the new harry potter movie, harry potter and the goblet of fire

None of which lead me to believe he's well-suited for a visually-inventive kid's film.

donnie brasco is awesome btw

I am mostly looking forward to this movie so that I can read Ebert's undoubtedly creepy review.

This actually makes me interested in the idea of a Harry Potter film!

(FWIW, I thought the book was long, big and baggy, and the final plot-twist was a bit crap)

HEAR HEAR. Dobby in Chamber of Secrets combined the worst of Gollum and Jar Jar Binks, turned up to 11.

Are you talking about Crouch Jr.'s big confession? How many rules of the Evil Overlord List did that violate?

If I'm being completely honest though, the extreme hilarity of the girls' school entrance carried the rest of the movie. Also, there were a bunch of kids in the theatre whose parents clearly hadn't read the book; one in particular kept saying "IT'S SCARY! THIS MOVIE IS SCARY!" It was kind of awesome.

It was weird how they fit 500 French girls into a carriage the size of a Mini Cooper!

I've never seen any of em and almost fell asleep reading one chapter to a juvenile, but that Bulgarian lad in this one looks seriously smokin'.

Pah...TARDIS technology...

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Hot Lips, so Zen.

(xpost: HAHAHA)

Dan: Not the Vampire Slayer

Hahaha! I really want a TARDIS now.

Which reminds me, a year ago I saw a Mini Cooper with the vanity plate "TARD1S."

for realz tho i didnt know wtf they were talking about for tons
of this movie.. (i have not seen the last 2)

Do the books explain the denazification of the evil people? Snape and the Rasputiny dude were both folowers of the evil dark emperor lord sith - the former turned informant and the latter named names... and now they're teachers? Wha?

There were other things that confused me a bit, but in the course of the seven-hour epic I forgot them.

It was OK, I guess. All the actors are good, they've got the pacing down fairly well, but I wish they'd stop trying to shoehorn in an entire book and just give me a real plot.

The graveyard scene was wrong, too - the regeneration/rebirth scene wasn't scary enough for me. The other Death Eaters were supposed to be in awe of/terrified of Voldemort, not just standing around like they'd been called to a Friday afternoon management meeting. Ralph Fiennes was good as Voldemort, except I kept looking at him and thinking "why has he got Michael Jackson's nose?" which kind of ruined it for me. I kept expecting him to do a rendition of Thriller.

Generally I found the whole middle class bording school thing to grate MASSIVELY on me, and found it more pronounced, and really didn't enjoy the sickening moralising all the time. Easily the darkest of the films, and more should have been made of this almost sinister aspect. Thought it was actually quite heavy going for what is supposedly a kid's film.

The Voldemort scene at the end was an exact take off of the video for Come To Daddy.

Also, was I the only person to think, 'thank fuck' when the tents were burning at the start. Plummy happy clappy bastards.

Generally I found the whole middle class bording school thing to grate MASSIVELY on me, and found it more pronounced, and really didn't enjoy the sickening moralising all the time. Easily the darkest of the films, and more should have been made of this almost sinister aspect. Thought it was actually quite heavy going for what is supposedly a kid's film.

The Voldemort scene at the end was an exact take off of the video for Come To Daddy.

Also, was I the only person to think, 'thank fuck' when the tents were burning at the start? Plummy happy clappy bastards.

After the fall of Voldemort, a lot of his followers claimed to have been acting under the Imperius curse (as conveniently demonstrated by Crouch Jr.-as-Moody in that classroom sequence).

The giantess is plated by Mrs. Jones off Rising Damp.

Brendan Gleeson = excellent.

I was right when I saw the first one and said "That boy who plays Ron is just going to end up with that expression on his face permanently".

Daniel Radcliffe is getting good at the tricky bit of playing Harry, which is justifying the stupid things that he does when a sensible plan of action would shorten the film to 5 minutes. He's good at being headstrong but not oafish.

Michael Gambon is terrible. Bring back the corpse of Richard Harris!

Less Rita Skeeter as well = a good thing.

The climactic scene was a bit short-changed, but I can't decide whether it would be more or less awkward if they worked in the fact from Book 1 that their wands are twins. Definitely making clear that the shadowy figure are his parents would have made a difference.

The post-climactic scenes, the best in the book, are completely shortchanged, as it's missing the whole "No-one believes us, everyone's going to DIE" business. It sounded like Dumbledore was just telling them what would be in tomorrow's papers, rather than breaking the official secrets act.

Could have cut short a couple of the task scenes because the whole ending is completely disappointing and pretty much ruined the whole movie. There was none of the dread and panic of "omg, VOLDEMORT IS BACK, WE'RE ALL FUCKED". It also doesn't explain a lot of things - why their wands reacted that way, how Barty Crouch Jr escaped from Azkaban. And Dumbledore's speech at the end was TERRIBLE, which might not have mattered if they had managed to convey properly how tragic/needless Cedric's death actually was. In the book, there was a short scene with Harry and Cedric's parents which added a bit of gravity that could have easily been included. They should really just stop giving the movies bloody Hollywood endings - sure, the books end optimistically but most of the time they end with the threat of impending doom.

During the scene in the graveyard when Voldemort says "Let me tell you what really happened..." etc. I was just dying for him to go "HARRY... I AM YOUR FATHER". Seriously, the entire graveyard scene was like a mix of all climactic Star Wars scenes minus the mind reading - lopped off hands, electricity-like Cruciatus, duels, even a Revenge-echoing "NOOOOOOOO!!".

Hermione remains the best out of the central three but Daniel Radcliffe is getting there.

Also, am I the only one who liked the Weasley twins? In any case, they were the only good things about the next instalment (whereby they exit with a big resounding "Fuck off" to the school), so they'll be the only thing to look forward to in Order of the Phoenix, by far the dullest and least memorable of all the books.

