[Movies] Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

While I'm not exactly the world's biggest Harry Potter fan or anything like that, I do have a healthy respect for the franchise and all that it has achieved. It's quit the juggernaut of fantasy fiction and it helped seriously launch the greater trend of genre fiction targeted towards young adults.

Now when word came out that they were starting a new series of movies with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, I wasn't sure where all of this was going to go. After all, the actual source material was a very thin in-universe book meant to represent a reference book written by the movie's protagonist. So how does one make a movie out of that?

Apparently the answer is to get the author, J.K. Rowling, involve in the screenplay writing process and let her go crazy. So we end up with a wonderful new look at a different part of J.K. Rowling's magical world that certainly proves that she still has so many ideas for the Harry Potter franchise and certainly enough to sustain a good number more movies beyond this one.

[Games] Harry Potter in LEGO Dimensions

One of the big changes coming in LEGO Dimensions Year 2 is the inclusion of the Harry Potter universe in the game. The LEGO Harry Potter games were already pretty solid on their own  but tying them into the LEGO Dimensions property is pretty exciting!

And the official LEGO Dimensions YouTube channel has been featuring some interesting video previes of the new characters and the new worlds.

[Videos] All the Spells Cast in the Harry Potter Movies

The general people of the internet at large are great at playing around with popular media and come up with some interesting results. We've seen various supercut videos composed of various cliche and tropes and we've seen re-edits of movies to change the tone into something else entirely.

I was not expecting to come across this video, but here it is. And it's at the right level of geekiness to really make it interesting. This is a video that goes throughout the different Harry Potter movies focused solely on all the spells actually cast or at least encountered.

Unsurprisingly, the video isn't all that long. Its not even 10 minutes. And we're talking all eight movies here.

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

This may be the last of my catch-up reviews for the Harry Potter movie franchise. I'm pretty sure I have reviews for both of the Deathly Hallows movies, so it's nice to have addressed this little gap in the record. I'm not at all obsessive, you know.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the fifth movie in the franchise and the one that felt a little confusing both as a movie and as a book. The end result is a fairly drastic rush to a twist at the end that sort of makes sense in hindsight, but was still rather shocking. That can be taken as either a good thing or a bad thing, really.

As mentioned when I reviewed the prior movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the movies in this second half of the franchise certainly feel a lot darker, and this movie almost feels akin to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back to some extent. Its definitely a rather dark chapter in the whole franchise, especially after Harry's losses in the last movie, but of course there's still that glimmer of hope guiding everyone forward.

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

The timing of this blog and when we actually saw various movies has resulted in some quirky timing when it comes to reviews. And it still surprises me when I encounter movies that I was pretty sure that I had reviewed by now and yet the blog proves that this is not the case. And since I'm a bit of a completist when it comes to reviewing various movie franchises, we're back talking about the Harry Potter series today.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth movie in the series and following Goblet of Fire, it has us firmly in the period where the actors are clearly a lot older and quite mature in their manner and presentation, and thus the stories as well match this relative progression.

This movie sort of started out on a rather interesting note with the gathering of the titular order and thus we have a rather serious escalation in efforts to stop the Dark Lord. But at the same time we have an escalation of dangers and not even Hogwarts seems entirely safe with how things are going around this version of Earth. And it makes for some pretty clever movie moments indeed.

[Theater] Potted Potter Manila

It's interesting how it seems (I'll stress this is a perception-based opinion) that we're seeing more and more international theater touring groups visiting Manila these days. Definitely not complaining - I'm happy that they're making the trip here and giving access to great shows like Mamma Mia! and The Phantom of the Opera for those folks who lack the budget to travel abroad just for the sake of theater.

And when this show came along, I didn't really know what to think of it at first. I had never heard of it before, but naturally the Harry Potter fan in me was significantly curious. And when I noticed that the show would be opening on the night of my 30th birthday, I figured enjoying a bit of geeky theater would be a nice way to celebrate instead of some big party.

I am a geek after all. More than an hour of celebrating a fantasy book series in a comedic fashion sounds like a lot more fun that trying to entertain guests or other such social activities.

And I was certainly surprised by how much I ended up enjoying this show, which was certainly a unique experience.

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

It will sound a bit weird, but this will actually be my last Harry Potter movie review, only because I had already posted reviews for the movies after this one prior to this little housekeeping activity. And that sentence was less than ideal, but I'll leave it there for now.

