Who is John Alvin and what does he have to do with your favorite movies?

You might not know John Alvin by name, but if you’re a fan of movies like E.T , The Goonies , The Princess Bride , and The Lost Boys , you’re already famil­iar with him.

He’s the artist behind many of the most iconic movie posters of the past 40 years, with a career that spans decades of sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the film indus­try, includ­ing posters, album cov­ers, and orig­i­nal art. John Alvin once said that his work  “cre­ated the promise of a great experience.”

Through­out his career, Alvin designed orig­i­nal art for over 120 films. You’ll prob­a­bly rec­og­nize his most recent work for films like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Pot­ter , for which he con­tributed orig­i­nal works of art that have a sur­real, hand painted feel to them that instantly invoke nos­tal­gia (a style I wish were still pop­u­lar today).

To this day, Alvin’s art­work (the style of which is often described as “Alvi­nesque”) con­tin­ues to inspire gen­er­a­tions of new design­ers and his work remains among the most sought-after and col­lected pieces of film mem­o­ra­bilia (espe­cially the orig­i­nal art he designed for the Star Wars 10th Anniver­sary ).

Sadly, Alvin passed away in 2008, but he leaves behind a legacy of cel­e­brated art­work beloved by film buffs everywhere.

John Alvin Gallery

Here’s a col­lec­tion of my favorite movie posters by John Alvin:

To learn more about John Alvin and see a more com­plete gallery of his works, visit JohnAlvinArt.com .

ParaNorman is “John Carpenter Meets John Hughes” & Other ‘80s Coolness

If Para­Nor­man , the upcom­ing stop-motion ani­mated zom­bie film from the same pro­duc­tion com­pany that did Cora­line , didn’t already seem like some­thing you want to watch imme­di­ately, the cre­ators have given us some new bits of cool to chew on:

In a recent press inter­view , writer/director Chris But­ler and co-director Sam Fell said the orig­i­nal idea for Para­Nor­man was “John Car­pen­ter meets John Hughes, and it spi­raled out from there.”

The small New Eng­land town of Blithe Hol­low comes under siege by the undead. Only a mis­un­der­stood local boy, Nor­man Bab­cock, who has the abil­ity to speak with the dead, is able to pre­vent the destruc­tion of his town from a centuries-old witch’s curse. He’ll also have to take on ghosts, witches, zom­bies and worst of all, the moronic grown-ups. But this young ghoul whis­perer may find his para­nor­mal activ­i­ties pushed to their oth­er­worldly lim­its.

The idea for Para­Nor­man came to But­ler over ten years ago, as he was inspired by films and tele­vi­sion shows from his child­hood like The Goonies , Scooby-Doo , Ghost­busters and Pol­ter­geist .

The film, which pays homage to the many won­der­ful, kid-friendly ‘80s films that blended hor­ror with com­ing of age, is set in “a small, working-class East Coast town that’s not quite right and it’s kind of rot­ten at the edges, so it’s not a per­fect ani­mated town. We’ve got peel­ing paint and graf­fiti and trash on the ground,” But­ler said.

“I wanted to tell the story of this kid who didn’t fit in, and I wanted it to feel real. Cer­tainly to have a film that is told from the point of view of kids, there has to be hon­esty to it.”

So, if you’re keep­ing score, Para­Nor­man has going for it:

• John Hughes-style angst
• A clas­sic John Car­pen­ter ‘80s hor­ror vibe
• Dreary, driz­zly East Coast small town aesthetic
• Gor­geous, painstak­ingly hand­crafted stop motion
• Zombies!

My advice is to run, don’t walk, to see Para­Nor­man when it opens in the­aters August 17. You can watch the offi­cial teaser trailer here:

Some Awesome Guy Edited All Three ‘Uncharted’ Games into Movies

Love  Uncharted but can’t wait for the upcom­ing film that’s tak­ing Hol­ly­wood a painfully long time to make? Here’s some­thing to tide you over:

Red­dit user mor­phi­napg who is totally fuck­ing awe­some, accord­ing to my offi­cial sources, had the good graces to edit all three Uncharted  games into feature-length movies.  He did so by splic­ing together all of the cin­e­matic cut scenes along with the least amount of game­play pos­si­ble to flesh out the plot.  And he put them on YouTube for all to enjoy–including you grumpy non-PS3 own­ers who always <a href=“https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=don” onclick=“javascript:_gaq.push([’_trackEvent’,‘outbound-article’,‘http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=don’]);“t+own+ps3+uncharted#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=why+isn’t+uncharted+on+xbox&oq=why+isn’t+uncharted&aq=0&aqi=g1&aql=&gs_nf=1&gs_l=serp.3.0.0.1020.3364.2.4011.19.12.0.7.7.1.197.904.10j2.19.0.SHHWN-rT7nE&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=a366a72422fd9740” target=“_blank”> go around bitching how you’ll never get to play these amaz­ing games.

Obvi­ously if you’ve never played the Uncharted games, the videos below con­tain gigantic-ass spoil­ers so pro­ceed at your own risk.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

Run­ning time:  114 min­utes

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Run­ning time:  178 min­utes

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

Run­ning time: 196 min­utes

This is way bet­ter than Mark Wahlberg Talks to Trea­sure –the Uncharted film that we almost got .

‘American Reunion’ a Hilarious & Fitting End to the American Pie Franchise

Note: for max­i­mum preser­va­tion of lulz, this is a spoiler-free review!

Being a grad­u­ate of the Class of ’99 and hav­ing grown up along with the Amer­i­can Pie gang, it was inevitable that I’d see Amer­i­can Reunion , the fourth and final film in the Pie fran­chise that takes place 13 years after the original.

There’s a rea­son why these films are con­sid­ered by many to be clas­sics (with the excep­tion of those hor­ri­ble straight-to-video cheap spin-offs ). For those of us squarely in their tar­get demo­graphic, the Amer­i­can Pie films are like mile­stones by which we can mea­sure our own lives:

• 1999: Amer­i­can Pie came out. I had just grad­u­ated high school. Prom (and dis­pos­able boyfriend) was behind me. My friends were the most impor­tant thing to me in the world.
• 2001: Amer­i­can Pie 2 came out. I was in col­lege, had started my first “real” job, and was try­ing to fig­ure out what to do with my life in between par­ty­ing and try­ing to hold on to my youth.
• 2003: Amer­i­can Wed­ding came out. I was in love, engaged, and look­ing for­ward to my own wed­ding. (It didn’t end well, by the way, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.)

So last night it was with great inter­est and pangs of nos­tal­gia that I went to the the­ater to see Amer­i­can Reunion .

From the moment I heard the first lines of R. Kelly’s glo­ri­ously cheesy sex anthem Bump N’ Grind –the film’s open­ing song–I knew I was in for some seri­ous laughs. Actu­ally, there were very few moments dur­ing the whole film when I–along with every­one else at the theater–wasn’t in hys­ter­ics. Like the pre­vi­ous films, Amer­i­can Reunion opens with a spec­tac­u­larly raunchy gag that made me glad I decided to skip the soda.

