Reviews

Welcome Back Potter

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

Since seeing this movie several people have asked me if I was going to read the book. To which I answer "No, of course not, the whole reason to see the movie is so you don't have to read the book." Then I'm told that the book is better than the movie, to which I reply. "Well a punch in the head is better then a knee in the crotch." Which makes no sense, but I think you see my point.

When the movie opens we find Harry back with his relatives who are INEXPLICABLY EVIL! You can tell that they are evil because they are fat. All fat people are evil. Remember that fat kid in Junior High that you teased and ostracized? Well, you can stop feeling guilty now because he was EVIL! Harry's uncle tells him he can't go back to Hogwarts this year. Harry relatives hate the fact that he lives with them, so of course the last thing they would want is for him to go away for nine months. Soon an elf shows up who tells Harry that he stole all the letters from Harry's friends, then drops a cake on a woman's head and frames Harry for it. This elf is actually quite a powerful wizard, possessing the dual powers of being a royal pain in the ass and the ability to annoy the crap out of the audience. After a series of hijinx, all of which involve a flying car (Whaa?) Harry and Ron return to school. At first its all fun and games, meeting new people and playing with new gadgets, all of which can easily be turned into Happy Meal® toys. But, the fun and cross promotional opportunities come to an abrupt end when someone starts writing ominous threats on the walls of the school in blood. Someone also writes "Metallica Rules" in black felt tip marker on the hand dryer in the boys bathroom, but that is later determined to be unrelated. (Although a thorough investigation reveals that Metallica does, in fact, rule.)

Things go from bad to worse when students begin to turn up petrified. The faculty is concerned this could lead to students becoming horrified, mesmerized and stupefied. When there is talk of closing the school, Harry, Ron and Hermione begin investigating and Harry learns by going inside a magical diary (Whaaaa?) that this had happened before. A young girl ended up being killed in the bathroom and Hagrid was accused of harboring the culprit. The ghost of a female student that haunts the bathroom later turns out to be the girl that was killed, in a plot twist so obvious I figured it out during the car ride over to the theater. Hagrid insists that his giant pet spider couldn't have killed the girl since she wouldn't have hurt anyone, but later when Harry and Ron go to talk to Giant Pet Spider her children try to kill and eat them. Huh? When I pointed this out to my girlfriend she said that that particular spider didn't try to kill them. Yeah, but she hangs out with killers. Charles Manson never killed anyone but he still wouldn't be on my short list of babysitters. This probably would be made clearer if I read the book. Suddenly I stopped caring.

In the end it turns out to be the work of a younger version of the wizard that killed Harry's parents that was magically stored in a book. (Whaaaaaa?) This conveniently allows Harry to fight and defeat his arch-nemesis while being able to do it again later. Like in a Nintendo game when you defeat the boss, only to be told that the real boss is on the next level. Thank you Mario. But our Princess is in another castle.

In the end the entire school gets together to cheer for Harry, just like in real life. I smell another sequel. You heard it here first.

The Gang's All Here

Gangs of New York

A lot of movies are accused of glorifying violence. This movie is not one of them, which is weird since this is one of the few movies I've ever seen that actually does. The point of this movie is that violence not only built the City So Nice They Named It Twice, but all of friggin' America. They might as well have had blood-splattered dancing girls holding banners that said "Hooray For Violence!" In fact they might have, but I'll get to that later.

The movie opens with two armies gathering for war. One is led by Daniel Day-Lewis as the racist, brutal "Bill the Butcher", who is determined to take back the streets from the hordes of immigrants that pour into New York Harbor every day. The other is led Liam Niesson as the stoic, vengeful Irish immigrant they call "The Priest", who will carve out a niche for himself and his kind in this new land, even if it kills him. The two men have a strange mix of hatred and respect towards each other. Their armies meet on an empty plot in the middle of the city and do battle. Soon the snow is stained with blood and The Priest falls. His young son races to his side. Bill declares that The Priest's body is not to be desecrated, and battle continues on. This is awesome. In fact this is one of the best movies I've ever seen. But, suddenly this movie comes to an end, and a new movie starts. This movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz. And, although the previous sentence makes the next sentence redundant, I'm going to write it anyway. This movie isn't as good.

Leonardo (not the ninja turtle) is the now grown up son of The Priest, and he plans to exact revenge on Bill for killing his father. This plan involves joining Bill's gang, getting a girlfriend and saving Bill from an assassination attempt. Hey, I didn't say it was a good plan.

