Come What May

Moulin Rouge!

Director: Baz Luhrmann 

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent, Richard Roxburgh, John Leguizamo

Released: June 1, 2001

Viewed in theaters: June 10, 2001

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to A Beautiful Mind)

Best Actress - Nicole Kidman (lost to Halle Berry for Monster's Ball)

Best Cinematography (lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)

Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (won)

Best Costume Design (won)

Best Sound (lost to Black Hawk Down)

Best Film Editing (lost to Black Hawk Down)

Best Makeup (lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)

 There are a lot of things I really like about Moulin Rouge!, but there are also a few things I don't like about it. We'll start with the positives first. It's easy to see why this movie won Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Costume Design because it is a visually stunning film. Every set, every detail, every costume is a feast for the eyes. Even though this movie was filmed in Sydney in 1999/2000, I certainly felt like I was in Paris in 1900. I also really love the music and all the songs (probably because the majority of them were already songs I was already familiar with), which is a good thing since this is a musical! I would also like to personally thank this movie for only having the actors sing the songs and not sing every single line of dialogue, which is done in Les Miserables, a movie I hate and loathe with all my heart. (I wanted to go in liking it, I really did, but we're not here to talk about that movie). I own the soundtrack to this movie and I really like it because I get to hear the full versions of the songs. While a few songs do get fully sung in the movie (especially if they're sung by our star-crossed lovers, Christian and Satine (Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman)), there are quite a few we only hear a snippets of here or there, so it's nice to have the soundtrack to listen to the entire songs. There are so many songs in the movie that they made a second soundtrack, but I don't own that one. My favorite song is "Come What May", the love song sung by our two leads. It is so, so, good, the perfect romantic song. Whenever you hear this song, you just want to burst out and sing it. Well, I do anyway. ("Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing? Telling me to give you everything!") I especially love how it builds up in the end with the choir singing in the background and then bam! It just ends. I love that song!  It is the only original song from the movie, although it wasn't nominated for a Best Song Oscar (as you can tell it wasn't from the list above of nominations it received). This is because the song was originally written for Romeo + Juliet, the previous movie Luhrmann had directed, but it was never used. Therefore, it was ineligible, although I don't see what the big deal was. I think it should have been nominated! It would have won! It's kind of ironic that the big musical of that year didn't get any Oscar music nominations.

I think they tried to get all the young MTV audience to see the film with getting five big music stars (Christina Aguliera, Pink, Mya, L'il Kim, and Missy Elliott) to sing Lady Marmalade (and I will admit, at first I had no idea this was a cover of a Patti Labelle song!). The song is actually in the movie for about a minute, if that. It might be longer, but they definitely do not play the entire thing. I remember this video being on MTV all the time when it was released. It's super cringe-worthy if you go back now and watch it. The only good part is Christina's over the top voice and crazy-ass curly blonde wig. I think it was also released as a single on the radio, but don't quote me on that. This song made everyone know what "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" meant even if they didn't know a lick of French.

"Come What May" may be my favorite song, but I also really love the mash-up of love songs Christian and Satine sing to each other called "Elephant Love Medley" (which gets it name since Satine lives in the statue of an elephant.  By the way, have you ever noticed it looks a lot bigger from the inside than it does from the outside?) It begins with the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" and ends with Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" (I say Houston's version, and not Dolly Parton's because they definitely belt it out ala Whitney) with songs like "Heroes" by David Bowie, "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong", by Joe Cocker and "I Was Made For Loving You" by Kiss sprinkled throughout. And of course you have the singing moon serenading them at the end. The moon has to be a homage to Georges Melies (right time, right country), but I am always reminded of Mac Tonight, the singing moon in the McDonald's commercials from the '80s. I know it's totally weird, but that's what I think of when I see a singing moon!