Amer­i­can Pie fans will be happy to know that every­one from the entire orig­i­nal cast has reunited for this film–and I mean every­one . Just when you’re think­ing “Hey, where’s so-and-so?” that char­ac­ter shows up; usu­ally to great comedic effect.

Thir­teen years later, we learn Jim (Jason Biggs) and Michelle (Alyson Han­ni­gan) are still mar­ried but now with a tod­dler and fiz­zling sex life, Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is an archi­tect and hap­pily mar­ried, Chris/“Oz” (Chris Klein) is a famous sports­caster and TV per­son­al­ity with a huge L.A. man­sion and a tro­phy girl­friend, and Sti­fler (Seann William Scott) is a temp at a large invest­ment firm.  Oh, and  Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas)? He’s essen­tially “the most inter­est­ing man in the world” to have ever grad­u­ated East Great Falls High , but that’s all I will tell you with­out spoil­ing anything.

Every­thing that made you fall in love with these char­ac­ters in the first place is present and accounted for:  Jim’s awk­ward con­ver­sa­tions with his Dad, Finch’s too-cool-for-school atti­tude, Kevin’s wist­ful inter­ludes with Vicky, Oz and Heather’s elu­sive romance, and Stifler’s oblig­a­tory obnoxiousness.

Although the premise is a lit­tle flimsy (a 13-year high school reunion?), you’ll be laugh­ing so hard it won’t even mat­ter.  You know those come­dies that blow their wad early by includ­ing all the fun­ni­est bits in the trailer ? I can assure you that’s not the case here. It’s not just a film full of sex jokes or one-liners, either (even though there’s plenty of that too).  Some of the gags are pretty elab­o­rate and the pay­offs are huge. (Again, so glad I opted not to drink anything.)

But Amer­i­can Reunion is not with­out a few seri­ous moments too.  The film is anchored by the rela­tion­ship between Jim and Michelle and Stifler’s grow­ing fear and ulti­mately real­iza­tion that his best days are behind him.  The char­ac­ters are han­dled with care and I felt each of their sto­ries was given a sat­is­fy­ing con­clu­sion. Clearly a lot of care and atten­tion to detail went into this movie, and it def­i­nitely shows in the cast performances.

Oh! I also wanted to be sure to men­tion the sound­track, which I found to be an enjoy­able blend of old and new. There’s cur­rent big hits ( You Make Me Feel, Sexy and I Know It, Every­body Talks… ) as well as songs that took me right back to high school ( Wannabe, My Own Worst Enemy, Clos­ing Time… ).  Fans will also rec­og­nize a few songs from the pre­vi­ous films that reprise their role as theme music for the char­ac­ters. It’s also worth men­tion­ing how mas­sive the Amer­i­can Reunion sound­track is–60 songs! But don’t expect to be able to pur­chase a com­plete one  yet.

In this dis­ap­point­ing era of Amer­i­can cin­ema where sequels and remakes are the norm and our child­hoods are con­stantly being plun­dered , I found myself really sur­prised by Amer­i­can Reunion .  Now please don’t make any more Amer­i­can Pie films so we can end this thing on a high note!

ShezCrafti’s Rating:

9 out of 10 stars.

Why ‘Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles’ is a Terrible Idea

You’ve most likely heard by now that the  Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles are about to become the Teenage ALIEN Ninja Tur­tles in the upcom­ing 2013 film pro­duced by Michael Bay.

In a video quote that has got­ten TMNT fans’ col­lec­tive panties in a bunch to the point where even ex-TMNT celebri­ties and major news out­lets are weigh­ing in on the back­lash, Bay said:

“These tur­tles are from an alien race , and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny, and com­pletely lov­able.” [Source]

As a huge TMNT fan, I’ve been furi­ous   since I heard about it  on Twit­ter, and the fact that Michael Bay has a track record of ruin­ing beloved fran­chises from our child­hoods doesn’t help.

But I under­stand that Bay is just the pro­ducer and didn’t write the ‘Ninja Tur­tles’ script, so I’m not here to bash Michael Bay specif­i­cally (at least not today). So con­sider this blog post directed at who­ever is respon­si­ble for the idi­otic, hor­ri­bly ill-conceived idea that the Tur­tles should be aliens.

Image credit:  Goon­gas­nootch  @ Techn­odrome Forums

Now that I’ve had a few days to calm my ner­drage and col­lect my thoughts, it’s time we discussed:

6 com­pletely ratio­nal rea­sons why Teenage Alien Ninja Tur­tles is a ter­ri­ble idea:

1. Their name is Teenage MUTANT Ninja Tur­tles for chris­sakes. It’s obvi­ous, I know, but let’s not over­look the basic facts, ok? Because who­ever wrote the new script sure as hell did. I guess now we know why the new film will just be called ‘Ninja Turtles.’

2. It’s a com­pletely unnec­es­sary change to one of the core ele­ments of the Turtle’s mythol­ogy. How would you feel if Spi­der­man was never bit­ten by a radioac­tive spi­der? Or if Super­man wasn’t from planet Kryp­ton? (Feel free to sub­sti­tute any of your favorite superhero’s ori­gin sto­ries here.) The Tur­tles are, and always have been, actual tur­tles  who were trans­formed into what they are by muta­gen ooze. This is an essen­tial com­po­nent of the ori­gin story that you’ll find in every incar­na­tion of TMNT, includ­ing the comics, films, TV shows, and video games.

3.  If the Tur­tles are aliens, it means they weren’t cre­ated by acci­dent.  The shock of dis­cov­er­ing the fact that they were essen­tially cre­ated by acci­dent and the result­ing strug­gle to find their place in the world is a cru­cial part of the Tur­tles’ back­story. It’s a major theme that has shaped each of the Tur­tles’ per­son­al­i­ties and story arcs in some way. Take that away and you’ve removed one of the most essen­tial dri­vers of the Tur­tles’ char­ac­ter development.

4.  It means the Tur­tles are much less unique.   “Alien race” implies there could be lots of other Tur­tles out there. If there’s sud­denly a whole home planet of Tur­tles, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles don’t really seem so spe­cial, do they? The idea of adding more Ninja Tur­tles beyond the orig­i­nal four into the Turtle­verse is an idea that TMNT co-creator Peter Laird describes on his blog as a “weak, facile, cre­atively bank­rupt idea.” Ouch. Then again, I sup­pose that’s what he gets for sell­ing the franchise.

5.  It down­plays the impor­tance of Splinter’s role in the Tur­tles’ lives.   Splinter—a rat who is of course also a mutant and not an alien—is the Tur­tles’ sen­sei, care­taker and father fig­ure who raised them since they were babies, hav­ing been mutated from the same pud­dle of ooze. Shar­ing the Tur­tles’ same fate is what gives them such a strong bond. How does Splin­ter fit into the new alien ori­gin? Would the Tur­tles still look upon him as a father if they have an alien fam­ily chill­ing back on the home planet? Is there another whole planet full of rat peo­ple?? (Again—unnecessary com­pli­ca­tions to to an ori­gin story that is already quite com­pli­cated enough.)

