies (why Hedwig?!), the next time when Ron leaves (Your parents are dead!  You have no family!), and finally when Dobby snuffs it by way of Bellatrix's knife.  There are endless crazy good moments in that film.  Spot on I tell you!  How scary is Bathilda Bagshot!  So scary, that's how!  Bravo David Yates!

My second favorite film is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  Admittedly when I first saw, or "sawr" if you're Harry, this movie I hated it.  I couldn't come to grips that they had cut out so many supporting plot lines, Firenze ring a bell?  That hot, mallow sweet burning centaur from the forbidden forest?  Well, that and Michael Gambon's Dumbledore is a complete waste of space.  That's another blog post entirely.  The saving grace of this movie is the epic battle scene between Dumbledore and Voldemort.
"You're a fool Harry Potter.  And you will lose, everything" 

This is also the first movie where Daniel Radcliffe can actually act!  I came to this epiphany during my recent movie marathon.  He sucked in Goblet of Fire and suddenly he is able to convey emotion in Order of the Phoenix!  Which is a mercy, truly.  Professor Umbridge's collectable cat plates that meow are genius.  Kudos to whoever designed those beauties.  Why aren't they selling those in the Harry Potter collectable magazine?  I'd buy one.  Maybe they'd even customize it so I could put Twinky in it!


My third favorite is Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  Let me do a quick "high-low" for this movie.

Highs:

  • Dumbledore's lasso of fire against the army of inferi.
  • Dumbledore and Harry in the Daily Prophet at the Ministry.  Hugs!  
  • Professor Slughorn in any scene.  "All hands on deck Granger!"
  • Inky walks down memory lane.  "I can talk to snakes.  They find me.  Whisper things"
  • Ron.  Keeper.  Quidditch.  Spot on mate.  
  • Katie Bell being cursed.  So cool.  
Lows:
  • No epic Death Eater vs the Order fight after Snape kills Dumbledore in the Astronomy tower.  
  • Harry hitting on the coffee barista at the train station.  Question mark?  
And now, what you've all been waiting for.  The worst Harry Potter movie ever.  Ever.  
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  Oh gosh.  Here Michael Gambon is a terrible Dumbledore.  The plot has been so hacksawed that it makes no sense what-so-ever.  Why did Barty Crouch Jr have to have a bizarre tongue tick? They couldn't come up with anything else?  Why did Madame Maxine eat a bug out of Hagrid's beard?  Why did the "Sons of Durmstrang" do gymnastics down the great hall and for that matter why did the Beauxbaton's have butterflies fluttering out of their armpits?  Want me to keep going?  Where was Ludo Bagman?  How did Harry not get third degree burns at the Quidditch World cup when all of the tents were burned down around him?  Oh Winky, you should have been in this film.  Did anyone else notice that Dobby and Winky ride by on a llama at the world cup for about half a second.  That was their homage to the house elf story line.  It wasn't all bad, but let's be real, it was mostly bad.  Watching Daniel Radcliffe squirm and moan tied to that gravestone was about all I could take.  In fact, watching him act at all period was hard to watch.  Finally, why did they make the final task the maze from "The Shining"?  I would have liked to see some skrewts, some sphinxes, and some acromantulas!  

I'll end with this.  The three worst scenes in Harry Potter history.  


3.  Harry crying after learning Sirius was the best man in his parent's wedding.  I think I just broke out into hives.  


2.  The last scene in Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry rides off on the Firebolt and Alfonso Cuaron thought it would be great to freeze his goob face.  

1.  When Harry turns to Voldemort and says "Let's finish this the way we started."  That is to say, if he meant that they started in a headlock, jumping off of a castle wall.  Huh?  I don't get it.  Should have left well enough alone guys.  

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I spent my first introduction to the movies hating Professor Snape in a very dark way; boy was I wrong. I watched the gut wrenching scene when Harry learns the truth about Snape on a recent business trip for Dish. I was horrified; I called my husband who had scene all 8 films, crying. He just laughed at me. I've decided to use Blockbuster @Home to have the Potter movies mailed to me, so I can re-watch the series. I'm sure my perspective will be fascinatingly different.