This fourth movie always felt like the big jump off the deep end for the series - heck, the same situation applies to the books. Beyond the fact that almost everyone decided to manifest growing up by having longer and larger hairstyles, the tone of the overall narrative also takes are rather startling turn at this point and thus everything changes for then long term.

The third book / movie sort of ended on a relatively hopeful not with Sirius Black now fulfilling his role as Harry's godfather. But in this book, it seems the joy from that reunion of sorts is completely overshadowed by the growing darkness that threatens both the wizarding world and the Muggle one. And this is how the story manages to up the ante, stop with the games and bring things to a new level of seriousness.

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

I first got into the Harry Potter books because, well, they were popular. To be more specific, my mom made me read them since they had become so popular and she wanted to know what all the fuss was about. This is not a totally alien practice in our family given we're all rather avid readers and there's nothing more tempting than knowning there's an on-going series of novels that we can possibly follow along for as long as its run goes on.

The first book was decent enough, but I was still resisting getting into the whole thing. It was enough to get me to read the second book, but dang that one didn't go well with me. And then I read the third book.

Prisoner of |Azkaban remains my favorite book in the series, and thus all the more I had some pretty high expectations for the movie, And thankfully, I was not disappointed with how things turned out.

Plus the movie really upped thngs up a few notches in terms of the collective acting abilities of the cast and just how well everyone fit their roles within this magical alternative reality.

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

I'm enjoying how Fridays have become more than just "old" movie review days but also a time when I get to celebrate some of the major franchises of movie history. I've already posted reviews for the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek and recently Back to the Future and now I'm completing my set of Harry Potter movie reviews.

And don't even get me started on the books - my backlog queue for things to review is pretty formidable since I'm catching up with, well, all of my life.

Now I have to set this disclaimer - originally I found Chamber of Secrets to be my least favorite of the Harry Potter Books. Of course with the benefit of hindsight, I didn't immediately realize where the book would stand in terms of the greater scheme of things. But that's besides the point - like any other review, we'll need to weight this book based on the merits of the movie on its own as independent of all other related works or off-shoots.

That's the part of this "job" that makes writing these reviews so much fun.

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

Recently we ended up starting to watch all of the Harry Potter movies again since Prince had somehow managed not to have seen any of them before. And this interesting trip down what is now a valid part of geek nostalgia lane led me to consider whether or not I've posted reviews for all the movies yet. And since I've recently put effort into reviewing all of the Star Wars, Star Trek and even the Back to the Future movies, it seems only fitting to complete my Harry Potter line-up as well.

It's difficult to fully explain the Harry Potter phenomenon and just why this particular book series became so popular with folks of practically all walks of life around the world. But instead of questioning, we can just accept that it is and thus the franchise has grown to cover books, toys, video games, and of course these movies. Plus we can plot its larger impact on the various markets leading to a surge in young adult fiction writers and of course an increased number of movie adaptations of fantasy novels.

Simply put - Harry Potter changed our lives, and so it will forever remain significant. But enough of this lofty talk - on to the review!

[Museums] Harry Potter: the Exhibition (Marina Bay Sands)

My brother with his wizard swag

Earlier this month, my family had a big trip to Singapore and one of the sights that my brother and I enjoyed was Harry Potter: the Exhibition at the ArtScience Museum. And it was certainly quite the experience as fans of the series or even just for those who enjoyed the movies on a more casual basis. After all, we're talking about the result of over 8 movies released over the course of 10 years. So yeah, that's a pretty big chunk of our cultural history...as Harry Potter geeks anyway.

Unfortunately, the exhibit was one of those, well, somewhat annoying ones that don't allow guests to take photos or videos. Although given the quality of the exhibit and what a magical experience it all was, I can certainly understand the need to protect their intellectual property and to keep the exhibit, um, magical. And that is pretty much the best word to describe it.

I've scraped the internet for select photos of the exhibit to give you a taste of things and to help provide incentive for you to go, as it were. Harry Potter: the Exhibition runs until September 30, 2012 (at the time of this posting).

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part II (2011)

Well, it's the end of another era. In the same way that the initial end of the Lord of the Rings movie franchise (before The Hobbit truly found its feet), a lot of geek fans felt pretty good that things wrapped up as well as they did while also feeling a little sad that the movies are over. And one can only imagine how the studio executives felt once they realized their cash cow of a vessel was sailing off into the horizon.