6. It makes the actual alien stuff in the Turtle­verse a whole lot less inter­est­ing.   Now I know some of you are sit­ting there think­ing, “But wait a minute, the Tur­tles already kind of have an alien ori­gin!” Yes, it’s true that the Turtle­verse is already rife with aliens (e.g. Krang, Tricer­a­tons, Utroms…). Even the muta­gen that trans­formed the Tur­tles is an alien sub­stance cre­ated by (wait for it…) aliens . The point is there’s already ALL KINDS of alien crea­tures, char­ac­ters, plot lines, uni­verses to draw from if they want to go that route. Do we really need to make the Tur­tles aliens too?

To sum up:

If Bay and com­pany want to put aliens in the new Ninja Tur­tles flick, I’m totally fine with that. Krang, Bee­bop and Rock­steady? Awe­some! But for God’s sake–

LEAVE THE TURTLES ALONE!!!

Review: ‘Starry Starry Night’ is a Beautiful, Imaginative Coming of Age Film

You’ve prob­a­bly never heard of the Tai­wanese film Starry Starry Night , a com­ing of age drama directed by Tom Lin that was released in late 2011. I had cer­tainly never heard of it until a few weeks ago when it popped up in my DVD rec­om­men­da­tions over at YESASIA , and every­thing I read about it just seemed so appeal­ing to my inter­ests that I couldn’t resist pick­ing it up.

The film is an adap­ta­tion of a children’s book by Jimmy Liao , a Tai­wanese illus­tra­tor and pic­ture book author renown for his melan­choly depic­tions of child­hood using vivid col­ors and strik­ing visuals.

The story cen­ters on Mei, a bright, sen­si­tive but lonely 13-year-old girl who is deal­ing with a lot of issues in her young life. She’s quiet and with­drawn at school, her par­ents are on the brink of divorce and barely notice her, her mother is grow­ing increas­ingly dis­tant and drinks too much, and her grand­fa­ther, whom she loves more than any­one else in the world, is in very poor health.

Mei is a very imag­i­na­tive girl who fills her days with art, puz­zles, day­dreams, and yearns for the days when she used to live with her grand­par­ents at their cot­tage in the moun­tains. One day around Christ­mas­time, Mei hears beau­ti­ful recorder music out­side her bed­room win­dow and sees that its being played  by a young boy, who is at the win­dow of a neigh­bor­ing apartment.

The boy turns out to be Jie, a new stu­dent at Mei’s school who is a bud­ding artist also deal­ing with many issues of his own. His artis­tic tal­ents and cocky atti­tude make him an easy tar­get for the other boys at the school who con­stantly bully him. Mei can’t help but feel drawn toward Jie, and after a series of rocky events in both their lives, the pair begins a tremu­lous friendship.

As Mei and Jie’s rela­tion­ship blos­soms, they both begin to over­come their lone­li­ness and adver­sity while try­ing to cope with the ongo­ing harass­ment of their class­mates. There is a strong under­cur­rent of desire between the two leads, who grow closer and closer and even­tu­ally run away together on a fan­tas­tic adven­ture. Their sum­mer romance is short-lived, but sets in motion the events that will for­ever change both of their lives.

Starry Starry Night has been described as a “visual feast” for its beau­ti­ful cin­e­matog­ra­phy that blends together rich, imag­i­na­tive visu­als with dra­matic light­ing and shadow play.  The film is punc­tu­ated by gor­geous CGI fan­tasy sequences where Mei’s imag­i­na­tion takes over, as she envi­sions inan­i­mate objects—her grandfather’s wooden ani­mal carv­ings, col­or­ful pieces of origami, fan­tas­tic shadow beasts—coming to life all around her. This focus on Mei’s imag­i­na­tion as an exten­sion of her character’s hopes and dreams is a beau­ti­ful way of look­ing at the world through a child’s lens.

The mes­mer­iz­ing score is another ele­ment that adds to the dream­like qual­ity of the film. It’s a mix­ture of del­i­cate music box melodies, and sweep­ing, ethe­real lul­la­bies that really makes the imagery soar.

There are a few flaws, how­ever, such as the film’s some­times labo­ri­ously slow pac­ing; but at least the film’s unques­tion­able beauty makes the jour­ney worth­while. There are also some direc­to­r­ial choices that pile on too much unnec­es­sary melo­drama, and visual metaphors that are too obvi­ous.  These are only minor com­plaints, though.

Starry Starry Night may not wow you with its uncom­pli­cated plot and sim­ple spe­cial effects, but if you enjoy ten­der com­ing of age sto­ries and deep char­ac­ter devel­op­ment, I can­not rec­om­mend this film highly enough.

ShezCrafti’s Rating:

7 out of 10 stars.

13 Unique Etsy Finds Inspired by ‘Labyrinth’

I was cruis­ing around on Etsy today (as I often tend to do when I have  money burn­ing a hole in my pocket) and came across some pretty awe­some hand­made cre­ations inspired by the great­est 80’s fan­tasy film,  Labyrinth.   Below is a sam­pling of the most inter­est­ing items I could find, which range from cute to creepy.

Now hurry up, because you’ve only got 13 hours left to solve the labyrinth.

Cus­tom ‘Jareth’ Doll

Sure it’s a lit­tle creepy, but kinda cute at the same time.  At least CavingInn man­aged to get the size of David Bowie’s pack­age cor­rect, which I’m sure is the pri­mary rea­son why some­one would pur­chase this one-of-a-kind Jareth doll in the first place.  Er—that is, from what I hear.

“You have no power over me!” Framed Artwork

With this framed typog­ra­phy quote from BearAn­dRo­bot, you’ll never have trou­ble remem­ber­ing this line again.

‘Sarah’ Costume

Sarah was rock­ing the puffy shirt long before Sein­feld. FaerySpell­Cre­ations made this bil­lowy  cus­tom blouse and vest inspired by Sarah’s out­fit in the film.  I rec­om­mend pair­ing it with jeans and cheap plas­tic jew­elry to get the full effect.

Adorable Stuffed ‘Ludo’

This lit­tle guy is a hand­made cre­ation of felt and fur by Pelu­dossa, who some­how man­aged to make Ludo even more adorable than he already is.

Hand Sewn ‘Wild Gang’ Plush

With one of these hand sewn fire gob­lins by Pelu­dossa , you can “chilly down with the Wild Gang” (what­ever the hell that means) until you remem­ber you’ve  got a baby brother to save.  Sadly, the stuffed ver­sion doesn’t have a remov­able head.

