Maid to Order!

Maid in Manhattan
Director: Wayne Wang
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Stanley Tucci, Bob Hoskins
Released: December 13, 2002
Viewed in theaters: December 16, 2002

This movie is like a PG-rated version of Pretty Woman, only replace a prostitute with a hotel maid. As for as romantic comedies go, this one is meh. It's not great, but it's not horrible. Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes are fine in their roles, except they really don't have any chemistry with each other. Lopez is Marissa, a single mother of a ten-year-old boy, Ty. She works as a maid for a fancy New York Hotel where they receive many important guests. This includes Senator Chris (Fiennes) who is staying there with his assistant (Tucci) and dog. All I can tell you about Chris is that he's a Republican...I really don't remember anything else about his politics. Either because it was boring or because there really was nothing else.

The late, great Natasha Richardson plays socialite Caroline who is also staying at the hotel the same time as Chris. She is a bit demanding of Marisa, asking her to do this and do that. This includes taking back a designer outfit to the store that she doesn't want. In one of the stupidest scenes of the movie, while Marissa and a fellow maid friend are in the room with Marissa gathering the garment, her friend eggs her on to try on the outfit. It's white pants, a white sleeveless turtleneck, and a white coat. (Duh, it's the outfit in the above photo!) Marissa says no, she can't do that, but her friend says it's her size and it's going back to the store anyway so it doesn't belong to Caroline so what's the problem? Uh, because you shouldn't try on other people's clothes, you dolt!

Meanwhile, Ty is at the hotel because his dad couldn't pick him up for a trip they were suppose to take so Marissa has to watch him. I don't know why she didn't leave him with her mother, but instead brings him to work. He sneaks off from doing homework and runs into Chris and his assistant and dog in an elevator. Ty knows who he is and Chris is impressed with his knowledge of politics. We had already seen a scene earlier of Ty giving a speech on Richard Nixon, so you'd think the movie was establishing he was into politics, right? No, wrong! He did the speech on Nixon because he's obsessed with the '70s as J-Lo later tells Fiennes. WTF? What kind of kid from 2002 likes the '70s? Nobody likes the '70s! Horrible music, horrible fashion, horrible home furnishings! It's the decade that gave us The Brady Bunch for god's sake! I mean, c'mon!

So Chris tells Ty that he is taking his dog for a walk and Ty asks if he can come and Chris says sure why not. Okay, yeah, just go for a walk with Voldemort! But seriously, it's a little weird that Chris is letting a young boy take a walk with him. Like that's not going to be suspicious to people who see that in the paper. He tells Ty to get permission from his mom so he takes them all up to Caroline's suite (I guess she told him where she would be) and Marisa is wearing the all-white ensemble (and quickly hides the tag). She gives a "be quiet" motion to her son not to blow her cover and pretends to be the Caroline who is staying in the suite. She goes out for a walk with Chris in Central Park wearing that all white outfit. You think something is going to happen, like a rip or a stain, and while there is a moment of horror when a magazine gets stuck to her butt (don't ask), everything is fine and she is able to return the outfit to the closet (she never had time to return it to the store) safe and sound. And not only do they walk around Central Park, but they also go to the zoo. So you're outside for a couple hours and don't even get one little stain on all that white fabric? Uh huh.

Chris is very taken with "Caroline" and wants to meet her again. However, when he sends a note to the suite asking Caroline to meet him for lunch, the note gets to the real Caroline and she is giddy because she had met Chris before once and knew they had "shared a moment". Marisa and the head butler (Bob Hoskins) are there to help out (I don't know why they need two people to help serve two people eating lunch...) and Marissa has to hide herself so Chris doesn't see her. Remember, he doesn't know she's a maid and thinks she's a rich socialite! When Chris sees a white blond woman enter, he is very confused and asks where that hot Latina woman is. Okay, he didn't say that! He actually referred to her as "Mediterranean." Butler Hoskins realizes that it's Marissa he's referring to and lets her leave so she can quit hiding behind flower vases and tea pots.

While driving somewhere, Chris sees Marissa and Ty walking and pulls over to talk to them. He tells them he's going to the Bronx to...I don't remember....and Marissa says "Blah, blah, you can't learn everything from just visiting there once. You didn't grow up there like I did or live there like I do." You think that this is going to be a political movement that will bring them closer together. Maybe Marissa will point out some issues that need to be addressed within her home district and he will bring awareness to it, but no, it never goes there.