Now here's a franchise that pretty much raised an entire generation of kids. Spanning 7 core books and 8 movies, the Harry Potter franchise is one that has raised a generation of kids to be lovers of fantasy even if only to a limited degree. It triggered a new wave of books targeted at younger audiences and help spur other franchises to multimedia success. Yes, even Twilight owes a bit of gratitude to the ground that was broken when Harry Potter first hit the big screen.

And with hordes of fans and casual movie-goers alike having watching the child actors of the movie franchise grow up right before our very eyes, it does present a unique experience that is hard for anyone else to replicate. And thus for good or for ill, this movie marks a pretty momentous event in our shared cultural history.

[Games] LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (PS3)

I'm a big fan of the LEGO series of console games (and LEGO in general for that matter). Starting with LEGO Star Wars, I've been pretty hooked on the series and have looked forward to subsequent releases.

The blending of the LEGO creative building process with different franchises has resulted in some pretty awesome crossovers. Another great example was the LEGO Batman video game, which was a pretty fun translation of the classic comic book hero.

To be fair, the games have already established a generally consistent formula. You need to collect as many LEGO bits as possible in order to purchase new characters, power ups and other bonuses. You use a variety of characters and their individual abilities in order to solve different puzzles and unlock new areas. And the whole time you get to re-live classic movies and creative franchises through the eyes of your little minifig avatars.

And this franchise was a heck of a lot more fun than I expected it to be.

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I (2010)

It’s somewhat strange to think that it’s been 13 years since Harry Potter first became a household name. Since then, a whole fandom has been created around the works of J.K. Rowling that has spanned seven books (plus additional supplementary titles) and is now on its seventh movie out of eight.

I doubt anyone could have predicted how far things were going to go, and this isn't even considering the impact her books had on other young adult authors who have followed in her footsteps. Just consider other book franchises that have experience success after the Harry Potter books such as the Eragon, Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl and The Edge Chronicles series of books. More and more of them seem to be created year after year, much to the delight and horror of readers everywhere, depending on your perspective on things.

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

The Harry Potter franchise has become one of those massive media juggernauts that will forever live in our social memory as a species. Given the wild success of the books and the popularity of the movie adaptations, Harry Potter and his world of magic beyond our mundane muggle one will live on forever.

I always feel that writers must have a remarkably difficult time keeping their original vision independent of the whims of the movie studios or the demands of the fan base at large. Given how J.K Rowling changed from a struggling mother living out of her car to the multi-million dollar success story that she is now, I bet it must have been insane trying to finish all seven books the series given one part or another pushing their own ideas, agendas and whims upon her. Some characters were definitely influenced to one degree or another by how they were depicted in the films and that may or may not have affected the series as a whole in a significant manner.

Whenever I think about the books beyond the 4th one, which was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, that's pretty much how I feel about a lot of the development and growth.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the adaptation of the 6th book in the Harry Potter series and is the second-to-the-last book. Given this, it really was meant as a transition story that had to prepare all the characters for the dangers of the final book beyond and such storylines tend to feel underdeveloped in one way or another since you don't get full resolution at the end. This was sort of the case with another major movie franchise in terms of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, although that was a transition tale that was given a lot of meat and thus it was a rather successful attempt. I'm still trying to fully understand how I feel about this movie serving the same purpose.

This movie follows our usual triumvirate of Harry, Ron and Hermione as they return to a very different Hogwarts. With Voldemort and his Death Eaters on the loose in both the muggle and magical parts of the world, there's definitely a sense of fear and dread abound. People are being killed, others have gone missing and tales of Death Eater attacks and sightings are everywhere. Despite all this, Hogwarts remains open and the students return, but of course they too have grown in many ways (and hormones are going nuts to boot!) Dumbledore is frequently missing from the school, undertaking some secret quests that are causing him significant harm in the process. Draco Malfoy has been tasked with some dark deed by Voldemort himself and Harry and his friends are trying to deal with their own teenage relationship issues amidst the larger mysteries around them.

Image via Wikipedia

HP6 is a drastic change in tone from the previous 5 books. Before, there was always that sense of magical whimsy that you could get in the earlier parts of the story before the eventual confrontation with whatever dark and dangerous foe waited for them. That balancing of diverse elements has always been one of the reasons the books have been so widely accepted by readers of all ages and to some extent kept them as children's stories more or less. While the increasingly mature tone had been building over the recent books / films, it's really in this movie that things take a sharp turn into a darker world - one of Death Eaters and teenage romances. In many ways, one could critique Rowling for how this was handled - it was as if she realized that a lot of the development should have happened earlier but not it was too late to turn back. Instead we end up with this amazing evolutionary leap forward in terms of many of the storylines that left more than a few fans wondering what the heck happened.