‘Junk Lady’ Hand­made Art Doll

The Junk Lady was one of the coolest gob­lins in the film, and hap­pens to also be one of the coolest items on this list.  For $100, JunkPunkshop will hand­craft an orig­i­nal, one-of-a-kind gob­lin hag made of poly­mer clay who car­ries around all sorts of mis­cel­la­neous house­hold objects on her back.

‘Jareth’ Pen­dant & Mas­quer­ade Pin

There’s such a sad love deep in David Bowie’s heav­ily lined and mascara’d eyes…  These beau­ti­ful jew­elry pieces by The­Black­Em­po­rium were inspired by the film’s dreamy mas­quer­ade scene.

‘Hog­gle’ Doll Knit Pattern

Knit your own vertically-challenged, anti-social gob­lin com­pan­ion with one of AprilDraven’s Hog­gle knit­ting pat­terns .  This one won’t try to poi­son you or pee in your fountain.

“‘Ello!” Worm Hand­made Ring

Now here’s a Labyrinth worm acces­sory that’s more to scale. With this adorable hand­made,  hand painted ring from Art­ByAelia, you can lit­er­ally wrap Labyrinth’s cutest char­ac­ter around your lit­tle finger.

Dis­en­chanted ‘Door Knocker’ Pin

Knock and the door will open! (Pro­vided you haven’t pissed it off.)  Be a won­der­ful con­ver­sa­tional com­pan­ion with this hand sculpted gob­lin pin from froudian artist Trollflings.

‘Magic Dance’ Cat Colllar

What’s more fun than watch­ing Labyrinth ? Watch­ing Labyrinth while humil­i­at­ing your cat. You and kitty can dance magic dance in style with one of these bitchin’ cat col­lars from FurButtons.

‘Bog of Eter­nal Stench’ Scented Oil

I’m not sure I want to know what The Bog of Eter­nal Stench smells like, but for a mere $3.50 you adven­tur­ous types can pur­chase a vial of scented oil from rose­mary­grace  that smells just like…like…OH WHO CARES WHAT IT SMELLS LIKE, IT’S THE BOG OF ETERNAL STENCH!

‘Stu­pid Baby’ Pin

This hilar­i­ous Labyrinth pin by The­Car­bon­Cru­sader says it all. Now go say the magic words again.

Hon­or­able mention:

In what can only be described as the most majes­tic work of art I have ever laid eyes upon, “The Gob­lin King’s Cross­ing” is a cus­tom oil paint­ing by Uni­cor­natopia of Jareth rid­ing a uni­corn, hold­ing aloft his mighty power crys­tal while famil­iar Labyrinth dwellers look on with unabashed awe.

Review: ‘Chronicle’ is Surprisingly Good for an Angsty Found Footage Teen Film

Chron­i­cle is a sci-fi thriller about three teenage boys who come into con­tact with a strange, radioac­tive sub­stance found in a well near their Seat­tle home, and weeks later dis­cover that they’ve devel­oped telekinesis-like abilities.

The story cen­ters on angsty high­schooler Andrew Det­mer, who begins doc­u­ment­ing his trou­bled life with video.  He con­stantly gets picked on, his dad is an abu­sive drunk, and his mother lay dying of can­cer.  It doesn’t get much worse than Andrew’s life.  And so he finds solace behind the cam­era, con­stantly film­ing at every oppor­tu­nity (much to the annoy­ance of his friends and classmates).

The first part of the film is pretty much what you’d expect: through Andrew’s lens, we get a good intro­duc­tory glimpse of his life, his friends, and his prob­lems. About 12 min­utes in, every­thing changes after he and his friends Matt and Steve stum­ble across the mys­te­ri­ous well.  From there after­ward the boys begin doc­u­ment­ing their pow­ers on video, test­ing the lim­its of their abil­i­ties with gen­uine awe at what they’re capa­ble of, often in humor­ous ways (for instance play­ing pranks on unsus­pect­ing peo­ple).  With the new­found sense of belong­ing that Matt and Steve pro­vide, Andrew’s per­sonal life begins to trans­form as well, gain­ing more con­fi­dence and con­trol in his social life even when things are falling apart at home.

And this is where Chron­i­cle  really gets inter­est­ing. Rather than focus­ing too much on the “Hey, look at my awe­some super pow­ers, isn’t this cool?” aspect of Andrew’s story, the film takes a much darker turn as we learn that Andrew’s inten­tions and moti­va­tions aren’t exactly pure.  Tired of being bul­lied and his mis­er­able home life, Andrew beings to rec­og­nize that hav­ing such power also means hav­ing the abil­ity to pun­ish those who would do him harm.  And power in the hands of some­one who is so obvi­ously dis­turbed is a very dan­ger­ous thing.

The film’s unspo­ken ques­tion: if you sud­denly devel­oped super pow­ers, what kind of per­son would you  be?

Shock­u­men­tary hor­ror films like Blair Witch and Clover­field that favor the shaky, first-person hand­cam method to tell the story as if it were “real” footage usu­ally come across as highly unbe­liev­able because, hon­estly, what kind of fuck­ing idiot would keep the cam­era rolling in ter­ri­fy­ing life-or-death sit­u­a­tions? (For what it’s worth,  REC  was one of the only films to get the ‘found footage’ for­mula right.)  But In a non-horror film like  Chron­i­cle,  the found footage style makes more sense to me. In the age of YouTube, I have no prob­lems believ­ing that a bunch of bored teenagers who sud­denly develop super pow­ers would want to film all the awe­some things they can do.

That’s why I was pleas­antly sur­prised by how well Chron­i­cle  works. Direc­tor Josh Trank, who is only 26 years old, by the way, is to be com­mended for putting his unique twist on the found footage trend with this direc­to­r­ial debut. Rather than mind­lessly mimic the first-person shoot­ing style like so many other films have done, he cre­ates char­ac­ter sit­u­a­tions that allow for dif­fer­ent film­ing per­spec­tives, bet­ter cam­era angles, and more inter­est­ing frames of reference.

For exam­ple, there’s a pretty insane action sequence toward the end of the film where we get to wit­ness the events unfold through traf­fic and secu­rity cam­eras posi­tioned all around down­town Seat­tle. In some other cases, how­ever, it felt like the film­ing sit­u­a­tions were far too con­trived.  But over­all I think the direc­tion was appro­pri­ate and var­ied enough so that you don’t feel like you’re trudg­ing through loads of raw footage wait­ing for some­thing cool to hap­pen (fuck you, Para­nor­mal Activ­ity ).  Cool stuff def­i­nitely hap­pens in this movie. I don’t want to give too much away, but I can promise there are some fan­tas­tic “WTF” moments that come out of nowhere, and awe­some action sequences that must be seen to be believed.

I believe Chron­i­cle  is an amaz­ing achieve­ment in low-budget film­mak­ing.  If you can put aside your expec­ta­tions of what found footage films are typ­i­cally like and just let your­self get immersed in the story, this movie can be a lot of fun.

ShezCrafti’s Rating:

7 out of 10 stars.

New ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Live Action Film in the Works, Jonathan Liebesman to Direct

Via Scoop.it — Shezcrafti

Hey, remem­ber a few years ago when we heard there’d be a new live-action Ninja Tur­tles film in 2011 and I got all excited about it ?  Just when I was start­ing to give up hope, I saw the news this morning:

Para­mount is in devel­op­ment on a live-action reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles. It has been a rough tran­si­tion so far from comic to fea­ture, but the stu­dio is tak­ing the project in an unex­pected direc­tion. Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form of Plat­inum Dunes—the pro­duc­tion com­pany behind hor­ror remakes such A Night­mare on Elm Street and Fri­day the 13th—are shep­herd­ing the reboot. The stu­dio assigned the script to Josh Appel­baum and Andre Nemec, the writ­ers who most recently penned the whip-smart Mis­sion: Impos­si­ble – Ghost Protocol.

Now Vari­ety reports Jonathan Liebesman is in nego­ti­a­tions to direct. Liebesman directed Bat­tle: Los Ange­les, and his next project is Wrath of the Titans. He’s the up-and-comer you call when you want a big action film. Tone will always be tricky when your main char­ac­ters are anthro­po­mor­phic tur­tles who know mar­tial arts. But if they can rein­vent TMNT on the level of, say, Bay’s Trans­form­ers… well, that sounds like a blast.

Via collider.com

Cow­abunga says it all.

Ten Unusual Wines that Geeks Would Love

With Valentine’s Day just around the cor­ner, any one of these wines would make an awe­some gift to present to that spe­cial geek in your life:

Wines for Gamers

Player 1  by 8-bit Vintners

“Player 1″ was cre­ated by an actual gamer, and comes from the wine­mak­ing region of Walla Walla, Wash­ing­ton.  Owner/gamer Mike James says, “My wine is for any­one who spent time try­ing to save a princess or fit odd shaped blocks together. We may have never met, but we have more in com­mon than we ever knew. So blow out that old Con­tra car­tridge, give the NES a good dust off, and pour your­self a glass.”  Sadly, 8-bit Vint­ners has closed up shop, but you can still pur­chase the wine on Ebay and other places (if you know where to look).

Boss Mon­ster by Woot Cellars

This 2007 zin­fan­del from Woot Cel­lars is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of every ter­ri­ble boss you’ve ever encoun­tered in a video game (though I think he looks vaguely rem­i­nis­cent of Phan­toon from Super Metroid).  “Boss Mon­ster” is a lim­ited edi­tion wine that is only some­times avail­able via Wine.Woot .  If you like wine and enjoy get­ting a good deal, you might want to sign up for Wine.Woot’s deal-a-day style offers.

Stun­lock , nOOb , & Gamer Win­dow  by GamerWine

Gamer­Wine is avail­able in three vari­eties with relat­able names: Stun­lock , a rich red; nOOB , a full-bodied Mer­lot; and Gamer Win­dow , a smooth Pinot Gri­gio.  Sug­gested pair­ings:  Hot Pock­ets, Pizza Rolls and Cheetos.

Wines for Fan­tasy Film Buffs

The Bot­tle of Wits by Alamo Drafthouse

“The Bot­tle of Wits” is a new line of sig­na­ture wines by Alamo Draft­house inspired by everyone’s favorite 80’s fan­tasy film, The Princess Bride, which cel­e­brates its 25th anniver­sary this year.  The line includes both red and white vari­eties: “As You Wish White,” a light, golden medium-bodied Cal­i­for­nia blend, and “Incon­ceiv­able Cab,” a 2009 vin­tage Cal­i­for­nia Caber­net.  The wine will go for sale online start­ing Feb­ru­ary 14, 2012.

Wines for Hor­ror Fans

Zom­bie Zin by Chateau Diana Winery

From Chateau Diana Win­ery in Healds­burg, Cal­i­for­nia comes “Zom­bie Zin­fan­del” that is blood-red in color and described as “hor­ridly rich in con­cen­trated fruit fla­vors with a fin­ish that never dies!” Clever.  And here I thought the only zom­bies with mohawks were from Tiris­fal Glades.

Return of the Liv­ing Red by Red­heads Studio

“Return of the Liv­ing Red” is a red wine from Red­heads Stu­dio (I see what they did there), which is a small win­ery in South Aus­tralia. The wine is dark gar­net in color, full-bodied, with fla­vors of cur­rants and black­ber­ries.  The grue­some (but awe­some) pack­ag­ing was designed by Mash .

Kil­li­b­in­bin by Broth­ers in Arms

This col­lec­tion of “killer” wines is by Broth­ers in Arms of the Met­alia vine­yard, also in South Aus­tralia (side note: why does Aus­tralia have all the cool wines?).  The labels were designed after vin­tage hor­ror movie posters to play up the “kill” part of the wine’s name.

Vam­pire, Drac­ula & True­blood by Vam­pire Vineyards

When it comes to vampire-themed wines, Vam­pire Vine­yards pretty much has the mar­ket cor­nered.  The vineyard’s full line includes Vam­pire, Drac­ula, True­blood, and Chateau du Vamm­pire.  There’s even red Vam­pire Vodka, and the com­pany is also branch­ing out into other vampire-themed bev­er­ages  like soda, cof­fee and energy drinks.  Thanks to the pop­u­lar­ity of Twi­light, True Blood, The Vam­pire Diaries, etc, it’s no sur­prise that this type of bla­tant pan­der­ing has also been very suc­cess­ful for the com­pany (just read their nau­se­at­ing  About Us page).

Wines for Techies

USB Port by Peltier Station

A zin­fan­del dessert wine, “USB Port” (get it?) has a rich, sweet fla­vor that bal­ances choco­late with ruby cherry and spice. Sounds deli­cious.  Just don’t try to plug it into your laptop.

 Edu­cated Guess by Roots Run Deep

This Napa Val­ley Caber­net Sauvi­gnon is the flag­ship wine of Roots Run Deep win­ery, who would like you to make an “edu­cated guess” about which wine to choose.  The very tech­ni­cal, smart-looking label depicts actual wine­mak­ing for­mula strings that chemists would use.

‘Room 237′ Documentary Explores Fantastic Theories Behind Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’

Via Scoop.it — Shezcrafti

The Shin­ing  is one of my favorite hor­ror movies of all time, if not favorite movies , period .  Room 237  is a doc­u­men­tary about The Shin­ing  that recently debuted at the 2012 Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, and it sounds sim­ply fascinating:

“If Stan­ley Kubrick were still alive, Room 237 would make him extremely happy. Directed by Rod­ney Ascher, the exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary gives the leg­endary film­maker a ton of credit, maybe too much at times, as it explores sev­eral wild, and not so wild, the­o­ries about his 1980 hor­ror mas­ter­piece The Shining.”

Via www.slashfilm.com

And now for the bad news: Room 237  may not ever get a the­atri­cal release, due to uncleared footage, copy­right issues, and other pieces of red tape.