Another song I really love is when Christian sings "Your Song" to Satine. Being as this is a musical, it's a good thing I love so many songs! There's a mix up with him and the Duke (Richard Roxburgh), a man powerful enough to make her a "real actress" and if she seduces and sleeps with him, then her dream will become a reality. However, Christian is not the Duke, but rather just a lowly writer who wants Satine to read his play because she's the star of the show, "The Sparkling Diamond". The thinking is if Satine likes it, then she'll promote it to Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent), the owner of the Moulin Rouge. Satine is acting like a damn fool in her "seducing", but when Christian starts singing, she immediately stops her barking and writhing on the floor and really takes notice of him for the first time. This clip is a great example of how visually stunning the film is...you see the titular red mill, the set of the elephant room (inside and out), the singing moon, and just the all-around prettiness of the movie.

How can that scene not a put a smile on your face? I'm not the biggest fan of Ewan McGregor, many of his movies I either haven't seen or just didn't care for, but I can't blame Satine for looking so smitten when he starts singing and continues to be enamored with him throughout the song. However, when the song ends and she exclaims that she's in love with a young, handsome, talented Duke, he has to let her down by telling her he's just a writer and she's not interested in him. Here is this super cute guy who just sang her a love song and the music scratches (it does, literally) when he tells her he's not the Duke and suddenly she's not interested anymore. Crazy redhead!

However, don't fret, because Christian does win her heart when they sing the songs in the "Elephant Love Medley" and they fall in love. Just like in Baz Luhrmann's interpretation of  Romeo + Juliet when they fall in love by looking at each other through a fish tank. This makes the Duke, who wants the beautiful Satine for himself, very jealous.

The play Christian has written is the story within the story, but with much more Indian influences. It's the same premise as the movie: a young woman must choose between a poor young sitar player who loves her dearly or the powerful Maharaja. Obviously Christian took the saying "write what you know" to heart. In the play, the character Satine plays chooses the sitar player because she is in love with him, but the Duke is outraged by this and demands that it be changed so she chooses the more powerful man because it rings more true.

Now I will tell you about the things I did not like so much about the movie. If you can get past the first fifteen minutes, then you're home free. I say this because the first fifteen minutes are probably the hardest to get through. We're quickly introduced to Christian and what his story is and why he's come to Paris. It's not that I mind they tell this quickly to get to the meat of the story, I just hate the way it's shot. I swear, they must change shots 100 times in a minute. It's just very quick, quick, quick and it gave me whiplash. It has a very frenetic pace about it and there are certain times where I'm thinking, "What the hell is going on"? This includes Kylie Minogue as a fairy. (Yes, I realize Christian is seeing this because he had just drank some absinthe.) I guess the point is to make like the viewer seem like THEY just drank some absinthe! Once Satine is first introduced, the cameras linger on her for awhile and from then on the film moves as a more manageable pace. It does pick us back in its frenzy state during the "Roxanne" tango scene, but at least that's only a few minutes and makes sense in the context of the movie.

And even though I think Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman are great as Christian and Satine and I can't imagine anyone else playing them and I think they're super cute whenever they sing to each other, I just couldn't get invested in their relationship. It may be that I never bought that they fall in love with each other after just singing a song to each other. The movie begins with Christian telling the audience, "The woman I loved....is dead." It literally starts out by telling the audience that one of the main characters will die. Also, the way he says it is soooooo over dramatic that I laugh whenever I hear it. Probably not the emotion they were trying to evoke! You know, I have to wonder if anyone got mad because this movie was "spoiled" for them even though it's the first thing you find out when you watch the movie. That would be hilarious. I can't even remember if I knew Nicole Kidman's character died in this before I saw it. However, I certainly knew the minute the film started! So when Satine DOES die (she had consumption), it never makes me cry. And, if for any reason you may forget that she dies, they definitely remind you throughout the movie what with her either fainting (she falls off of a  swing perched pretty high at one point, but luckily is caught) or coughing up blood every now and then. I have watched this movie a handful of times and not once has it ever made me cry. I think the closest scene where I do tear up is during the big performance when Satine starts singing "Come What May" to Christian.