The actors have definitely grown in their lives portraying the roles of Rowling's characters although there's still room for improvement here and there. Daniel Radcliffe was a lot funnier at times as Harry while Rupert Grint has become a very...stocky Ron Weasley (did you see those arms?). Emma Watson was darling as ever as the love sick Hermione although she still hasn't learned to consistently portray genuine emotions, hehe. Bonnie Wright did rather well in terms of capturing the suddenly-developed role of Ginny Weasley in this film while Tom Felton appears to be growing up really ugly in a bad way. Kudos to Evanna Lynch for a great performance as Luna Lovegood and now showing us that she'd play a pretty believable Delirium should ever Neil Gaiman's Sandman be made into a film or something.

The other older actors were as consistent as ever, especially given their years of acting experience. I'm talking about the likes of Michael Gambon, who has really grown into the role of Albus Dumbledore, Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall, Alan Rickman as a not so effeminate Severus Snape and Jim Broadbent as a humorous Horace Slughorn.

Helena Bonham Carter seemed poised to steal any scene with Belatrix Lestrange in it but I can't help but feel that David Yates made sure to severely limit her screen time in order to prevent just that, which is a shame. You have to admit, she's just amazing as Belatrix well beyond belief!

Oh, and I ♥ Freddie Stroma, even though he was quickly set aside in terms of the overall story. It's weird that this hormone-enhanced edition of Harry Potter had no toplessness like in previous films - this would have been a GREAT time to see the likes of Stroma without a shirt, haha. Sorry, pardon my raging homosexuality at this moment.

The overall movie was pretty tight and Yates definitely did a great job at trying to edit what was kept for the film and what was left to the book save for a few points here and there. Most folks complain about the truncated ending, and to a large part I have to agree that this was ended on an odd note. The whole Half-Blood Prince angle ended with a very insignificant squeak, but then I can't remember it being all that amazing in the original book either. I still sort of wish for more fight scenes but I guess they're saving the bulk of that kind of storytelling for the last two films that will cover the seventh book.

Did I like the movie? I suppose you could say that, but it did drag here and there. I won't go as far as saying I loved it but one can't fault it all that much - this was an accelerated transition device that needed to mature many characters at once in order to catch up with lack of development in the prior books. One could blame the original material for why Harry was suddenly so infatuated with Ginny or how much Ron and Hermione still can't get it on and what not and Yates only did the best he could with that.

Things will all pay off more when the last two movies get underway. For now I can only post an initial rating that may need to be revised once we view this piece in the context of the completion of the whole series.

Thus, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince gets 3.5 Horcruxes out of 5.

[Movies] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer

Finally, I'm back online here at home after almost a week without internet. Given that, it means a return to more regular posting and the return of video content normally firewalled at the office.

I've missed a few sneak peeks and trailers over the past few days.

So let's get the ball rolling again and start with the trailer for the next Harry Potter movie...


#2 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer

[Books] So Dumbledore's Gay...Now What?

dumbledore and lockheart by jahansell.

When J.K. Rowling shared Harry Potter secrets at Carnegie Hall last October 19, 2007, one of the most striking revelations from the talk was her announcement that Albus Dumbledore was gay, much to the delight of the assembled crowd. Given the positive response at the time, Rowling was beyond pleased and remarked, "if I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"

But she didn't, and there's something in that for sure. As much as I love the Harry Potter series, I can't help but feel that with the end of the last book, Rowling is continuing to milk the series for all it's worth. It's a tad convenient to throw in a statement like this for now with the last book safely released and the last 2 movies bound to be created and will continue the commercial success of the franchise instead of earlier on when it might have had more impact. As a out and proud gay man myself, I'm still not 100% sure about how I feel about this announcement.

Of course the news has been met with mixed reactions. Many are pleased, especially those who write slash fiction involving many of the Potter characters while others are naturally against it even more. Groups like the religious right were of course against the series long before, denouncing it as a pagan showcase of sorts and some going as far as declaring it was tied to the Christian devil. Phooey.

Today I came across this TIME Magazine article by John Cloud poses a different reason to be displeased with the announcement. What's interesting is that he doesn't take the side of the conservatives but instead shows why Dumbledore isn't quite the gay role model science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts should be looking for.

