the OFFICIAL half-blood prince trailer July 29, 2008

finally finally FINALLY, after months of seeing mediocre movies only to be disappointed in the lack of a half-blood prince trailer, AOL Time Warner has posted it online!!!! seems a little half-baked and lame, but…i’ll take it.

the link is below so you may download it in your preferred size for your own personal enjoyment.

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince/27063/main?icid=100214839×1206481852x1200347367

my first impressions?

• basically, this is an expanded scene of harry seeing one of dumbledore’s memories – the first time he met young tom riddle in the orphanage. within that, we see other scenes from the movie as dumbledore discusses his first meeting with tom and as tom describes what he can do that is extraordinary.
• the vials of memories concept is very, very…interesting. i really need to reread the book, but this looks really neat.
• hero fiennes, the boy who is playing young tom riddle, is mildly and appropriately terrifying. “prove it” is a very scary line, coming from him. and so dumbledore does, silently causing the chest of drawers to catch on fire (can’t wait for the rest of this scene).
• near the end, it flashes between young tom and new voldemort, which is a very frightening sequence of clips.

“did i know that i’d just met the most dangerous dark wizard of our time? no.”

all i can say is that i think this movie will definitely be the best of the series and i can’t wait to see where david yates takes it. this promises a very good fall for movies!! can’t wait!

finally the new twilight trailer July 24, 2008

finally, i’ve been able to find the new twilight trailer on YouTube. here it is!! i can’t WAIT for the movie!

the true identity of the joker July 23, 2008

well, i was bored at work today – although back episodes of pottercast were keeping me pretty much entertained – and i found this in my papers at work, and did a little MS Paint work with it. love it.

let’s put a smile on that face: dark knight review July 20, 2008

well, it’s been a few days, and i’ve managed to see “the dark knight” twice in 24 hours. i went and saw it at midnight with some friends, and went again friday night (coincidentally, i saw one of the people i went with at midnight, too, haha).

first of all, i just want to say that it might have been the best movie i’ve seen in a long long time. definitely goes in my top five. if you’ve read my blog before, you know that i’m not a comic book person, but i do like the movies. however, this movie went far above and beyond a “comic book movie” (think “iron man,” “the incredible hulk”). in my opinion, it was on the edge of being practically a psychological thriller. my boyfriend, who is a comic aficionado, absolutely loved it, too.

according to this article on CNN ShowBiz, the movie took in $155.34 million this weekend, making it the top grossing film for opening weekend so far, finally beating out the idiocy that was “spiderman-3.” i’m still mad about that – they made two awesome movies and then beat the pulp out of the third one until it was barely passable as a film, let alone a succession of the “spiderman” films. on opening night, “dark knight” took in $66.4 million, again beating out “S3.”

if we’re going in terms of rating, i give this film 4.5 stars out of 5. i’d really like to give it the full 5, but some parts were a little long/slow. the reason they were long, though, is because of all the story that had to be explained – and they did it very, very well. let’s go with a 4.9 – it was really just that good. it was good for the comic fan and for the non-fan (me), and explained enough to have it make sense to me, but left enough open that i had to do some research to understand some things, like why the joker told a few different stories about how he got his scars (because he’s just insane and has nothing to lose).

from here on out, spoilers are guaranteed. so don’t read further if you don’t want to be spoiled.

the plot: amazing. i was thoroughly impressed. it really sets up the show for you, giving you all of the characters and making you really like them. it starts out with the joker already basically running the mob scene in gotham, but they are not happy about it. the city slowly breaks down as he continues to take control of everything. there’s a lot less action than in the first film, but that doesn’t make it any the lesser. i was definitely impressed. especially since the joker ended up winning, with corrupting harvey dent into two-face, making gotham’s white knight the darkest of them all, besides himself.

characters: christian bale definitely creates an outstanding batman, flanked by a wonderful array of sidekicks in michael caine, morgan freeman, maggie gyllenhaal, and aaron eckhart (to an extent). he’s beautiful and talented, proven yet again.  he was really just awesome. batman really ran the gamut of emotions in this film, experiencing great highs and the lowest of lows.