Zidler tells Satine that she "must hurt him to save him" and that she needs to tell Christian she doesn't love him anymore and for him to leave. Otherwise, the Duke will kill him. She does this and tells Christian that she wants to be with the Duke, but he knows something is up and refuses to leave without learning the truth. He shows up during the big performance and finds Satine behind the curtain getting ready for her next scene. He demands her to tell him that she doesn't love him. Meanwhile, one of the Duke's cronies have found them and is about to shoot Christian, but the curtain opens and they find themselves on stage. Zidler, who is playing the Maharaja, tells the audience that he is not fooled and even though he's changed his disguise and shaved off his beard, he knows it's the penniless sitar player. You have to give him props for coming up with that so fast. The audience seems satisfied with this and is enjoying the show which is not the show anymore, but rather real life being played out before them. It is very amusing watching their reactions. When Christian says to the Duke, "This woman is yours now. I've paid my whore!" and throws some money down, everyone gasps. Christian, who has been hurt by Satine, tells her some pretty harsh words and walks off stage and down the aisle of seats. He's crying, she's crying. One of the main performers (played by John Leguizamo), who is in the rafters, shouts out, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return!" Satine starts singing "Come What May" and Christian stops and turns around, the starts sining. This is the only scene that really gets me. They're all singing and in love and everything is great and the audience is eating this up. The only one who isn't loving it is the Duke and he sees and grabs the gun and is about to shoot Christian, but his plans are thwarted when Zidler punches him in the face and he ends up tossing the gun which goes through a window and hits the Eiffel Tower with a clink. Everyone is happy, but then, oh yeah, we're reminded Satine isn't long for this world as she dies on stage in his arms while the audience applauds, thinking it's part of the show. Poor Christian. He really did love her until her dying day. Oh my God, I just went to Tumblr to check out what people were writing/posting about Moulin Rouge! and someone wrote, "I would like to die like Satine in Moulin Rouge: being applauded, covered in petals, and in the arms of Ewan McGregor." Haha, that's good, that made me laugh.

I was surprised to find out that Baz Luhrmann has only directed five movies in the span of twenty years. I would have guessed a lot more! Before Moulin Rouge! he directed Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet and after there was Australia and The Great Gatsby. I would rank his movies, but I can't because I've never seen The Great Gatsby and it's been way too long since I've seen Strictly Ballroom and Australia. The only thing I remember about Australia is when Hugh Jackman hosted the Oscars and talked about Robert Downey Jr. being nominated for an Oscar for Tropic Thunder and that he is "an American actor playing an Australian actor playing an African-American character" and then made a joke and said that he is "an Australian playing an Australian in a movie called Australia." Yes, that made me laugh very much. I would say with certainty that Moulin Rouge! is Luhrmann's most known movie (although, I guess some people would argue that R+J is). Moulin Rouge! is an insane movie at times and just never stops, but at least it knows what kind of movie it is and embraces it.

Quartet of Christmas Movies

I've been watching some Christmas movies on Netflix, so I thought I would share my thoughts about them. Spoilers ahoy (if you really care that much!)

A Christmas Prince (2017) - If you have Netflix, you are probably familiar with this because they've been promoting it hardcore. It was okay, but nothing great. It stars Rose McIver as a journalist named Amber who is suppose to travel to the fictional country of Andovia to get a story on Prince Richard. When I heard "Andovia", I thought for sure they had stolen the country from The Princess Diaries, but I guess that's Genovia. They sound exactly alike except for the first syllable! The King has recently died and Prince Richard, his oldest son, is suppose to be taking the throne and the crown on his coronation, which is Christmas Eve. He has a reputation with the press for being a play boy and is never around to take questions from them. To worm herself into the Palace, Amber pretends to be the tutor for Princess Emily, the little sister of Richard. They were expecting a tutor from Minnesota, but thought she wouldn't be arriving until AFTER the New Year. Amber just tells them she's the tutor without having to show any proof of ID and they believe her. Lucky for her, they don't seem to know what a Minnesotan accent is suppose to sound like! At first Princess Emily is a little snot to Amber and doesn't like her, but that only lasts one scene and in the next scene they have become friends. Emily also has found out that Amber isn't really a tutor (I'm sure she figured out that really fast because it was obvious she had no idea what she was doing when she was trying to teach Emily calculus) and finds out she's a journalist. She makes a deal with Amber, saying she won't say who she really is as long as Amber writes "the truth" about her brother. Apparently, Prince Richard is very kind-hearted and generous, giving to charities and playing with the homeless children. I'm not sure why the press says he's a playboy if there's no evidence of him ever being one. As you can guess, Amber starts to fall for the Prince. Of course we can't have a movie without having a couple of villains. This includes Simon, the cousin of Richard and Emily who is second in line to the throne, and Sophia, Richard's ex, who was only dating him in hopes of becoming the Queen someday.