He invites her to some ball, and Marissa, still keeping up the charade, gets all dolled up in her Cinderella moment. There she runs into Caroline who recognizes her and outs her in front of Chris and everybody and accuses her of wearing her clothes. Somehow she found out about that...I forgot how. Marissa is fired and Chris is angry she lied to her. Who really cares. They only spent a day walking in a park and then had a one night stand after the Cinderella dance. But then Ty brings them back together and they become one of New York's most high profiled couple! GROAN!

Oh, I forgot to mention another really stupid scene: Marissa needs something, so she goes down to the hotel's gift shop (I'm assuming) and the woman at the register is talking on the phone and it's obvious she's talking with a friend and not helping out a customer and she's just blowing off Marissa and the other people behind her until Marissa finally yells at her and tells her to do her damn job. This scene is only in here to establish that Marissa would make a fine good manager, a job that her friend has applied her for. I have never seen somebody in customer service blatantly ignoring a customer while talking to a friend on the phone. You would have to be PRETTY STUPID to do that!

The more I think about it, the more stupid this movie is!

The Epic Conclusion

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes, Maggie Smith
Released: July 15, 2011
Viewed in theaters: Opening day, of course!

Fireball! 

I thought about waiting to see this when the crowds died down a little...yeah, that didn't happen. How could I wait any longer to watch the final movie in the Harry Potter series? I just possibly couldn't! I was SO, SO, SO, excited! This review is going to be filled with exclamation marks!

Right when I walk into the theater I see people wearing their Harry Potter t-shirts. (Nobody dressed as HP characters, though, I guess that only happens at the midnight showings.) Moaning Myrtle is in the bathroom hanging from the ceiling with a black floaty dress, and, well, moaning (with the help of a recording). The Hogwarts school song is written on the wall as well as a list of the members of Dumbledore's Army and quotes from the film. There are posters of the characters with a quote from each one from previous films written next to them. Dobby's is "Dobby did not mean to main or kill! Dobby only meant to injure!" Snape's is (rightfully) "Ten points from Gryffindor!" Ron's is "Why is it always 'Follow the spiders?' Why can't it be 'Follow the butterflies'?" Harry's is something about trouble always finding him, but I don't remember which movie that's from or him ever saying it, and Hermione's is my least favorite Hermione line ever uttered by her because it's so un-Hermione: "Is that what my hair looks like from the back?" UGH! Go back and read my Prisoner of Azkaban review and you'll know why I hate that line so much. Any other line they would have chosen would have been so much better! I personally would have gone with, "I'm going to bed before either one of you gets us killed. Or worse, expelled!" Alright, I know I sound like a complete nerd. I have to laugh when I imagine anyone who has never read/doesn't care about Harry Potter coming into the theater and seeing all this.

Luckily my audience behaved and
Voldemort didn't have to AK them.

The film picks up right where we left during Part 1. The scenes leading up to when we're back at Hogwarts do seem a litttle rushed, at least compared to the book. We see Hermione becoming Bellatrix to enter her vault at Gringotts to get another Horcrux, we see the Trio escaping from Gringotts on the dragon (hmm...I don't they they ever taught a class training dragons at Hogwarts!), and we see them meeting and talking to Dumbledore's brother. A lot of backstory is cut out of that scene, but I didn't think it was pivotal to the movie, so I was fine with that.

This movie is pretty dark, both tonally and lighting-wise. During the scene with Harry and Dumbledore when the screen became totally white, I had to shield my eyes because it was like walking out into the sunlight. Perhaps it's unfair because he was in more of the films than Richard Harris, but I definitely prefer Michael Gambon as Dumbledore than Harris.

One of my favorite scenes - and a scene I've been waiting for since 2007 when I read it in the book - is the kiss between Ron and Hermione. I read someone point out that the reaction after the kiss where they awkwardly giggle seemed more like Emma and Rupert's than Ron and Hermione's, and yeah, that is a good point and probably true, but it was very cute, nonetheless. Everyone laughed when they were in the Room of Requirements and one of Draco's friends tried to kill Hermione (er, they didn't laugh at that part) and Ron starts to charge at them and says, "That's my girlfriend, you (inaudible here)". That's when they laughed.