I thought it was brilliant that when Cho actually gets to speak, she's Scottish, though I can't quite articulate why.

What's with Cedric Diggory looking pale and fey? I thought he was supposed to be a star athlete.

Public School sports stars aren't exactly American Footballers.

Me too.

And I thought it was great that Cho was Scottish too though I have no idea why either.

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Especially in a sport in which the broom does most of the hard work.

Although he loves to play Playstation, listen to music (some of his faves are The Stereophonics, R.E.M. and U2), and write, he's also very active and energetic.

He also named Jane's Addiction, Libertines, The, Rage Against the Machine and Darkness, The among his favourite bands.

He enjoys listening to the music of Blur, Muse, The Music, Zwan and Brendan Benson.

Plays the bass guitar.

Some of his favorite music groups are Stratovarius (Finland), Huey Lewis and The News (USA), and Tom Robinson (England).

He is a fan of indie rock. Some of his favourite bands include: The Zutons, Razorlight, The Libertines, Bloc Party, Hope of the states, The Futureheads and Kaiser Chiefs.

He likes the music of The Strokes, The Clash, and The Pixies.

I don't know why, but Emma Watson really annoyed me in this film.

still. it was jizz.

Her character in the books is irredeemably annoying, so there's only so much that can be done with it.

This movie fucking sucked almost as much as the last one. Michael Gambon is the worst actor I have EVER seen.

yes! fuck. yes.

Whereas I think the third might be favourite. Hard to say though, I don't really differentiate between the first three that much.

Settled down to watch HPATGOF on DVD on Saturday evening, and couldn't get on with it AT ALL. Deeply disappointing, as I enjoyed the first three a lot. Mind you, I gave up on the book about a third of the way through. Maybe it's just got too teenagery for me...

It's very good at being teenagery, I suppose that there'd be more goths except it's probably taken very seriously by the teaching staff.

Considering the book is the size of the OED, I think they did a great job.

It's all about Clémence Poésy. Even though she was underused and her character was weak.

I also find Daniel Radcliffe supernaturally unlikeable.

Yes, both off and on screen.

wtf, Jarvis is in this for six shots, totaling 20 secs of screentime. For the import that britpop(and keith relf) haircuts had on these movies, you'd think they'd give the band a bit more screentime.

Also, the neville kid doesn't look like a young pete townshend anymore. Such things disappoint me in my inebriated state.

I hear a lot of that got cut. Long movie. I think there was more in the special features. Did you watch this in prep for OOTP?

I passed on a sneak preview last night as those are a beating. Have tix to go with friends tomorrow at the Alamo where victuals and beers may be enjoyed with the movie. SO EXCITED!!

SEEING OOTP TODAY!!!! WOO-HOO!!!

SAW OOTP YESTERDAY!!!! HAW HAW!!!

:(

I can't stay up that late. And I passed on a sneak preview Monday as I wanted to enjoy it today with friends and beerz.

I'd say no spoilers but you know, I've read the book so. . .

I saw a sneak preview at 5:55 PM yesterday with my wife and some friends! GO GO GADGET CONNECTIONS

We are seeing it at the Alamo Drafthouse which serves food and drink. Last year they had the dark mark in the sky above the theater, had the lobby fixed up like Platform 9 3/4, and were serving butterbeer and pumpkin juice. The butterbeer was vile. I'm sticking Dos Equis.

The spacey new friend was kind of hilarious. All in all, I thought it was good but not worthy of the lavish praise critics are giving it.

I'd rank the five movies like this: 3-4-5-2-1

Hmm, I shall have to rank tomorrow.

Luna's a great character all-around. I'm curious how Umbridge works out. In my head I always pictured her as the short lady from Poltergeist. Not sure how Vera Drake will do it for me. For the record, I've never liked the new Dumbledore. Not solemn enough.

In the commercials Helena Bonham Carter looks fantastic (and a bit too hot) as Bellatrix Lestrange. Heard she unfortunately isn't on screen much.

Meantime, this is a fun story. I like the guy!

i liked this one better.

Hmm. . .not only am I an annoying rockist but they have spoiled me so far with being true to the books. Despite this the movies always disappoint a bit as they skim through so much of the story. I understand this is necessary for a film version. This time though they really made a major change (Cho being the snitch, WTF?!?!) and added some stuff that didn't happen in the book. You have to cut so much out why the fuck are you making stuff up???

I need to see it again before I can form an opinion on overall goodness.

Was I the only one who thought Tonks was mega cute? MORE TONKS, PLS!

The girl who played Tonks looks exactly how I pictured her to; same goes for Luna, although I always imagined her voice being not nearly that soft. Anybody else think Kingsley Shacklebolt was dressed far too flamboyantly?

Anyway I liked this a lot, best in the series probably besides Prisoner of Azkaban, although MsM's Cho related WTF was a big WTF for me too.

The Half-Blood Prince book was so much shorter than OOTP (by, what, 300 pages?) I wonder if JK realized she was getting too carried away and wanted the last 2 books to be more movieizable - anyone know how long Deathly Hallows is supposed to be? OOTP has been by far my favorite of the books though, I'm not sure how I would feel if this theory proved to be true.

I pictured Tonks more as one of my old band teachers with short hair. I'm very glad film Tonks gave me a better image. But yeah, major cutie. I don't think Luna was eccentric enough. And what the hell was up with Shacklebolt being African? Just because he's black the muthafucker has to be from Africa??

I think I heard Deathly Hallows is 700-something pages.

Catching up on my Harry Potters (only saw the first two) and this one was really entertaining. I love the whole teen angst stuff, as cheesy as it is. Also I completely forgot about Jarvis Cocker so when he showed up playing the prom it was like I was 18 again!