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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a review by Dragonfire

Yes, I am a Harry Potter fan.  I have all the books and have read them several times.  I am ready to start book 7 again tonight after starting the series again last Thursday night.  I have the first five movies on DVD and have watched them several times.  I remember all sorts of trivia type stuff from the books and movies and I'm still sad that the series has ended.  So ...I guess you could say I am a tiny bit..obsessed.   
So anyway, I decided to go see the new Harry Potter movie today.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth movie in the series.  In it, Harry Potter and Professor Dumbledore start trying to figure out a few things connected to Lord Voldemort.  The new teacher for Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn, actually taught at the school before and may know something about Voldemort that will be helpful.  Draco Malfoy seems to be up to something while Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione also try to deal with love. 

Overall, the movie is entertaining, though I think it has some issues.  It is a decent adaptation but it could have been better.  The order of some events is changed around a bit at times.  That mostly didn't bother me and I wasn't too bothered by some of the changes.  What bothers me the most, is that time is taken to add in a sequence that is probably 5 to 10 minutes long that was not in the book that ultimately adds nothing to the movie while some important information is omitted.  Certain things do seem to be working well, but I am wondering how other things will end up working in the final movies - the last book is being made into 2 movies.  The more I think about it, the more that additional sequence bugs me.  I still enjoyed the movie overall, but it could have been so much better.  I'm almost positive that I would have liked the movie more if I hadn't read the book first since I wouldn't have know about the things that were left out.  Some people who are fans of the book are not going to be that happy with the movie.

There is a little bit of mystery connected to what Draco is doing, but because of the way those scenes are presented, it ends up being rather obvious what is going on.  There is a decent amount of action that is done well without making the movie action packed.  There is also a good amount of humor, some of which gets a bit silly at times.  The movie isn't as violent, though one sequence has the potential to be upsetting to younger children. 

The cast is all wonderful and I'm glad that Alan Rickman finally gets a bit more to do as Snape.  He's perfect in the part. 

Overall, the movie is good and entertaining, though I think it could have been better. 

 

I did get a review posted on Epinions if anyone wants to take a look.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

(From Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on July 16th, 2009)

Ritana (Returner), a review by Tom

Title: Ritana (Returner)
Year: 2002
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Rating: FSK-16
Length: 112 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85
Audio: German: Dolby Digital 5.1 , Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1 , English: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English, German, Turkish

Stars:
Takeshi Kaneshiro
Ann Suzuki
Kirin Kiki
Goro Kishitani
Yukiko Okamoto

Plot:
A young woman from the future forces a local gunman to help her stop an impending alien invasion which will wipe out the human race.

Extras:
Scene Access
Trailers

An interesting mix of other well-known movies. This movie has similarities with Matrix, Termintor, IndependenceDay, E.T. and others. It reminded me of the German saying "Besser gut geklaut, als schlecht selbst gemacht", which in this context roughly translates to "It is better to rip off well than do it yourself badly".
I especially liked the ending, which tied up the story and time-travel elements nicely.

Rating:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v4pWshsQ1U

(From Tom's Time-Travel Movie Reviews on November 20th, 2008)

Angel Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

19. The Magic Bullet
Original Air Date: 4/16/2003
With Angel and the others under Jasmine's extraordinarily divine power, Fred's life is in danger and she goes on the run. After discovering the secret to breaking Jasmine's spell over the nation's citizens, Fred must find a way to save the others before she's captured and killed.

Guest Stars:
Gina Torres
Danny Woodburn
Patrick Fischler

My Thoughts:
Enjoyed this episode as well. Fred figures out how to get Angel to see what she sees... and between the 2 of them the get the rest of the group to see it too. But now they are all on the run. As I know many of you here like Firefly... Jasmine is played by the actress that plays Zoe. But she will only be on the series for 2 more episodes now.

My Rating:

(From Angel Marathon on March 21st, 2010)