‘Safety Not Guaranteed’ Meme is Now a Movie

One of the great­est inter­net memes of all time is now a movie.   Safety Not Guar­an­teed  is a film based on the mys­te­ri­ous real clas­si­fied ad pic­tured above, which first appeared in a weekly Dan­ish news­pa­per.  The ad was later paired with the accom­pa­ny­ing photo of a rather serious-looking young man who seems to have stepped straight out of 1986, mul­let, turtle­neck and all.  The orig­i­nal YTMND that started it all has over 1.2 mil­lion views as of Jan­u­ary 2012.

What will a movie based on an inter­net meme be like?  The film, directed by Colin Trevor­row,  is about two mag­a­zine employ­ees (Aubrey Plaza & Jake John­son) who set out on an assign­ment to find and inter­view the quirky man who placed the clas­si­fied ad seek­ing a time travel com­pan­ion (Mark Duplass).  Accord­ing to an early review in  Vari­ety ,   Safety Not Guar­an­teed is “a sci-fi-tinged odd­ball com­edy about love as the ulti­mate risky adven­ture” that fea­tures “some nice soul-searching moments along­side a steady stream of laughs.”  Indeed.

Does axl­bon­bach  (the per­son who cre­ated the orig­i­nal YTMND) deserve com­pen­sa­tion?  What about the unknown man in the photo?

I sup­pose it’s only nat­ural that the film indus­try would start min­ing the annals of the inter­net for movie ideas, since they seem to have exhausted most other resources.  Last month we heard about  Bad Ass , a movie star­ring Dany Trejo based off the ” Epic Beard Man ” viral video.  It’s hard not to feel like these types of movies are only being made to cash in on the mil­lions of hits and social media buzz these dig­i­tal curiosi­ties have gen­er­ated over time.

One of the best doc­u­men­taries I’ve seen in the last few years is a film called  Win­nebago Man , in which the film­maker sets out on a quest to find out what became of the tem­pera­men­tal, potty-mouthed RV sales­man whose unin­ten­tion­ally hilar­i­ous sales train­ing video out­takes  ended up on the inter­net  and became wildly pop­u­lar.  It was a heart­felt and fit­ting trib­ute to a sim­ple man who did not real­ize the extent of his own fame, but whose recorded moments of weak­ness gave us so much joy.  It’s doubt­ful that movies like  Bad Ass and Safety Not Guar­an­teed  have their sub­jects’ best inter­ests at heart.

My Top 10 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012

I hope you’re pre­pared to fork over a lot of cash to Hol­ly­wood, because 2012 is going to be a kick-ass year for movies.  Our first year of Life After Harry Pot­ter™ will be one filled with promise.  New trilo­gies will begin, beloved trilo­gies will end, and some of the biggest and best direc­tors are expected to unveil mas­ter­pieces. If the world’s going to end on Decem­ber 21st, at least we’ll die sat­is­fied know­ing we’ve finally seen  The Hob­bit.

Here are the 2012 movies I’m most look­ing for­ward to:

(ordered by release date)

The Woman in Black

Release  Date:  Feb­ru­ary 3, 2012 
Direc­tor:   James Watkins

Based on the 1983 novel by Susan Hill, The Woman in Black is the woe­ful tale of a young busi­ness­man, Arthur Kipps  ( Harry Pot­ter  Daniel Rad­cliffe), who is sum­moned to the Eng­lish coun­try­side to set in order a deceased elderly woman’s affairs and estate when he soon becomes haunted by a men­ac­ing pres­ence.  I love atmos­pheric hor­ror films, espe­cially when they take place in big, secluded old man­sions.  If you’ve never seen it, I also highly rec­om­mend the orig­i­nal British made-for-TV film ver­sion from 1989, which oozes atmos­phere and dread.  I have high expec­ta­tions for this mod­ern remake.

The Hunger Games

Release Date:   March 23, 2012
Direc­tor:  Gary Ross

Finally, a  hugely pop­u­lar young adult fic­tion film adap­ta­tion that isn’t Twi­light (with­out candy-ass vam­pires, and bet­ter writ­ing)!  Set in the future dystopian North Amer­ica (now a nation called ‘Panem’), The Hunger Games is an annual tele­vised bat­tle between young boys and girls from each of Panem’s twelve dis­tricts.  These 24 “trib­utes” must fight to the death until only one remains stand­ing.  The story cen­ters on Kat­niss Everdeen (Jen­nifer Lawrence), and her strug­gle to sur­vive.  I prac­ti­cally devoured these books at the beach last sum­mer, and I’m hop­ing this first film does the series justice.

The Raven

Release Date:   April 27, 2012
Direc­tor:  James McTeigue

Being a hor­ror fan from Bal­ti­more means you can’t not  love Edgar Allen Poe.   The Raven  is a fic­tion­al­ized account of the last days of the writer’s life, in which Poe (John Cusack) tries to track down a ser­ial killer whose mur­ders are eerily sim­i­lar to the ones he wrote in his sto­ries.  Will the film also por­tray Poe’s rag­ing alcoholism?

Dark Shadows

Release Date:  May 11, 2012
Direc­tor:  Tim Burton

Another love child between Tim Bur­ton and his go-to lead­ing man, Johnny Depp.  The three or four peo­ple who read this blog already know I’ve been look­ing for­ward to  Dark Shad­ows  since I first heard about it .  Other than cen­ter­ing around Baran­abas Collins (Depp), the plot descrip­tion on IMDB is dis­ap­point­ingly vague.  But I’m sure we can expect a delight­fully Burton-esque mix of char­ac­ters and sto­ry­lines bor­rowed from Dark Shad­ows’ many incar­na­tions.  Hope I can fin­ish my  Dark Shad­ows marathon  project before then!

Prometheus

Release Date:  June 8, 2012
Direc­tor:  Rid­ley Scott

Prometheus might turn out to be the film everybody’s been hop­ing Rid­ley Scott would make since Alien .  It looks dark, unset­tling, full of alien crea­tures, and obvi­ously, set in space (although Scott has con­firmed this isn’t a pre­quel, and is only loosely based on his pre­vi­ous Alien films).  A team of explor­ers set out to unearth the ori­gins of mankind, but instead unknow­ingly unleash our poten­tial destruction.

Brave

Release Date:  June 22, 2012
Direc­tors:   Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman

Pixar does fairy tales.  Set in the myth­i­cal high­lands of Scot­land,  Brave  is the story of a coura­geous young princess named Merida (Kelly Mac­Don­ald).  Deter­mined to carve her own path in life, she defies an age-old sacred cus­tom, result­ing in a curse that unleashes chaos and fury upon her kingdom.

Abra­ham Lin­coln: Vam­pire Hunter

Release Date:  June 22, 2012
Direc­tor:   Timur Bekmambetov

There are two movies about Lin­coln com­ing out this year, but this one’s bound to be the most fun.  Adapted from the best­selling novel, Abra­ham Lin­coln: Vam­pire Hunter  is a mélange of his­tory and hor­ror in which our beloved 16th pres­i­dent leads a secret dou­ble life as van­quisher of the super­nat­ural.  It’s as nutty as it sounds, but the book was great.  And at least it’s not another god damn remake/sequel/prequel/reboot/etc.

