 The last two weekends were a movie rollercoaster in my family. We saw “Transformers”, 5th “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”, “Ratatouille” and “Evan Almighty”. I will start with “Harry Potter”. Our family is a BIG “HP” fan; me, my husband and my son already arguing who is going to read “Deathly Hollow” first. And of course we went to see our “friend” Harry on opening night. Who cares that movie started at 9:45 and it ended why past normal bedtime for our 9 year old son. It was well worth it. As my son said, “It was awesome”.
And as my husband said, who considers the 5th book the weakest in the series: “They made a good movie out of long and boring book”. I agree with both opinions, the movie was great.
After reading a couple of pre-reviews and remembering book itself, I expected movie much to be darker than “Prisoner of Azkaban”, which in my opinion was the darkest of previous four. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Director of 5th movie, David Yates did an amazing job of lighting the sorrow mood with a few jokes and incredibly funny actors play. The most hilarious was new teacher of Dark Arts sent by Ministry of Magic, Dolores Umbridge. Her acting, her voice, her manners, her make up, her office décor and her pink outfits were deeply thought through and made her an unforgettable character. She reminded me and my husband of few of our own old generation Soviet teachers, the ones that taught “History of Communist Party” and such. The whole cast did an incredible job. Daniel Radcliffe who played Potter, really stepped up in this movie, I saw maturity in his acting that I didn’t see in previous movies. Rupert Grint on the other hand, whom I always liked watching didn’t have much to do in this movie, even his movie brothers, Fred and George seemed to have more presence on the screen than him.
As always, special effects, costumes and stage props were interesting and gave a “magical” feeling as they should. Hagrid’s giant brother, magical creatures, spell battles in DA sessions were “realistic” in their magic, no overdoing. The battle scene in Ministry was tragic, but not as horrible as I expected. And the end unlike book was actually optimistic.
The book was long, the movie wasn’t so short either, 138 minutes. Nevertheless, the movie covers very lightly many “important” things from the book, like family history of Sirius and his cousin Beatrice LeStrange, love struggle between Harry and Cho and actual work of “Order” and lives of it’s members. However, it doesn’t hurt the movie in any way. On a contrary it makes it more dynamic. It seems that director cut everything irrelevant and at the end the result is - we know what we should without being bored.
So, all in all 5 stars for that movie.
Next day after seeing Harry Potter we watched “Ratatouille”. The animated movie from Pixar about French gourmet chef named Remy who happens to be a RAT. I’m not going to bore you with details. You better see them yourself since the movie is funny, action packed, great food stuffed and will leave you greatly entertained. I must warn you that even though it’s a kids movie, and it’s a good and kind and very well graphically executed, the story itself is not that kid-friendly. My son wasn’t that ecstatic after seeing “Ratatouille”. He liked the jokes and action, but was totally indifferent to cooking and Gustave's “heir” problems of main characters. However, my husband who pays special attention to execution of details found the movie impeccable and already wants to by a DVD. He was impressed by the scene where female chef after stubbing shirt of “garbage boy“ Linguini, took out the knives and you could have seen little slots in a board from knives.
Beatrice LeStrange, love struggle between Harry and Cho and actual work of “Order” and lives of it’s members. However, it doesn’t hurt the movie in any way. On a contrary it makes it more dynamic. It seems that director cut everything irrelevant and at the end the result is - we know what we should without being bored. So, all in all 5 stars for that movie. Next day after seeing Harry Potter we watched “Ratatouille”. The animated movie from Pixar about French gourmet chef named Remy who happens to be a RAT. I’m not going to bore you with details. You better see them yourself since the movie is funny, action packed, great food stuffed and will leave you greatly entertained. I must warn you that even though it’s a kids movie, and it’s a good and kind and very well graphically executed, the story itself is not that kid-friendly. My son wasn’t that ecstatic after seeing “Ratatouille”. He liked the jokes and action, but was totally indifferent to cooking and Gustave's “heir” problems of main characters. However, my husband who pays special attention to execution of details found the movie impeccable and already wants to by a DVD. He was impressed by the scene where female chef after stubbing shirt of “garbage boy“ Linguini, took out the knives and you could have seen little slots in a board from knives.
One of the best scenes was a chase of the successor of main chef of Gustave’s Restaurant and Remy. Rat, propelling with paper documents in his teeth and flying in the air was a good find. Another good scene was old lady shooting her chandelier trying to get Reny and his brother and finding the whole clan of rats above her ceiling. There were many more excellent moments in the film, combined with impeccable graphic animation. So, if you are not big fan of beach like myself head out to movie theatre and watch “Ratatouille”. Make sure you do it before dinner, because you will have a serious appetite after that.
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