Category: Reviews

Over the weekend, Ariesna & I went with some friends to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I went into the movie with extremely low expectations1 but much to my surprise; I rather liked the movie. Sure huge chunks of the book were wacked out, but you have to expect that when you are taking 734 pages of text and converting it into a movie just over 2.5 hours long. The special effects were upto pair with anything in the prior movies. Also, although the actor playing Mad-Eye Moody didn’t look quite like I had pictured the character; he did a nice job of it. Overall, I give this one a thumbs up and it will eventually be going in my DVD collection (unlike some the previous one).

1 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was such a wretched film that it nearly ruined the entire series for me.

Product Image: Threads of Malice

Threads of Malice
My rating: 4 out of 5.

I read Threads of Malice last week1 and wowsers! If you’ve read Ghosts in the Snow then you need to be warned before reading Threads that Ghosts is a much lighter book than Threads. The villian in Threads is far more evil than the one in Ghosts and this gives the book a much darker tone. Still with that being said, Threads is a great read.

This time around Mrs. Jones takes us out of the castle and up into The Reach. Young boys have been disappearing throughout the region for the past couple of years. When Dubric arrives in the area; he’s greeted by dozens of ghosts all at once. It’s quite the unexpected & draining experience for him. Additionally, we get to see Dien’s family and Lars learns what real family life is like.

I don’t really know what else about the story I could tell you without giving away either the mystery or the good non-mystery bits. This is a problem that I’m not the only one has. I say this because at ICON this past weekend, I attended a panel where Mrs. Jones read some passages from Threads; as well as a few pages from her third Dubric book2. One of the passages she read from Threads was included one of my favorite scenes in the book, though it turns out we visualized it somewhat differently. The scene takes place as Lars along with 2 of Dien’s daugthers are walking into town to buy some supplies3.

He hurried after them, their names hovering in his throat, but he halted after a few steps. Aly climbed onto the head of a massive stone rabbit, then slid down its back, laughing all the while. Jess leaned against it, her hand on its nose, regarding him with mirthful eyes.
“Lars, Hargrove, I’d like to introduce you to your geandfather’s rabbit.” She bowed with a flourish and grinned at him.

That’s just a fragment of the scene, but it’s the important part to me. When I first read this scene, my mind drew up a picture of a rabbit sitting up on its hindlegs wearing a waistcoat (like something you’d expect from Alice in Wonderland). The rabbit was made of a “mostly” white marble, with bits of grey scattered about here & there. The weather had caused a small crack to form near the top of the rabbit’s head, just above the left eye. Some moss had begun to grow in that crack, looking something like a scar and giving the rabbit a certain roguish appeal. From speaking to Mrs. Jones at ICON, I found out she had imagined the stone rabbit looking like a rabbit you’d see in nature. Ok, so maybe it’s not all that important but I found the scene very endearing.

I’m feeling a bit out of it; so I’m going to wrap this review up. The book was excellent but didn’t quite grip me like Ghosts had. On the other hand, the intense evil and darkness in this book was somewhat balanced out with Lars getting his first real taste of what family life is like. It’s a highly enjoyable read and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to any adult readers4. Mrs Jones, good job and I look forward to the next book!

1 Since then I’ve read through Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad. I just didn’t feel like writing up reviews for those books.
2 Currently, the third book is titled “Valley of the Soul”.
3 Taken from pages 144-145 of Threads of Malice.
4 Given the forms that the evil takes in this book; I would not recommend this for younger readers.

Product Image: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)
My rating: 4 out of 5.

After a two year wait, Ms. Rowling has finally released her latest book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6).1 It’s a bit shorter than her previous book but it’s quality not quantity we’re after and the Half-Blood Prince delivers.

Rather than continuing with Harry being an angsty, little brat; Ms. Rowling gives him a bit of a fresh start. As usual, the story starts off at the Dursleys but these child abusers are quickly left behind as Harry heads off to Hogwarts. On the train, Harry meets the new professor joining Hogwarts and begins his various misadventures. As you’ve probably heard already, another charater dies in this book2 and it wasn’t who I was expecting it to be. Though if you’re paying attenion as you read the book; there is enough foreshadowing for one to figure it out. Additionally, the identity of the half-blood prince is pretty obvious; if you think about it using the clues Ms. Rowling gives during the course of the book.3

Though I’m not convinced Ms. Rowling will be able to redeem the series after the wretchedness of the previous book; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) is definitely a step in the right direction.

1 Technically, she released it a week ago but I only just got around to reading it.
2 Actually, many characters get snuffed out in this book but most of them are just names in the Daily Prophet. The character I’m referring to is somebody who’s been in all the previous books.
3 As usual, I got caught up in the story so both the identity of the half-blood prince and the death caught me off guard.

Yup, I finally went and saw this wretched bit of crap that Lucas put out. It was less horrifically bad than I had anticipated but still failed to be a good movie. The dialog was cheesy and the acting wooden. In particular “Annie” aka Darth Vader blew chunks, though he did get slightly better once he was in the Vader suit. To be fair though, the special effects were kind of nice; nothing particularlly innovative (just lots of CG). Still the massive battle scenes were cool. The individual battles of Jedi vs. Sith were just as cheesy as the dialog with tons of flips and swirls that almost looked impressive but were actually a massively dumb way to fight. Overall, I’ll give E3:RotS 1 star out of 5 (vs. -24 for E1:tPM).

Serenity

As my long time readers might recall, I watched a show called Firefly a while back and greatly enjoyed it. This week, thanks to one of my co-workers, I had an opporunity to drive 5 & 1/2 hours to plant my butt in a packed movie theater at 10 o’clock with a broken air conditioner. That is to say, I was able to attend a special preview showing of the Firefly movie, Serenity. Though the movie hasn’t quite been completed yet; it was fanatastic!

It started off with a short speech by Joss Whedon. He basically thanks the fans for their support and asked them to continue that support by asking them to help promote the movie. Then the movie was off and running. It appears to pick up at least a couple of years after the t.v. show ended1. Not all of the crew is still flying on Serenity though most are. The Alliance is still after River and they seem more desperate than ever to get her back. Desperate to the point where they’ve sent an unamed agent after her. During this agent’s introduction, we get treated to see a holographic recording of Simon rescuing River from the facility where they were experimenting on her; as well as finding out one of the reasons the Alliance wants her back so badly.2 Overall, I thought the story worked very well for fans of Firefly but I’m not sure how well it will play with people who never watched the tv show. The movie doesn’t have any big-name actors and it hasn’t been getting much in the way of promotion from the studio. I hope it does well at the box office (mostly in hopes of the tv show being revived).

Closing thougts about the preview:3

  • The preview didn’t have much in the way of music. This really bothered some people and it is one of the things that they’re still working on.
  • There weren’t any credits; again this is something they’re working on.
  • Supposedly there were some placeholders for special effects that aren’t complete yet, but I didn’t catch them.

1 Supposedly there is a comic book coming out in July (?) that covers what happens between the show & the movie.
2 I bet you’d like it if I told you why, wouldn’t you?. Too bad, this preview-review is going to be spoiler free. :p
3 Sorry, but 11 hours of driving in 2 days plus watching the movie at 10 o’clock, staring straight up at the screen from the front row, doesn’t exactly leave me pumped up for writing an indepth review. Maybe I’ll have something more to say after the official opening on 30 Sept 2005.