Ultimately, he does have a point. What we've just established is that Dumbledore is not quite a hero for queers across the world since he was a man who chose to remain in the closet rather than be open about his sexual nature, if this was truly the case. Sure, originally it was a children's book but towards the end many of the scenes were not meant for children alone. The characters had grown up so why couldn't Rowling take a stand for diversity by having any of her characters be openly gay in the same way she tried to address ethnic diversity just by describing characters to be diversely black, white, Asian, etc.

While I don't expect everyone to agree with his point of view, however it makes for a read worth Digg-ing at the very least.

[Books] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

After a day without sleep and abuse of my position at the office (with my multitasking skills tasked to their limit), I finally finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (ISBN-10: 0-545-01022-5), the last book in the globally succesful Harry Potter series. While I'm not a die-hard fan of the adventures of the Boy Who Lived, I have to had it to J.K. Rowling (rhymes with bowling mind you) - she really knows how to put together a good story.

Don't worry, I promise this review will be spoiler-free - I'm not in the habit of ruining the experience for other readers just yet. And given how the book went, it's certainly worth the wait.

Here we go.

I had always felt that the Harry Potter books as a true "series" ended with the sixth book. Let's fac it - they cleaned up a lot of plot threads, managed to remove him from school and pretty much break the standard format of Harry leaving the Dursleys every year to go to Hogwarts, had some Voldemort-related adventure, then return home. It's not a bad thing in itself - in fact it's probably the smartest thing Rowling could have done at this point. The series was starting to feel a bit repetitive with each sequel longer than the last, filled to the brim with evem more trivia to be used in the various forms of mechandising such as video games, board games and special editions of Scene It.

Deathly Hallows starts with the last of this clean up procss - freeing the characters of the original format and moving on to the larger adventure of Harry, Ron and Hermione executing Dumbledore's final wishes in a do-or-die quest to figure out a way to defeat Voldemort. As I started reading the book, it felt almost like an independent novel - that's how far the writing and with them the characters has come. Rowling has certainly evolved over the years and puts her best foot forward in terms of her diverse metaphors and character twists.

My only issues revolve around how petulant and, well, juvenile Harry has become over the last few books, something that becomes especially true in this. The first part involves a lot of whining and complaining that I really could've done without, but then that's me. It keeps reminding me of the Transformers movie in terms of how a lot of people interpreted the film as being too focused on the human in the beginning only to get to the really good stuff towards the end. Same here.

The establishing chapters are a tad slow and it takes forever to get anywhere it seems - then again perhaps that was her intent in terms of her writing. Suffering all that teenage angst becomes more than worth it as the story escalates and the final battle draws closer and closer. A lot of people were buzzed about all the deaths Rowling promised but as you go through the novel most of these deaths don't really have that much of an impact on the overall story. She kills more major characters than the original Transformers movie (Ha! Another TF reference...)

The final battle royale borrows a page out of Tolkien itself (or perhaps Disney's Beauty and the Beast given the magical element to things) and wraps up the series well, while providing a daunting challenge for any Hollywood crew who might endeavor to accurately recreate this on the silver screen. Better still is throwing in a lot of explanations behind major character motivations and behaviors that sort of acts as an excuse for their one-dimensional and shallow actions in some of the previous novels.

Is this that amazing a book as everyone says it is? That's really hard to say, I guess. It's something you can only appreciate by first having read all 6 of the previous books while keeping an open mind to boot. Still, it's undeniable that Rowling knew what she was doing - she had a great story to tell and she told it beautifully across seven novels, ending the entire series a perfectly as she could. This was a great Harry Potter book, then - if only to specify things to that degree.

[GeekyCast] Conducting Interviews

With the weekend just around the corner, I'm just itching to relax and not have to worry about work. Let's face it - I have much better things to do like finish reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or just veg out on the couch watching DVDs.

But before I totally leave work behind, this morning's applicant interview had me thinking about my philosophies and practices behind interviewing people and I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts on the subject and see how people might respond.

How about y'all? What are your goals when conducting an interview? How do you survive being interviewed?

Download this episode (10 min)

[GeekyCast] Looking at the Week

I'm kinda tired from today - right after shift Brian and I had brunch then dropped by Power Books to pick up the last Harry Potter book along with a few others that caught our eye. I talk about this in today's GeekyCast along with a few TV shows / movies of not in the next 2 weeks.

I'll try to make a more substantial GeekyCast tomorrow.

Cheers.

Download this episode (8 min)