So, hubby and I finally got to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part II this afternoon at a cheap matinee.  Neither of us was disappointed.  Following true Harry Potter fashion, this movie was the same high quality caliber of acting, story telling and special effects that all the others were.

I tried to read the books, but the story telling style just wasn’t my right fit. But I absolutely love the movies. They are stylistically superb and amazing to watch on a purely sensory level with the high tech, seamless special effects and CG.

Add to that a stellar cast and an almost uncanny ability for the casting directors to cast perfect fits for every character, and it’s no wonder this is the highest grossing series of movies out there today.

Deathly Hollows is, of course, the second part to the two parter ending of the movies.  In it, we’ve seen all the kids really come of age, and we’ve seen young loves blossom (Ron and Hermione and Harry and Ginny Weasley).  We’ve seen these characters literally grow up before our eyes, and I think that helps it to mold into our minds as one of the most beloved set of misfit heroes and heroines.

They’ve endeared themselves to us over the years, and I think that, even me having not read any of the books, felt a sense of closure and relief when the final installment was told (and it was good).

In it, we see the fruition of the three friends and their cohorts never ending battle between good and evil.  Valdemort, played by Ralph Fiennes, and his minions, including the uber talented Helena Bonham Carter (who barely has any lines in this one) finally comes to get Harry right where he wants him.

Harry is tired of seeing those around him die to protect him, but what he doesn’t realize is that they are protecting an idea, a way of life, not just him. He ends up bringing himself before Valdemort, much to his friends dismay, because as Dumbledor himself told Harry, he has a part of Valdemort in him.

When Valdemort killed Harry’s parents, part of the spell that was cast refracted back onto him, and Harry’s tiny infant body absorbed some of Valdemort’s essence, making them bound together in thought.

Harry realizes that he must himself die in order to kill Valdemort. Of course, we see what happens at the end, and I don’t want to totally spoil it for you, so you must go see it if you’re a Potter fan!  Great movie, and a great ending to this amazing saga.

We recently sat down and watched the movie “The Lincoln Lawyer” with Matthew McConaughey playing the main character, a sleezy lawyer who lawyers out of his car instead of an office.  He’s the typical sleezy lawyer that a lot of movies portray, taking shortcuts, ripping people off and enjoying the thrill of winning and screwing people over.

The movie is based on the book of the same title by an author who I think is hit or miss, Michael Connelly.  It is a legal thriller, the kind that heady people who also enjoy medical thrillers might enjoy.

McConaughey holds his own in this film, but there are some problems with it in that I never really cared too much for any of the characters enough to make me care what ended up happening to them in the film.  Ryan Philippe plays the rich kid accused of trying to rape and murder a girl.

He adamantly denies that he did anything wrong, and insists that it is a setup from the beginning. Of course, as the Lincoln Lawyer digs more, he starts to find a disturbing underlying story.  Drama and twists ensue, and there are some pretty good twists, except I think that they happen a bit too early in the film.

The musical score is also a little bit too light for the subject matter. I felt that if it could have been a little darker, a little slower, I could have taken the movie a little more seriously. However, I can’t refute the fact that the movie is an interesting and attention holding one to watch.

Marisa Tomei is given a thankless role as the ex wife of McConaghey’s character, but she is a pleasure to watch as usual, although her role really isn’t all that meaty and we don’t get enough of a chance to care about her character or why they are divorced at all.

All in all, I would score this movie as a three out of five stars. It was entertaining enough to watch and didn’t have any outstandingly stupid scenes that would make me give it 2 stars. Other than that, I would say it’s not one that I thought about at all the next day, so it didn’t do the job of sticking in your brain like some other thrillers do.  It seemed almost anticlimactic in the end, which was somewhat of a letdown.

But definitely entertaining.

So I finally got to watch a movie that I’d been waiting to watch for a while. I watched it on regular DVD, since my hubby had no interest in watching it. He thought it was a chick flick, but really it was a darker and more gritty drama about a marriage that was crumbling between two people who were previously madly in love with eachother.

In a word, I’d have to say this movie is excellent. It is superbly acted by Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, who play the married couple Cindy and Dean. The two are quirky characters in their own right.

They meet at the nursing home where her grandmother stays. Cindy comes from a home where her parents can’t stand eachother, and Dean comes from a home where his mother up and left for a man early on in his life. So neither of them had the best illusions of relationships.

However, when the two meet, they have a sweet chemistry with one another. Cindy is in a relationship that seems mostly physical with a meathead who also has a violent temper, and Dean is a sort of loner, who has a job at a moving company. He’s a highschool dropout, but has plenty of charm and guts to spare.

He sees Cindy and falls in love with her instantly, feeling like he’s known her for years. That’s the real kicker, and the heartbreaking part of the movie. These two characters shared such a tender love when they first met that it’s hard to see the fastforwarding and rewinding scenes from happier times to sad times.