The Dark Knight Rises

Release Date:   July 20, 2012
Direc­tor:  Christo­pher Nolan

The end of Chris­t­ian Bale’s reign as Bat­man, and the final chap­ter in Nolan’s tril­ogy.   The Dark Knight Rises takes place eight years after the events of the last movie.  Bat­man resur­faces when the ter­ror­ist Bane arrives in Gotham City after tak­ing the fall for Har­vey Dent’s crimes. Even though I’m def­i­nitely look­ing for­ward to it, I don’t know if any new Bat­man movie will be able to top The Dark Knight .

The Hob­bit: An Unex­pected Journey

Release Date:  Decem­ber 14, 2012
Direc­tor:  Peter Jackson

It’s The Hob­bit !  It’s the pre­quel to The Lord of the Rings!   It’s directed by Peter Jack­son!  What more is there to say?

Lincoln

Release Date:  TBA, Decem­ber 2012
Direc­tor:  Stephen Spielberg

Never mind that Lin­coln is being directed by Stephen Spiel­berg. Any­thing star­ring Daniel Day Lewis is fuck­ing win.

Abraham Lincoln Kicking Some Undead Ass In New Vampire Hunter Image

Via Scoop.it — Shezcrafti

Not one to be con­fused with Steven Spielberg’s devel­op­ing Lin­coln project, Bekmambetov’s genre splice re-imagines our 16th pres­i­dent as a vam­pire slayer stomp­ing through the Civil War-era United States.
Via www.cinemablend.com

‘Star Wars: Uncut’ is a Fan-made Orgy of Nerds, Memes, Kittens and Light Sabers

The premise:  the orig­i­nal Star Wars movie cut into 15-second seg­ments to be re-filmed by thou­sands of fans and then care­fully edited together into an amus­ing patch­work of fan-generated footage.  The result­ing film is an awe­some retelling of Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope  through the eyes and cre­ative tal­ents of Star Wars fans around the world.

Star Wars: Uncut  was the genius idea of  Casey Pugh , a 26 year old web devel­oper and (one assumes) seri­ous Star Wars fan.

“I was work­ing as a web devel­oper for Vimeo and I was doing a lot of video-based stuff, but I was also think­ing about how I could enable film­mak­ers to cre­ate either short films or feature-length films together remotely,” he says. “I bounced an idea off my friends but I had no idea it would blow up to this scale–it’s just crazy.”

Crazy or not, Star Wars: Uncut  earned Pugh and his col­lab­o­ra­tors an Emmy award (the 2010 Prime­time Emmy for Out­stand­ing Cre­ative Achieve­ment In Inter­ac­tive Media — Fic­tion, to be precise).

Despite being a diverse mashup of live-action, clay­ma­tion, stop-motion, kit­tens, hand drawn ani­ma­tions, CGI, hand pup­pets, babies, Legos,  men and women in drag, Pop­si­cle sticks, paper­craft, and prac­ti­cally every other type of style and imagery you can think of, Star Wars: Uncut  man­ages to stay true to the orig­i­nal film’s nar­ra­tive and is rec­og­niz­able to any­one who has seen it.

Most of the clips are silly, unre­hearsed videos of the viral sort (com­plete with trash can R2D2s and news­pa­per hats).  But there are also pol­ished, beautiful-looking scenes from tal­ented fans whom you can tell put forth a lot of time and effort.

The entire film was recently released to the inter­net masses and you can watch it right here:

Star Wars: Uncut  is a film made by Star Wars fans for Star Wars fans.  I promise it will be the most fun and enter­tain­ing two hours of your life.

MUST WATCH: Amazing Live-Action Short Film Based on ‘Portal’

Por­tal: No Escape is a live-action short film based on the game Por­tal and I promise you it is AMAZING!  It was directed by Dan Tra­cht­en­berg , a Los Ange­les film­maker who, hon­estly, I had never heard of until this project, but will be sure to fol­low closely from now on.

The film is about seven min­utes long, and chron­i­cles the expe­ri­ence of Chell (played by Danielle Rayne ) as she wakes up in a bleak,  unknown, pre­sum­ably Aper­ture Science-controlled facil­ity and what she does from there.   Por­tal  fans will rec­og­nize all the famil­iar props, includ­ing the blue and orange por­tals, the Por­tal Gun, even a glimpse of the Com­pan­ion Cube toward the end!

(I won’t spoil any­thing, but the end­ing was really well done.)

Watch Por­tal: No Escape:

Who wants to see an R-rated Muppet movie?

If you’re a fan of the darker side of Hen­son (Mir­ror­mask, Labyrinth, Farscape) and ever won­dered what an adult Mup­pet movie could be like, you’ll prob­a­bly be inter­ested in the upcom­ing dark com­edy Hap­py­time Mur­ders.

Well, okay, Hap­py­time Mur­ders isn’t really a Mup­pet movie.  At least not in the Ker­mit and Miss Piggy sense. But it’s being pro­duced and directed by Brian Hen­son. And it has puppets!

“Hap­py­time Mur­ders is a dark com­edy that depicts an alter­nate real­ity where pup­pets are sen­tient beings that live along­side humans. The pup­pets exist as ‘sec­ond class cit­i­zens’ to the humans, and when the cast of an 80s pup­pet TV show, ‘The Hap­py­time Gang’, begin to turn up dead, an alco­holic ex-cop pup­pet turned pri­vate detec­tive must solve the mur­ders with his human ex-partner.”

It sort of sounds like Who Framed Roger Rab­bit meets Death to Smoochy meets Cool World . The film, which was picked up by Lion­s­gate last month, is in pre-production, and could begin film­ing as early as Jan­u­ary 2011. The lat­est is that Cameron Diaz might be inter­ested in the lead role.

Source: Screen Rant

‘From Bedrooms to Billions’ is a New Documentary about the Evolution of Video Games

From Bed­rooms to Bil­lions is a new doc­u­men­tary by inde­pen­dent film­mak­ers Anthony and Nicola Caulfield ( Night­fall Films ) about the hum­ble begin­nings of video games, and how pas­sion­ate gamers have trans­formed them into a bil­lion dol­lar industry.

Here’s the trailer (which, very appro­pri­ately, is set to Pin­ball Wizard):

As some­one who was prac­ti­cally born with a joy­stick in hand, I am very much look­ing for­ward to see­ing this film.  From the press release:

‘From Bed­rooms to Bil­lions’ is a film about the remark­able story of how a small num­ber of indi­vid­u­als from around the world made up of enthu­si­asts, hob­by­ists, school kids, bed­room coders and entre­pre­neurs, whose vision and cre­ativ­ity pio­neered in shap­ing the bil­lion dol­lar games indus­try which today, dom­i­nates the mod­ern enter­tain­ment land­scape.