i am SO glad they replaced katie holmes with maggie gyllenhaal. they look a lot alike, but maggie is just way more talented. my boyfriend even asked me if i was sure they had changed the actress – that’s how much they look alike. maggie really did an amazing job – even though she died, she was amazing. i thought it was really fitting that her character died – it seemed like everyone was disappointed, but we all know that batman doesn’t have a girlfriend/wife as an adult, so she had to go sometime. this is what really made batman the “dark” knight of the film, and it was good. i loved that the joker told him dent’s location and said it was hers – it truly made the joker the sadistic character he was meant to be.

aaron eckhart was a fantastic harvey dent – turned – two-face. i couldn’t imagine a better actor for the job. he did so well as harvey dent, and there was so much foreshadowing to him becoming two-face. when he was around, it seemed like every other word was “face” or he was flipping that two-headed coin of his. this was a lot clearer the second time i saw the film, even though i had known what was coming the first time. his two-face was scary, too – i knew christopher nolan had said it would be unlike any other two-face we’ve ever seen, and he definitely lived up to that statement. it was a little CGI-y for me, but still terrifying and enough to keep me rooted to my seat. i’m praying that he’s not really dead because i’ll be so sad if two-face, one of the “big baddies” for batman, only gets a half hour in such an epic movie dedicated partly to his creation.

told you it was scary, didn’t i? eckhart is amazing.

michael caine, gary oldman, and morgan freeman all stood out as incredible actors, like always. they provided the perfect sidekicks to bale, and did a lot in their own right. they really helped the character of batman flesh out and stand as a force to be reckoned with.

and then we come to the joker, our wonderful heath ledger (RIP). ledger played the joker the way everyone has always wanted to see him. he was the perfect mix of funny and sadistic, often at the same time (early on, he does a magic trick where he sticks a pencil into a table, eraser side up, and slams a mobster’s head into it, and then the pencil is “magically gone”). the chemistry between ledger and bale is amazing and often a little frightening, as they do their dance to see who’s finally going to win out. the sad part is that the joker does end up winning, but he’s locked up for another time. even though ledger is gone, i’m sure they’ll bring out another fabulous actor to fill his shoes because that’s such an important role. ledger, practically unrecognizable underneath his makeup (except for the one scene where he doesn’t wear any and it’s scarily familiar even with the scarring), really plays the joker as he was meant to be, set on wreaking havoc upon gotham with no strings to be pulled and nothing to lose, almost causing batman to lose his mind and causing harvey dent to completely lose his. this is the joker as everyone has always wanted to see him, and he truly made the film the incredible epic that it was.

although the movie was nearly three hours long, it was completely worth it. however, it is rated PG-13 for a reason, and i don’t think people should take younger children (there were a LOT of scared elementary school kids at the midnight showing). it may be batman, but it’s not a fun family film – like i said, it’s practically a psychological thriller and is not meant to be taken lightly. it will emotionally drain you if you’re paying attention at all, so don’t plan on doing anything else except sleeping or discussing it with friends.

in other news, there was a TWILIGHT trailer at the midnight show!! i think we might have gotten the wrong trailer reel, haha, because no one else who saw dark knight saw this trailer, but it was absolutely awesome. makes me even more thrilled for the movie in december!!

i haven’t been able to find it on YouTube except for this stupid E!T link, but here’s the link to it on Yahoo! Movies: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810010670/video/8858452

unfortunately, there wasn’t a harry potter trailer with “the dark knight,” but there was a “mummy 3″ trailer, so it looks like HP will be with the new mummy. i loved the first two mummy films, but i’m afraid this is going to be a disappointment. oh well. it’ll have the HP trailer, and it comes out in a few weeks, so that’ll be nice.

comic book heroes that should NEVER deface the big screen July 11, 2008

thanks to mark pickavance at den of geek, here’s his list:

Comic book heroes are big business these days, since the studios started taking them seriously and getting the movies made properly. But there are some from comic lore that they should really be avoided, even though I know that some of these are already in pre-production.

Wonder Women:
This was so camp and funny as a 70s TV show, but I have huge reservations about the character now. Her powers are matching bulletproof bracelets and a lasso that makes people tell the truth. What? Okay, I accept that in the early comics she had the powers of the ancient gods, but presumably no costume making ability whatsoever. If they succeed in filming this it could actually be worse than the horrendous Catwoman.

The Green Lantern
Another DC character that needs to be avoided at all cost. He’s got a ring that can do almost anything including time travel, invisibility, flight and telepathy, among a zillion other things. But he’s powerless against anything yellow, eh? So you can threaten him with a banana or a lemon? So he’s stupidly overpowered but rather obviously circumvented by anyone colour coordinated. How frickin useless is that?