When McGonagall steps in front of Harry to protect him from a spell thrown by Snape and starts dueling with him, this young boy in my row whispered really loudly, "McGonagall!" The way he said it was really funny too. His mother told him to "Shhhhh!" 

While I overall really enjoyed the movie, there were a few things that I didn't like/care for. Fred's death didn't have the emotional weight it had in the book. They show a quick scene of him and George talking, then later in the movie Harry walks into the Great Hall and the Weasleys are surrounding his body and crying. If you hadn't even read the book, you wouldn't know which twin had died! And he was killed off screen too! The scene between Molly and Bellatrix was sadly anticlimactic and didn't even get a reaction out of my audience. Lame. I was worried for a moment that Neville wasn't going to kill the snake after Harry attempted to kill it, but failed. But once they showed Ron and Hermione trying to kill it and failing each time, I knew it was going to be Neville, as it should be. I liked that he saved Ron and Hermione's lives at the same time, too. 

The battle was quite epic and they didn't shy away from showing how brutal it was with all the dead bodies lying around the castle and when Harry, Ron, and Hermione were running right through the middle of it, I was sure one of them was going to get killed. (Well, not really since I've read the book and knows how it ends.) 

The epilogue was a little cheesy, but sweet. I'm glad they cut out all that unnecessary dialogue that's in the book. Was it me or did it look like Hermione hadn't even aged? I did like that the last shot was of Harry, Ron, and Hermione and not of their kids on the train because that would have been SO LAME! 

Overall, a very satisfying conclusion to the series. I can't wait till they re-make the whole series in 50 years! (Hey, maybe Daniel Radcliffe can play Dumbledore then!) 

Hogwarts, Class of '98

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Rhys Ifans, Bill Nighy
Released: November 19, 2010
Viewed in theaters: November 19, 2010

Oscar nominations:
Best Art Direction (lost to Alice in Wonderland)
Best Visual Effects (lost to Inception)
(This movie is waaaay better than both of those!)

The final installment of the Harry Potter films, as everyone knows, was divided into two films. This was probably a smart idea because I don't think they could have crammed all the events that happen in the novel into a nearly three hour movie. They would have had to cut a lot of things. I remember there being talk of splitting Goblet of Fire into two movies as it was the first film where the book was considerably longer than the previous three. Of course, in the end, it was only one film, but a few storylines (like SPEW) were cut. They had the luxury to cut the subplots from GoF as they weren't that important in the grand scheme of things, but to cut anything from Deathly Hallows would be doing it a major disservice.

Before I get into the review of the movie, I had to share this with you. Check this out: the Alamo Drafthouse Theater in Austin is having a Harry Potter-a-thon this Thursday. Notice the running time of 860 minutes. That's 14.2 hours. I know because I converted the minutes. FOURTEEN HOURS SITTING IN A THEATER, PEOPLE! I may love Harry Potter, but that just sounds absolutely atrocious to me. They're even starting at 4:30 in the morning. It looks like when you've seen the first seven movies, then it will be midnight and time to see Deathly Hallows Part 2. Personally, I'd be so sick of watching Harry Potter and so sore from sitting for so long, that I wouldn't want to stay for that one! I imagine there's an intermission between each film, but still! No, thank you! However, if a film a day was offered at a theater for a week, then I would consider that.

This is the first time where Harry and his trusty sidekicks and most loyal friends, Ron and Hermione, don't attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for what would be their seventh and final year. Instead the film turns into a bit of a road trip movie as they search for the Horcruxes that were explained to us in the previous film. (Of course they're explained in much more detail in the books!) Basically a Horcrux is bad and they gotta destroy them! They're the only way to defeat Voldemort, pretty much.

Ministry Mayhem

Things aren't looking too good in the wizarding world. (Hmm, should that be capitalized?) To make a simple analogy, Voldemort = Hitler; Death Eaters = Nazis; and Muggles and Muggle-born wizards and witches = Jews. As you may have guessed, Voldemort's goal is to extinguish all Muggles. Only Harry and his friends can stop him (well, really only Harry, but Ron and Hermione do help along the way).