Fun stats time!

• Video games is the num­ber one enter­tain­ment industry
• Over 70% of the world’s pop­u­la­tion plays video games
• By 2011, the world­wide gam­ing mar­ket will be worth $48.9 billion

The film is set to release in Autumn 2011.

DO NOT WANT! A Whedon-less Buffy Movie

In case you missed yesterday’s news, it was announced that Atlas Enter­tain­ment and Warner Bros. will be “reboot­ing” Buffy the Vam­pire Slayer for the big screen.  A new Buffy movie is planned for 2012–and Joss Whe­don has noth­ing to do with it.

“There is an active fan­base eagerly await­ing this character’s return to the bigscreen,” says pro­ducer Charles Roven of Atlas Entertainment.

True, there are legions of pas­sion­ate Buffy fans who are among the most devoted of any fan­dom.  That would be the “active fan­base” Mr. Roven is refer­ring to.  But he’s got the “bigscreen” part all wrong.  It was the small screen that estab­lished Buffy as a pop cul­ture phe­nom­e­non, not that dread­ful 1992 Kristy Swan­son movie–proof that Hol­ly­wood ruins every­thing, even when Joss Whe­don is involved.

The TV show  Buffy the Vam­pire Slayer may not have had a huge bud­get with cut­ting edge spe­cial effects, but its lack of pol­ish was made up for by great writ­ing, only made pos­si­ble by a man who attained the cre­ative free­dom nec­es­sary to cre­ate his ideal vision.  So revered is Buffy’s cre­ator and so sacred is his source mate­r­ial that the idea of a new Buffy  movie in any­one else’s hands just seems blasphemous.

So how could this pos­si­bly be a good idea?

Oh, I for­got. Warner Bros. only cares about money.

Review: Reasons to Love ‘Deathly Hallows: Part 1′

When I first learned that Warner Bros. was going to split  Harry Pot­ter and the Deathly Hal­lows into two movies, there was much kick­ing and scream­ing on my part.  I was not alone.  There were plenty of fans and non-fans alike who felt it was a poor deci­sion, and one that fur­ther painted Warner Bros. as greedy stu­dio execs who were try­ing to milk the Harry Pot­ter fran­chise dry.

I saw Harry Pot­ter and the Deathly Hal­lows: Part 1 last night and I am happy to report that my atti­tude has changed.  My faith in David Yates still wan­ing, I went into the movie with slightly low­ered expec­ta­tions.  But when the cred­its rolled, I walked out of the the­ater with only pos­i­tive thoughts.  Reflect­ing on the fin­ished prod­uct, I now under­stand not only why it was nec­es­sary to make two films, but also why the film­mak­ers felt it was impor­tant.  They wanted to give us a proper farewell.

Right away, the decay­ing Warner Bros. logo sets the tone: this will not be a happy movie.  Dum­b­le­dore is dead, Volde­mort and his Death Eaters have infil­trated the Min­istry of Magic, and the wiz­ard­ing world is at war.  Times are so dark that even the Mug­gles are flee­ing their homes–nowhere is safe.  Harry, Ron, and Hermione have said their good­byes to Hog­warts (the warm, famil­iar school set­ting is notice­ably absent) and set out on a jour­ney to destroy the hor­cruxes: objects con­tain­ing the seven pieces of Voldemort’s soul that are the keys to his destruction.

The dan­ger is emi­nent from begin­ning to end; this is the dark­est Harry Pot­ter film yet (which should be no sur­prise to those who have read the books).  There are some gen­uinely fright­en­ing scenes and, of course, more deaths of beloved char­ac­ters.  Yet all this doom and gloom is punc­tu­ated by sur­pris­ing lit­tle moments of joy.  I found myself cheer­ing at grand entrances, for exam­ple, when Dobby bursts into Num­ber 12 Gri­mauld Place wrapped around Mundun­gus Fletcher; and at other times laugh­ing out loud like when Harry tests out the wand that Ron gives him, which unex­pect­edly shoots out a pil­lar of flame  (it’s much fun­nier than it sounds, trust me).

There were also many moments in the film that felt like a love let­ter to fans.  There was an espe­cially lovely scene where Harry coaxes a melan­choly Hermione into danc­ing with him; it was a touch­ing and fit­ting trib­ute to their seven years of almost sibling-like friend­ship.  We were also treated to an early scene where Hermione per­forms a mem­ory charm on her par­ents, know­ing she will have to leave them behind.  In the books, we never get to see Hermione’s “Mug­gle” life, so I really enjoyed this lit­tle bit.

I some­times take issue when this type of fluff is injected into books based on movies, espe­cially if they replace scenes that are more crit­i­cal to the plot, but I could not find much to com­plain about here.  Even the book’s most ten­der moments are han­dled with great care like the death of Dobby (which man­aged to make me cry) .  There are, of course, some dif­fer­ences between book and film that improve the flow and pac­ing of events, but over­all I felt Deathly Hal­lows: Part 1 was a very faith­ful adap­ta­tion that cap­tured the same feel­ings of iso­la­tion and impend­ing doom.

There were some low­lights for me, how­ever.  Let’s start with Xenophilus Lovegood–I didn’t care for Rhys Ifans’ per­for­mance.  I real­ize the char­ac­ter is sup­posed to be eccen­tric, but I felt really dis­tracted by his screen-time.  Also, I love Helena Bon­ham Carter as Bel­la­trix Lestrange, but with every Harry Pot­ter movie she gets more and more ridicu­lous.  When­ever she’s on screen I feel like I’m watch­ing the Helena Bon­ham Carter show–I wish she’d tone it down a bit.  Then there was Alexan­der Desplat’s score, which was not spec­tac­u­lar, but it gets the job done.  Those are my only com­plaints, and yes, they’re nitpicky.

Visu­ally, Deathly Hal­lows is a mar­vel of film­mak­ing, from the cin­e­matog­ra­phy to the spe­cial effects.  The spells, appari­tions, fly­ing and bat­tle scenes all looked amaz­ing.   As much as I missed Hog­warts, this film makes up for its absence with breath­tak­ing nat­ural back­drops.  See­ing it on an IMAX screen was truly a mem­o­rable experience.

But as spec­tac­u­lar as part one of Deathly Hal­lows is, it’s almost a bit unfair to review it as a com­plete film.  Even at a whop­ping two hours and twenty six min­utes long, I guar­an­tee you will be dis­ap­pointed when it ends; feel­ing rather like some­one pulled the rug out from under you.  And like all good two-part movies, this one ends on a major down note.  For those won­der­ing what part of the book serves as the end­ing to this film, I will only say this: they made a very good decision.

There were so many things to love about Harry Pot­ter and the Deathly Hal­lows , and I am con­fi­dent it will go down as one of the best films in the Pot­ter movie fran­chise, if not the best. The only bad thing about this movie…is that it ends.