There is this scene that is totally stolen from Beauty and the Beast (animated or live action, take your pick) where Amber is horseback riding by herself (she's following the Prince) and gets thrown from the horse while in the woods. A wolf growls at her and comes towards her and all she can do is just sit against a tree. Guess who comes by and saves her? Yep, the Prince. He shoots his gun to scare away the wolf. I thought it was going to be revealed the wolf was a family pet and it was going to start licking her face and being all cute, but nope.

Amber happens to stumble across some documents that reveal Richard is actually adopted (but Emily is still their own child) and therefore he wouldn't be able to take the throne. She tells her newspaper co-workers/friends back home in New York and they tell her she has a great story, but she doesn't want to betray the Prince like that. Like a moron, she leaves the papers out in the open in her bedroom, so while she's gone, Sophia and Simon start snooping around in there cuz they know something is up with her. They find the papers and at Richard's coronation, just before it is asked if anyone has any objections to him being the King (does it really work that way?), Simon brings out the adoption papers and the Queen admits it's true. Richard cannot be King, thus making Simon the rightful owner of the crown and throne. He marries Sophia the next day, Christmas, and demands to be made the King right that moment.

Meanwhile, Richard is angry at Amber because it is revealed she found the papers. She's on her way back home and calls her dad at the airport who tells her something that makes her think of something. In a previous scene when the Royal Family was decorating the tree, the Queen tells her about an acorn ornament her husband loved and Amber thinks there is a clue inside of it. She is right and there is a message from the King before he died saying he wants his son, even though he was adopted, to inherit the throne. Amber makes it just in time right before Simon is knighted and Richard becomes the rightful King! Yay!

The end scene was so bad. Amber is now back in New York at her dad's diner. It's about ten minutes to midnight on New Year's and guess who happens to be in town? Yep, the Prince, er King. And he asks Amber to marry him, telling her, "There can't be a King without his Queen." And even though they only knew each other for a month, Amber says "yes." But then she tells him she can't leave her dad and he's like, "Bring him along too! We'll build a diner in Andovia." It is sooo ridiculous.


Get Santa (2014) - This was my favorite of the ones I'm reviewing. It's a cute family British movie about a young boy, Tom, and his dad, Steve, who are trying to get Santa out of prison. Steve has been in prison for the last couple of years because he was the getaway driver in a burglary, but, as his parole officer pointed out, he was not able to get away. It's the day before Christmas when Steve is released and he gets a call from Tom, telling him that Santa (Jim Broadbent) is in their garden shed and needs help finding his sled. It's the middle of the night when Steve gets this call, so of course he's very concerned that his son is alone with a man claiming he's Santa and tells him to get his mother, but Tom refuses to wake her up. Steve comes over and dismisses the man's claims saying he's the real Santa and tells him to leave.

Santa is arrested when he's trying to get his reindeer out of the animal pound. It was a big story in London that a few days earlier a bunch of reindeer were wandering around the city. The news reporter joked that if these were Santa's reindeer, then a lot of kids were going to be disappointed on Christmas Day. If she only knew! Santa being arrested makes the news and on their first day together since Steve's released from prison, Tom wants him to take him to see Santa. Although when his son told him that, he just assumed he wanted to see Santa at the mall, but, no, his son wants to go to prison (the same one where Steve was held) to visit the man from the night before. Santa, now dressed in prison garb, tells them he wants them to save Christmas and he needs them to find his reindeer, who can communicate and they'll know what to do. I think it's Dasher who's the head reindeer and will be able to help them. Steve is still not buying any of this. There is a funny moment where he calls the old man "Nick" and he tells him that he sometimes go by that name and how did he know that?