There is much tension on their journey due to it being tedious finding the Horcruxes and due to Ron being worried about his family. (Hermione cast a spell on her parents so that they would forget about her - in the novel she sends them to Australia where they'll be safe, but they don't mention if they go there in the film and Harry, as Ron so nicely pointed out, doesn't have any parents because they're dead.) But don't be too hard on Ron for saying such a sh***y thing. He was wearing a locket, one of the Horcruxes, when he said this, and the Horcruxes make anyone who is in possession of them become filled with hate and rage. Nevertheless, he decides to leave, feeling that their mission is a lost cause and having become quite jealous of Harry and Hermione's relationship. But we all know who Hermione will end up with.

Awwww. (They're sad because Dobby just died).

One of my favorite scenes was when Hermione read the "Tale of the Three Brothers". I thought the animation was quite gorgeous. A scene that made me giggle when I saw it in the theater, but nobody else laughed at was when Harry was in Umbridge's office in the Ministry (disguised as an employee) and he opens a drawers and sees a book titled, "When Muggles Attack." I mean, c'mon, how can you not find that funny? It was a complete rip-off of those stupid FOX shows.

They learn the story about the Deathly Hallows, which are the following three items: a wand that gives you all the power you need, an invisibility cloak, and a stone that brings back the dead. Harry already has the invisibility cloak and Voldemort is looking for the Elder Wand

E-e-vil woman!

The climatic scene has our heroes being captured and sent to Malfoy Manor where Hermione is tortured by Bellatrix and Harry and Ron are locked in the basement along with Luna, a wandmaker, and a goblin. They managed to escape safely with the help of Dobby, but unfortunately Dobby had to sacrifice his life to safe them. Well, on second thought, no he didn't. If he didn't talk so dang much and just, you know, got the Trio out of there, then Bellatrix probably wouldn't have had time to throw her dagger at him. But I digress.

The movie ends with Voldemort finding the Elder Wand. Uh-oh! What will happen? Guess you'll have to stay tuned for Part 2. Unless, of course, you've already read the book. Then you already know what happens!

This Goblet is half-full!

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Director: Mike Newell
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes
Released: 11/18/05
Viewed in theaters: 11/23/05

Oscar nominations:
Best Achievement in Art Direction (lost to Memoirs of a Geisha)

I don't know if by the time the fourth film came out, I just learned to accept the Harry Potter movies (I had plenty to bitch about with the first three!) or if this one was better than the previous three. I think it's a bit of both. Overall, I thought Mike Newell did a great job with Goblet of Fire considering they managed to squeeze a 700+ page book into a two and a half hour movie. Of course, there were some b-plots from the novel written out like the whole SPEW crusade - not that I minded since I can't stand Dobby. I find GoF to be the most movie-friendly of the book. With the three tasks for the Tri-Wizard Tournament involving dragons and mermaids and the Yule Ball, there's plenty of action to translate to the screen.

I was much happier with the characterization of Ron and Hermione this time. No Ron mugging at the camera! No Ron being afraid of EVERYTHING! The only time he whimpers is when Professor Moody, the latest DADA teacher, places that spider on his head, but that's okay, since, you know, he's supposed to be afraid of spiders. I liked that we got to see another side of Ron with his jealousy and anger at Harry and his crush on Fleur was funny, especially when she kissed him on the cheek after asking him if he helped save her sister too, and he said, "Yes, yes, I helped!"

They toned down Hermione from the last movie and this time she wasn't front and center and stealing Harry's spotlight and she was actually shown (gasp!) reading a book.

I saw the movie with my mom when I saw it in the theaters and I had to give her a little review of everything HP since her only experience with the franchise had been seeing the first movie. It was a little sad...she didn't even know who Voldemort was when I mentioned him. After we watched it, she said, "I didn't know it was going to be so scary! That dragon, that snake, those skeletons in the graveyard!" Now, personally, I wasn't scared by the movie, but it definitely takes a darker turn than the previous films. However, there are some funny moments to balance out the darkness, such as any scenes with Fred and George or Ron dancing with Professor McGonagall when she's teaching the students how to dance. I also always crack up when Harry tells Ron, "I don't know what happened last night and I don't know why" even though it's not supposed to be funny, but it made it sound like they had some funny business going on.

And, finally, a  Harry Potter  movie where the ending doesn't want want to make me gag or roll my eyes!

To date, this is my favorite Potter movie of the six that have been released.