Cameron Diaz plays the girlfriend, whom Leo (not the astrological sign) falls in love with after she picks his pocket. Which is how I believe Prince Charles met Diana. Its a bit of a forbidden love, since Diaz was once Bill's main squeeze. At one point she says to Leo "If our love is wrong, or pointless, or brings the movie to a grinding halt, then I don't want to be right, or be necessary, or have a well paced movie."

Daniel Day-Lewis occasionally shows up from that earlier, better movie to act rings around everyone else. Dan (we're on a first name basis) apparently spent months learning to do an old New York accent. Which, coincidently, happens to sound like someone doing a bad Robert De Niro impression. Picture this, you're at a party, and some drunk jackass who thinks he's good at impressions, but isn't, start doing his "De Niro" for everyone. "I'm De Niro over here. I'm in Gangs of New York. I play a butcher. I have a cool handle-bar mustache." See what I'm saying, they sound the same!

A lot of other stuff happens in this movie, but I can't really remember all of it. Which speaks volumes about the movie. Eventually, Leo gets around to exacting his revenge on Bill (but not before Bill publicly humiliates him, which is awesome). He somehow gets an huge army together in about a day and a half. I tried to get an army together but the only people who'd join were the neighbor's kid and that old guy at the end of the block. But, we're training hard and were going to be to kick some serious ass pretty soon.

There's some sort of riot and Leo kills Bill. Its a good indication how much I didn't like Leonardo DiCaprio in this movie, that I was upset when the racist dies. At one point I shouted out "Yay bigotry!" But I shut up pretty quickly since I was in a theater in New York. And, there were probably some people in the theater who were actually in gangs. Which is kind of karmic when you think about it. Well, don't think about it too much.

Not That Tesla Song

Signs

In "Signs", Mel Gibson stars as Father Hess, a preacher who has lost his faith. His wife was killed in a car accident and Mel blames God. God was the other driver. He claims he slid on some black ice. God: "I don't know why I ever invented that stuff. Its so treacherous!"

Rounding out the cast as Mel's family are younger brothers of more famous actors. Joaquin Phoenix plays Mel's brother who tried and failed to play minor league baseball. (What an interesting character note, I wonder if that will be important later on?) One of the lesser Culkins plays Mel's son. Uh, Tito, I think. Mel also has a young daughter who has a phobia about drinking water and leaves half full glasses of water all over the house. (What a quirky trait! I'm sure that won't become conveniently helpful at the end.) I'll wait to learn this actress' name when she robs a liquor store in about fifteen years.

One day Mel wakes up to discover there is a crop circle in his corn field. Everyone starts to suspect it might be aliens, despite the fact that crop circles were proved to be a hoax in the mid-nineties. Oh well, some people still believe in Nostrudamus. Which just proves my theory: People are stupid.

Soon, the family starts seeing reports on TV about strange, and surely alien related, occurrences all around the world. They show a video of a birthday party where one of the aliens in glimpsed in the background. All the people at the party start freaking out, but they calm down when it turns out the alien was just dropping off a card that says "Have an Out-Of-This-World Birthday!"

The alien invasion begins and Mel and his family hide in their basement. They hear all sorts of scary noises, and the son as a rather inconsiderate asthma attack. The next day it looks its all over. They come out of the basement, but wait! There is one alien left and ITS IN THEIR HOUSE! They start fighting the alien and the it backs up and some of the water drips on it and, oh Lord here we go, the water burns the alien like acid.

Okay, stop. Lets break this down for a second. These aliens traveled half way across the galaxy to invade our planet and they can't touch water! Didn't they send out scouts to check the place out first? What the hell were they planning to do with this planet? Water covers three-quarters of the earth. It sometimes water falls out of the sky! And if water hurts them, what about ice, or steam, or snow, or fog, or sleet, or hail, or a "wintry mix"? There are water molecules in the air. Shouldn't that have been hurting them? Our bodies are ninety-seven percent water. When you can defeat your enemy by bleeding on them, they don't seem that scary. I mean, sure, make the thing that hurts the aliens some common household item, like bleach, or Frankenberry cereal. But, water? It wasn't raining anywhere in the world when they attacked? What if the alien fell asleep outside and dew collected on him, when would it start hurting? All right, I'll done.

What about condensation of soda bottles? Okay, I'm really done this time.

So, they pour water on the alien, then Joaquin beats the crap out of him with a baseball bat. And everyone lives happily ever after. Except the aliens. In conclusion, this was a pretty decent movie. Except the part with the water. Because that was just stupid.

What about when car windows fog up?