Arm-Fall-Off-Boy
No kidding? This unique hero turned up in a try-out for the Legion of Super-Heroes, with his amazing power that his arms came off…which he then used to create blunt force trauma. He also went by the name of The Splitter, which is moderately less dumb than Arm-Fall-Off-Boy! Legion of Super-Heroes didn’t let him in, despite offering places in their moronic ranks to equally stupid heroes such as Bouncing Boy and Matter Eater Lad. I’m not excited by the prospect of any of them coming to the big screen, unless it’s to take the piss out of them.

Thor
Marvel isn’t perfect either, and Thor proves it. He’s a god, borrowed from Norse legend, who travels by throwing his hammer, to which he’s attached. Please! Why they needed to put mythical gods in comics was lost on me anyway, but with a winged helmet he looks like a silly hood ornament. No, I wouldn’t be looking forward to that movie…ever.

She-Hulk
Why? The new Hulk movie looks okay, and I can even handle the Ang Lee one until it gets weird at the end, but She-Hulk? No. I don’t like women with bigger pectorals than me, and it’s a stupid name, character and idea. Stop it now!

Dogwelder
If you thought you’d seen powers, you’ve seen nothing until you experienced the hero that is Dogwelder! Part of the crime fighting team Section Eight, he rarely speaks, but with his welder’s mask firmly in place he attaches (welds…actually) dead dogs to the faces of evil doers. No you didn’t misread that, he spot welds dead dogs to people. He does this so they’re easier to recognise next time they meet, I assume. Actually I take it back – this is a movie I want to see so badly. Please Hollywood, bring on the Dogwelder, and let the sparks fly!

The Legion of the Superpets
DC really lost the plot in late fifties, and one of their most amazing ideas was Legion of the Superpets! Animals with Super-pet powers and red ’super’ capes to match, how could it fail? Krypto the Superdog, Beppo the Supermonkey, Streaky the Supercat, and… Comet the Superhorse! Yay! Or is that nay? My personal favourite was Comet, who’d become human once a year and date Supergirl. And most disturbingly I didn’t make that bit up. DC at it’s most bestial. If anyone tries to greenlight this project they should be checked for controlled substance abuse pronto.

Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man
Is this a quiz or a superhero? To be honest he’s a super villain, but he’s so dumb he deserves his fifteen seconds of fame. He appeared in a comic called Doom Patrol in the sixties, and got his powers from being dipped in those exceptionally dangerous chemicals – amino acids. He can be anything, sometimes multiple things at once, a bit like The Thing…but more colourful and Swedish.

Captain Boomerang
Can you guess his power? If you said ‘he throws boomerangs’ then you’ve just undermined his dramatic first film appearance. I can’t see this being made thankfully, because he’s an unpleasant racist character, described as “a jerk and a screw-up.” by his ‘friends’ in his own Suicide Squad comics. He’s so admired by his super team members they drop him onto a deserted island, never to be seen again. Exactly the fate I have planned for any movie exec that comes up this franchise plan.

The Red Bee
This character is comedy gold, that needs to be left buried. He fought gangsters and Nazis in the 40sin a fetching pink and red outfit. Devoid of any actual powers, he did have a ’stinger gun’ and…wait for it…trained bees! These he kept cunningly concealed in his belt buckle. His favourite bee (no, I’ve not been to the pub…yet) was called Michael, but I’m not sure if he named them all. Michael’s little secret was that he must have been a transsexual bee, because as everyone knows male bees can’t sting only females. The buzz about this one is that it’s on the backburner after Bee Movie’s box office numbers came in.