To humor his son, they drive around until they find the reindeer. They don't talk, but they start farting and Tom is convinced this is the way they communicate. He asks a question and they all start farting. Yeah, it's pretty juvenile, but it made me laugh. I don't know what it is about farting reindeer. This was also a reoccurring theme in The Santa Clause movies. They find Santa's sled and this is around the time Steve thinks that this actually COULD be the real Santa. He accidentally dumps out all the magic powder, but Santa tells him on the phone that he keeps a manual in his glove compartment (which is an oversized mitten, haha). There's a map to a tower that will help them. Meanwhile, Steve has already missed his parole meeting, has trespassed on the grounds where the reindeer were, and has knocked out a police officer (although it was the reindeer that did that), so the police are after him. While all this is going on, I'm thinking, Wouldn't it be kinda crazy if this were like The Game (don't read ahead if you don't want to be spoiled by that movie!), that David Fincher movie where all of this crazy stuff is set up to make Steve believe it's all real, but in reality, EVERYBODY is in on it? That would have been so cool! They need to make a Christmas themed The Game movie! But I knew that wasn't what was going on because a) this is a kid's movie, and b), the next scene completely demolished any notions of that because Steve and his son find a magical slide that takes them to the North Pole (aka Lapland). I don't think there's any way you could explain that! When they arrive, they meet Santa's elves who tells them they can't ride in the sleigh because if they go more than a thousand feet in the air, they'll explode! With only one reindeer (poor reindeer!) to fly the sleigh, the elves instruct Steve how to control it. It's pretty cool how they get started because they start on a huge platform with a giant slide and go down it to gain momentum. There's also a loop-de-loop which I don't understand, but it's all part of the fun and charm, I guess. They're on their way to prison to get Santa. There's a really funny moment where Santa, with the help of  Sully, a littler person (Warwick Davis) escapes and they find a hole that Sully had dug through. There's a poster of a woman in a bathing suit and it's ripped to reveal the hole ala The Shawshank Redemption. Very clever movie, very clever. Of course they are able to get Santa back to his sleigh and save Christmas. This is a very cute movie and I just happened to stumble across it because it was the first movie that popped up when I looked for Christmas movies!

The Christmas Project (2016) - This is a movie that you could tell wanted to be A Christmas Story because there a lot of moments that totally reminded me of that film, but misses the mark. It was a fine movie, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it or anything. It's about a group of four brothers, the Buckley's, who are bullied by the Hagbart kids. There's three girls and one boy and they're really only bullied by the boy, Finn. The two older sisters aren't very nice, but they don't beat anyone up or do any mean pranks like their brother and the little sister is pretty harmless.

Mrs. Buckley, who is pregnant with her fifth child (who, to her delight, will be a daughter), wants them to "Elf" the Hagbart family this year. To Elf someone is to leave gifts like candy and mittens on someone's porch, ring the bell, and then hide to watch their expressions. It's clear that the Hagbart family is poor and their mother left them a long time ago. I thought we were going to find out that the father is abusive, but that wasn't the case. He just works a lot so he's never home. In fact, even though we hear about him, we never see him in the movie. Whenever they Elf the Hagbart family, they see the happy expressions on their faces and it makes them feel good, but Finn keeps on being a bully to all of them, especially Matthew, the kid in his grade and the one narrating the story as an adult (another reason this reminded me of A Christmas Story). Finn is a pretty sh*tty kid. He beats up Matthew's older brother, he steals cookies from his younger brother, he pins Matthew's underwear to a map so the class sees it when the teacher pulls the map down and it says "Buckley's bloomers" and he steals and takes credit for the project Matthew made for the egg drop challenge (you know, when you build something to protect an egg when you drop it from a certain height. I never had to do it in school, but this seems to be in a lot of movies and TV shows). However, we're supposed to feel bad for Finn because he's poor and has no mother or something like that. Yeah, he and Matthew become friends at the end, or at least he stops tormenting Matthew all the time, but gimme a break! This kid was a little twerp and never got in trouble for what he did. Everyone (like the teacher and Mrs. Buckley) felt sorry for him.