And some of it hits close to home, I think, with any married couple, as you can see how if you let your qualms about one another’s short comings get to you too bad, then you lose sight of why you fell in love with them in the first place.

It seems that Cindy is more the one who wants out of the marriage, while Dean, even though he has a violent temper, seems to want to save it and genuinely still loves his wife.  Cindy doesn’t want to have sex any more, and when Dean tries a desperate attempt to mend the marriage in a cheesy sex motel, a fight breaks out and the end of the marriage is seen in heartbreaking pictures.

I’ll be honest. I had to turn this movie off before it ended. I saw enough to know that it wasn’t going to be a Hollywood ending, but also saw enough to know that this film deserved every award and award nomination it got.  Great movie, just not the most uplifting.

Ugh, I really hate when I start a movie that I know is going to suck from the first five minutes, but somehow I feel trapped in to finishing it out because I already wasted a half hour or more of my time on it, hoping it would get better (to no avail of course).

That’s precisely what happened with the atrocity that is the “eerie, edgy” making of a fairy tale in to a movie “Red Riding Hood”. The movie is directed by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke.

She did a decent job on the first twilight movie, but this movie was an abomination of what I’m assuming the makers thought would be an edgy making of the classic fairy tale that appeals to young girls.

There are two hunks in this story, one that Red Riding Hood, played by the beautiful and usually talented Amanda Syfried, has known since childhood named Peter, and one that she has been promised to be betrothed to whom she has no sexual interest in, Henry.

Both are played by cute young actors, one of which is an Edward wannabe (of course, this is the one she wants), but they both are flat in this movie. I felt like the Edward wannabe was trying to hard at being a brooding handsome character, and his hairstyle didn’t exactly fit the period piece feel of this movie.

Well, let me correct myself. This movie didn’t even know what it was as it combined feels from several different generations. The cheap sets and boring story line didn’t make you feel for any of the characters at all. Seyfried, who is usually a great actress, seemed almost bored by the role, mailing in her performance as though she knew the material just wasn’t up to snuff.

The story tried to hard to be romantic, and yet none of the characters had any chemistry with one another, and the romance scenes seemed forced and acted out.

The beast, who we finally see, apparently can speak to Red Riding Hood, so we know that it is connected to her in some way. That’s the big mystery, who is the beast to her?  She begins to suspect her family and most of all the two men who are fighting over her.

The movie tries to trick us into thinking it is various characters at certain points, and the conclusion ends up feeling forced, like they just picked the least obvious character because they didn’t know what else to do at that point.

Skip this movie. Don’t be tempted to think it’s anything as interesting or engrossing as the twilight movies.  It’s boring, the script is ludicrous, and the sets and costumes make you feel like you’re watching some cheap play.  Terrible review, I know, but I was disappointed in this one.

When my husband and I saw the preview advertisements for the HBO period piece fantasy series “Game of Thrones”, it didn’t really show us what an incredible experience this show would be. This show is nothing short of superb.

It is the best show we have watched since Battlestar Galactica, and we never thought we’d find another show of such complex character, beautiful and visually appealing scenery and costumes, and some of the best acting I’ve ever seen.

The combination of character, storyline, excellent and intelligent writing, and the visually stunning element combine to make the series Game of Thrones one that you cannot afford to miss. It will stick with you for days after you complete the ten episode first season.

The characters really get ingrained into your psyche, and you feel for them almost as you would feel for someone in your family. They become dear to you.  The emotions you feel when things happen to certain characters in any show or movie really show how effective the director, producers, and actors are at portraying a fictional work and really transporting you to another time and place.

You will feel empathy for these characters, you will get entrenched in the world in which they live, and every episode will stick with you, I promise you that. I don’t want to give anything away at all by telling you plot lines, but this is really the story of a united kingdom under which several smaller kingdoms, or houses, reside.

Each has their own personality, and each has their own tales of greed, power struggles, and family relationships.  Sean Bean (Ned Stark) and Mark Addy (Robert Barathian) headline as the two main characters, and each does an amazing job at portraying imperfect, if not well meaning leaders who have a friendship that goes back very far.  You become attached to each one.

Even the children in this movie are superb actors. None are the sugary sweet kids you see in movie who aren’t believable at all, but stoic, strong personalities, who also garner the audience’s love over a short period of time House Stark is no doubt the most noble and well intentioned house of all, and you become so attached to the entire family that you take it personally in every episode.

Not one bad actor on this show, kudos to all of them for making this one of the most riveting, intelligent, and engrossing shows I’ve seen in years.  Thank God they have been signed to do a second season. Rumor has it that they were signed for a second season after reaction was so favorable to the first airead episode!

We were so desperate to continue our enjoyment of this series that we downloaded every single one of the extras and behind the scenes, and “making of” shorts that were On Demand.