The ones that didn’t make the cut…

Siryn: Woman that screams her enemies to death just like Naomi Campbell.
Vibe: Spanish break-dancing superhero that had ’shockwave’ power and a full wardrobe of Italian suits.
The Absorbing Man: Turns into everything his touches, which must make going to the loo a nightmare.
Infectious Lass: Makes everyone ill…she’s a laugh a minute.
The Black Racer: Death is a downhill skier…apparently
SuperPro: He’s an American football player who hurts his knee, amazingly.
Green Arrow: He fires arrows…usually green ones.
Reverse Flash: Same as the Flash, but bad.
Belle of the Ball: A girl who can control balls, no less. Can’t think of anything funny to top that!
The Four Marys: No explanation does this comic quartet justice, just accept that.
The Whizzer: Not what you think, at all.
Gale Alien and the Girl Squadron: They all wear stiletto shoes on Jupiter, as you do.
Spurt Hammond: Worst comic character name ever, bar none!
Prez First Teen President: We all need political heroes…they keep telling us.
Fatman The Human Flying Saucer: Don’t ask, please.

i’m really not a “comic book” kind of girl (disappointed, i know), and the only reason i stumbled across this fabulous list was because i was searching for lists of famous literary dead. yes, characters that have died gruesome deaths. the OC english department has a halloween costume party every fall themed famous literary deaths, and i’ve got to go this year because i’m an officer, so i need something to do.

however, i’ve yet to find a good list, but i’ve been finding lots of good things like this instead. maybe it’s not as funny as i think it is at 2 AM, but whatever. it’s funny right now and that’s all that matters.

accutane, the dark knight, and wall-e June 23, 2008

i finished my last dose of accutane today. well, technically i was on the generic brand isotretinoin (more commonly known as sotret?). i feel thrilled that i’m finally done with my cycle, but i’m interested to see where this is going to take me now. my symptoms have only been dry skin – especially lips and nose, but only one minor nosebleed. i did moisturize my face like nobody’s business, so that’s probably why that was ok. and i traded off between aquaphor and cocoa butter for my arms and legs to keep them from drying out too bad.

i’m excited to be done, but, like i said, i’m nervous. i know there’s a huge success rate, but a lot of people have to do it twice, and i hope i don’t. i feel like it put me in a lower mood than i used to be in, and i’m hoping that’ll lift now that i’m not on it anymore. but don’t get me wrong – i am so glad i did it. i used to have pretty bad acne, but now my face is as clear as the sky in july. i love it. love it love it love it.

i’d definitely recommend it to someone. i know there are 2385230 awful side effects, but they only happen to the vast minority of people, and across the board results are great. it was definitely worth being a little crabbier and having to apply chapstick about fifty times a day to have clear skin.

i’m currently reading jodi picoult’s “salem falls.” i just finished “the pact” and remembered that i had this one tucked away downstairs, so i pulled it out. i wish i owned “nineteen minutes.” i may have to buy it, but i have about a million books on that list, so we’ll just have to see. i really can’t afford to buy any more books on top of my college book costs, although i seem to be mysteriously addicted to the five-dollar-movie rack at wal-mart. good movies at an awesome price. i just can’t stop. seriously, who puts “catch me if you can,” “something’s gotta give,” and “A KNIGHT’S TALE” on the $5 rack?? seriously, have some respect for mr. ledger.

speaking of heath ledger, i am so pumped for the dark knight. seriously, it’s going to be awesome. i’m a little nervous because on all the trailers he looks really pretty terrifying. and i haaate scary movies, but i don’t think this is going to be that scary and besides, who passes up christian bale and heath ledger and batman and a midnight movie experience? all four great things. i’ll post my favorite trailer and a few screens.

scary, huh? oh heath. i am so sad that this movie killed you because you were so amazing.

sorry, i couldn’t find a good screen of batman, unfortunately. but let’s look at some more of these names, ok? michael caine, gary oldman, and morgan freeman, all fantastic. and maggie gyllenhaal replaced katie holmes, and it was about time that they got someone who can act their way out of a box into a movie (not katie holmes). we’ve already seen aaron and katie getting it on all over his apartment in “thank you for smoking,” and i don’t need to be blinded again. i just love maggie, especially in “stranger than fiction.”

also, side note – did anyone else know that the beautiful and talented nestor carbonell is in this?? i fell in love with him on LOST and i am so excited to see him again!

one more thing i am absolutely thrilled about in this movie is the introduction of harvey dent, who becomes two-face. and who better to play him than aaron eckhart? a brilliant actor (thank you for smoking, no reservations) who deserves such an awesome part. he always seems to play the “bad guy who’s really good,” but here he’ll just be the bad guy, so it’ll be interesting to see how he does that.

speaking of other fantastic movies, disney pixar’s wall-e comes out this weekend. some of their new movies have been flops compared to the greats, but i think this one will be another classic, like nemo did when it joined their ranks. cars was pretty good, but it barely scraped the surface. some of the others…just no good. anyway. wall-e looks promising. i just love disney pixar and it sounds like it’s going to be great.