That was the main storyline, but there were also little subplots such as the Buckleys' getting new neighbors and Matthew and his older brother falling for one of the daughters, Juniper, who looks like Blake Lively's not-as-pretty younger sister. Her older sister bakes them cookies and they are nasty because there's no sugar in them and very hard when they bite into them. It was a really weird scene because when Matthew's older brother was eating the cookie, the girl was standing really close to him, watching him intently as he eats it. Like, who does that? Later in the movie, Matthew tricks Finn by making cookies that have toothpaste in the middle so when Finn steals them and gives them to his teacher, she'll get mad at him. However, why didn't they use these gross cookies the older sister made? That's where I thought the movie was going with that, but nope. There were some little vignettes peppered in, like one where one of the brothers becomes attached to a chicken (they have chickens for some reason) and his dad accidentally kills it and serves it for dinner because he couldn't tell that one apart from the other ones. And there's an ongoing storyline about "the Christmas catalogue" and if it came in the mail yet and who has it.

It wasn't a terrible movie, but it was clear it was trying too hard to A Christmas Story.
be

Christmas in the City (2013) - This had to have come from Lifetime or the Hallmark channel. It was a very paint by numbers Christmas movie. It's about a young single woman, Wendy, and her six-year-old daughter, Grace, who move to the city after her dad's candy store is going under foreclosure. It's about three weeks until Christmas, so she decides if she gets a job at a department store (where her friend from the city, Angie, works) then she can make enough money to send home to her mother so she can keep the store running. I thought the city in question was New York, but it was Los Angeles. I was wondering why there was no snow until I realized this. When you think of Christmas city settings, you think of New York or London or Chicago. You don't think of L.A.! But I'm guessing it was set there because it was filmed there, so therefore it was easiest to do that. The only person in this movie who I was familiar with was Ashanti (and even then, even though I know she's a singer, I couldn't tell you the name of any of her songs) who plays this really bitchy woman who has been brought on by the head of the department store to fix things so they can achieve higher sales. Nobody likes her because she's a real hard-ass and everyone calls her Cruella DeVil because she wears a lot of furs. Her ideas to fix the store is to get rid of all the Christmas-y stuff like the decorations, the piano, the carolers, even Santa! She then proceeds to put up more sexy decorations like posters of buff, shirtless guys wearing Santa hats and she has models in slinky dresses serving hors d'oeuvres on platters. This is a little weird, but whatever, sex sells, right? But what's really weird is that she puts the posters of shirtless buff guys and has shirtless buff male models walking around in the TOY department (the department where Wendy starts because that's where Angie works). WTF? No kid would care about that, unless they're trying to get the attention of the mothers? It's so weird. Everyone is mad at all these changes, but nobody will do anything to stop Ashanti (I don't remember her character's name), so they pretty much let her get away with making the toy department a male stripper show. Wendy falls for the son of the guy who is the head of the Department Store (whose name I've also forgotten) and of course, they fall in love. The little girl is pretty cute (and a good little ice skater, I'm guessing that's why she was cast because that's a little subplot of the movie), but she would whore her mother out to any single dude they came across. This includes the son of Department Store Guy and her bus driver. She would just tell the guy, "Isn't she prrrreeettttyyy?" Wendy's mother ends up selling the candy store, but guess what, Wendy's new boyfriend buys them out and wants to set up their own candy store at the department store where he wants Wendy to be the manager of, so she ends moving back to L.A. so she can live her happy life. Blah. And Ashanti was fired, in case you were wondering. But we all knew that was coming. Terrible movie, but kinda fun to watch because it was so bad. 

Wily Wizards and Witches

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter
Released: July 15, 2009
Viewed in theaters: July 15, 2009

Oscar nominations:
Best Cinematography (lost to Avatar)

Since the last chapter in the Harry Potter film franchise will wrap up a week from Friday, I've decided to watch the last two movies so I'm caught up for the final one. First up is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth installment in the franchise.

Harry and his friends are sixteen and their hormones have caught up with them. Harry has a crush on Ginny, Ron's younger sister, but she's dating Dean Thomas. Lavendar Brown starts dating Ron (or "Won-Won" as she calls him) and Hermione is jealous. Cormac McLaggen is interested in knowing Hermione on a "first-name basis" and Ron is jealous. Not to mention love potions play a very large part in this story. Unfortunately, for the people who only watch the films and don't read the books (those crazy people!), it doesn't make any sense to them why Harry is suddenly so hung up over Ron's sister because there has been absolutely no build up of a budding romance between the two in the movies. In fact, the only time they ever interacted was way back in the second movie when Harry saves her from the Chamber of Secrets. While it's true that their relationship didn't start until the sixth book, there was an arc to their relationship in the previous books, so unless you were really blind, you could see it coming. It wasn't as obvious as Ron and Hermione (their imminent relationship was as obvious as an anvil!), but there were clues. But in the context of the movies, it seems to come out of nowhere. It doesn't help either that Bonnie Wright, who plays Ginny, is not a very good actress. Pretty girl, terrible actress. What I can't stand about her acting is that she says all her lines in the exact same tone. No matter if she's trying to convey happiness, fear, sadness, sarcasm, whatever it is, she says it in the same tone. Ugh! So frustrating!

But being this is a Harry Potter film, there is an element of darkness. We learn more about Voldemort's upbringing and when he was a student at Hogwarts, back when he was Tom Riddle. The kid was creepy as young Tom Riddle, but the teenaged Tom Riddle really sent chills down my spine. Am I the only one who finds Tom Riddle creepier than Voldemort? (Yes, I know they're the same person...) Yes, Voldemort is creepy-looking and evil, but there's just something creepier about him when he's still a human (a TEENAGER) and is plotting all this sinister stuff and planning to murder all these people. I find Tom Riddle more fascinating than when he becomes Voldie.

Jim Broadbent plays Professor Slughorn, the newest Professor to teach at Hogwarts (and possible one of my favorites). Dumbledore recruits him because he know he has information that will help Harry hunt down Voldemort. We find that Slughorn, who was one of Tom's professors, told him about how Horcruxes work. Big no-no!

Harry takes Slughorn's Potion class and comes across an old Potions book where the previous owner had written down helpful hints on brewing potions. The back of the books says "Property of the Half-Blood Prince" and it isn't until the end of the film when we learn the true identity of the Half-Blood Prince. (Hint: it's not Tom Riddle.)

Gee, do you think they could have given Ron a couple of lines at the end? I understand why he's not standing next to Harry and Hermione on the balcony so he can't hear what Hermione says to Harry about Ron being fine with Harry dating Ginny, but they (the writers) could have given him some dialogue! When I saw the movie in the theater, this young guy in front of me said really loudly, something to the effect of "God-awful ending!" I was snickering as I walked out of the theater and all the way to my car. I don't know if he was a Ron fan and was mad he didn't get any lines or just thought the ending was lame in general, but it certainly made me laugh!

One really trivial thing that always bugs me about the movies is how the bathrooms at Hogwarts look like any bathroom you'd find at a regular school. I will say the bathroom since the first movie has certainly become larger, but they still have the white porcelain sinks attached to the wall. Shouldn't they be floating or something? (If the library has floating books, the bathroom should have floating sinks!) Shouldn't there be House Elves with towels over their arms, ready to dry hands? Maybe they only give all that fancy stuff to the Prefects' bathrooms.

The movie ends with the death of a major character and I teared up at his funeral even though said character was 150 years old.