i suppose i’m done name-dropping for tonight, but i can’t wait for either of these movies.

all i’ve been listening to for the past few days are those audiobooks still. i’m on “eclipse” right now, and about 2/3 of the way through, i think. i think this might be my favorite book. so good. the characters do tend to grimace, hiss, glower, sigh, and cry quite a bit, though. oh well. i suppose i can take a few sacrifices for a good book. i downloaded “anne of green gables” from librivox, where you can download a ton of audiobooks that are in the public domain, so i guess that’s next on my list.

my newest musical addiction, however, is charlotte sometimes. on her myspace she lists her influences as being Fiona Apple, Roy Orbison, Van Morrison, Carol King, The Everly Brothers, Death Cab For Cutie, Lisa Loeb, Simon and Garfunkel, The Cardigans, Tracy Bonham, Snow Patrol, Billie Holiday, The Postal Service, Buddy Holly, The Violent Femmes, Rilo Kiley, Tegan and Sara, so you can make your judgments based on that. i personally love her.

and courtesy of nice facts, here are some, well…nice facts.

did you know that males sweat 40% more than females? mon dieu!

and from the quick quotes quill:

“Models are like baseball players. We make a lot of money quickly, but all of a sudden we’re 30 years old, we don’t have a college education, we’re qualified for nothing, and we’re used to a very nice lifestyle. The best thing is to marry a movie star.” – cindy crawford

the incredible hulk…take two June 17, 2008

so i went and saw the new hulk movie last weekend, and i thought i’d give it a little review here. marvel definitely did the right thing in buying back the rights to its characters for movies. first iron man with robert downey jr., which was AWESOME (although i’m ashamed to say that i didn’t see it until last weekend, either – my boyfriend and i had a “marvel”ous weekend. corny, i know.), and now edward norton starring as the hulk (unfortunately, it’s not staying that way). i’m a huge ed norton fan, so that’s a big downer. but i digress.

• acting – ed norton, as bruce banner/the hulk, was brilliant, as usual. it’s too bad marvel wouldn’t listen to him and make the movie a little more “human” as opposed to action, but he did a fantastic job of making banner really sympathetic in this role. liv tyler as betty ross, banner’s love interest – i’m not her hugest fan, but her babydoll voice didn’t kill her in this movie. she did pretty well. fortunately she’s mostly in the second half. tim roth, as blonsky/”bad hulk” the antagonist, was quite good. talented actor who did well in his hunt of banner. i liked ross’s new boyfriend – he kept me laughing out of sheer ridiculousness.

speaking of “humanistic v. action” – you’d think the US army would have figured out after a battle or two that the hulk cannot be defeated with pistols. and if you had banner as a human, why would you do things the hard way and force him into being the hulk before you shoot large explosives at him? it just seemed like the US army couldn’t figure it out…oh well, that’s nothing new.

• computer graphics – good thing marvel bought back their rights and made the hulk look the way he should, not like he came off a can of jolly green giant. blonsky’s hulk was pretty nasty looking, especially with those spikes up his back. i wouldn’t want to cross him in a dark alley…anywhere, really. flying objects and things thrown by the hulk twins looked much more realistic, and there were no jumping/throwing helicopters across a desert shenanigans this time around.
• plot – again, marvel, fantastic. they pretty much rewrote the hulk’s origin, showing it as a science experiment gone badly badly wrong rather than some nuclear crap that happened when banner was a bebe. i felt like the relationship between banner and ross was a little forced at times, but that could be tyler’s slightly-above-par acting.

overall, it was probably worth the $9 my boyfriend’s parents paid for me to see this movie. i’d probably pay to see it again. none of us are “comic book crazies” and we all enjoyed it a lot. can’t wait for the next marvel movies and the final avengers movie coming out when all of the movies for the avengers have been made.

i suppose that’s about all for today. i downloaded the twilight audiobooks this morning from audible.com, so that’s keeping me definitely entertained while i work in the basement at the office all by my lonesome.

i’m looking into setting up a twitter account for the blog. we’ll see. still reading “the pact” by jodi picoult and listening today mostly to death cab for cutie’s new cd “narrow stairs.”

did you know that mel blanc, who played the voice of bugs bunny, was allergic to carrots? ehhh, what’s up, doc?