Adventureland-revisited

I wrote in April, when I first saw it, that Adventureland was a rare movie. I wrote that it was so good that I sat in my seat hoping it didn't screw it up, and it didn't. Well, Adventureland came out on DVD this week, so I scooped it up and re-watched it. One thing I didn't realize the first time I watched it was that I wasn't just watching the best movie of the year, I was watching one of the great movies of the decade. Adventureland is the most wonderfully realized, delicately crafted, and emotionally affecting movie about young people that I've ever seen. It captures a moment in time that didn't even exist in my life, yet I connect to it so deeply I almost can't explain it.

There's not a single moment in the movie that rings false to me, and so many moments that transcend the maligned "young adult/teen" genre. Of course, it's not about "teens", it's about people just out of college realizing that their studies in Comparative Literature or Russian and Slavic Languages don't mean much in the real world. It's also about those fragile feelings of first love, real friendship, jealousy, and taking the wrong advice because you don't know any better yet. More than anything really, it's the first love story. But because everything is so carefully constructed, capturing life, the feeling of real life, it's about much more than that simple genre description might allude to. Sure, it's not documentary-esque real life, it's idealized and nostalgic, but in the best way possible. If this doesn't end up as my #1 movie of the year, I will be greatly, greatly surprised.

Hayao Miyazaki

I wrote about Hayao Miyazaki (pronounced Hi-ow Me-a-zah-ki) back in December of last year, when I first started discovering his movies, which had been recommended to me for years. http://enterthemovies.blogspot.com/2008/12/my-neighbor-totoro.html I had thankfully started with his masterpiece My Neighbor Totoro, and eventually went through his entire catalog. I recently saw his new film Ponyo, which he has said will be his last (although he's said that before). While on the lower part of my favorites list of Miyazaki's, Ponyo still had some of Miyazaki's trademarks, a fractured family of some sort, a young protaganist, a strong ecological message, and a story full of magic both good and evil.

But it made me think that I should go back and briefly review my feelings towards Miyazaki, since I hadn't done so since first discovering the 68-year-old masters work. Mostly hand animated, always a large chunk done by the man himself, Miyazaki's movies are endlessly fascinating to me. So this is my list of his movies I've seen, in preferred order, I've also decided to give ratings out of 4 stars to them, so you can see how highly I think of the mans work:

1. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind-1984-4 stars

While it has some major flaws, notably the parts of Joe Hisaishi's score that echo Nintendo games, Nausicaa is Miyazaki's greatest achievement. It encompasses all of his trademarks beautifully, and Nausicaa is the young female protagonist all the subsequent Miyazaki female heroes are measured against. The tremendous climax of the movie having one of my favorite scenes in his catalog, in the massive destruction caused by the "God Warrior". A terrifically animated epic that has topped my Miyazaki list since I first saw it.

2. My Neighbor Totoro-1988-4 stars

No need to re-review this one, as my feelings haven't changed on it since first viewing. Well, they may have, but it's been a strengthening. It's brilliant, and the movie I would start others on if they were looking to get into Miyazaki's work.

3. Spirited Away-2001-4 stars
The movie for which "Academy Award Winner" was attached to his name (for Best Animated Feature), Spirited Away is Miyazaki's most overflowingly magical experience. It's interesting in that the lead doesn't start out as the plucky, intelligent, independent young girl that most Miyazaki heroes are, but it's fun to watch her grow into that position as the spellbinding tale goes on.

4. Castle in the Sky-1986-3.5 stars
Probably my favorite example of one of Miyazaki's other recurring themes, flight. There are dozens of incredible sequences of flying in this action extravaganza. One of his most straight-forward and accessible adventure tales, I think. The sequence of the robot's destruction of the castle is one of the most memorable in the Miyazaki's catalog. It's frighteningly well done, and truly a joy to watch. Also, probably the earliest example of some of the wonderfully poetic images Miyazaki gives us during his movies. The early morning scene showing the fog covered mountain village still sticks in my mind, as does the Castle in the Sky itself.

5. Princess Mononoke-1997-3.5 stars

This one is a bit lower than it is on many peoples lists. I like it quite a bit, and it's Miyazaki's most epic movie, without question. But it just didn't resonate with me as much as it did some. I've been meaning to revisit it, because there was so much I loved about it. The demon battle that opens the movie is one of my favorites of the many action sequences in his movies. I also liked the complexity of characters, as we're rarely quite sure which side everyone is on (including the titular Princess). I think this might have something to do with my feelings, it's a bit harder to crack than his other movies.

6. The Castle of Cagliostro-1979-3.5 stars
Miyazaki's feature length entry into the long running Lupin III series is a terrific little piece of fluff action in the vein of an Indiana Jones style tribute to 1940's and 50's advenure serials. The only version I was able to see was a pretty poorly dubbed version (the only dubbed version of a Miyazaki movie I'd seen until Ponyo's surprisingly good dub), and was only able to see it on Netflix's streaming video. Still, it was fun for what it was, although it's not exactly Miyazaki shooting for the stars or anything.

7. Howl's Moving Castle-2004-3 stars

A fun trip into a strange world, Howl's Moving Castle was the last time Miyazaki said his newest movie would be his last. It's about wizards and curses and apocalyptic visions and such things. Most memorably, it's got the moving castle of the title. A wonderous visual invention of endless fascination for me, it's one of Miyazaki's greatest creations, even if the movie itself is not one of his best.

8. Ponyo-2009 (though technically came out in 2008, just not here)-3 stars
His most simplistic tale, his most kiddy friendly. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but since complexity of character is nearly always one of Miyazaki's strengths, it's a bit disappointing. Some of the visuals are exquisite, and the star studded dub (including Liam Neeson, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Betty White, Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin and others) that my girlfriend and I saw in the theater was surprisingly good, especially Tina Fey as the mom. But overall, the story just wasn't as interesting as some of his others.

9. Porco Rosso-1992-3 stars

I was really looking forward to Porco Rosso, since I knew it was about a pilot who's been magically cursed to have the face of a pig, and I always loved the flying scenes in Miyazaki's movies. I also had heard it was kind of his tribute to the 1940's movies. Fedoras, cigarettes, dames, etc. And while it has one of Miyazaki's most beautifully poetic sequences, a flying above the clouds, it's still one of his lesser efforts.

10. Kiki's Delivery Service-1989-3 stars
This was the first Miyazaki movie I ever heard of, seeing it at the video store when I was a kid. It's a charming story, with some sweet characters, Kiki and her cat being the most obvious, but I found the climax of the movie to be unsatisfying. It's not a waste of time, neither is Porco Rosso, they're both good movies. But I would really only say these last 3 are essential if you're a Miyazaki nut like myself.

So even on what I may think of, or talk about, as a lesser Miyazaki movie, I've still liked all 10 movies that I've seen. It's remarkable consistency. I can't think of another director that I've seen this many movies from and liked them all. Maybe Kurosawa or Scorsese, but even then, I've liked some of their movies less than I've liked the "lesser" Miyazaki's. So here's a whole (quite long, I guess) post dedicated to one of my favorite directors of all time, a true genius of cinema. Hayao Miyazaki.

Diane Birch-a new musical discovery

I first heard the name Diane Birch on Tuesday morning, when the video for her single "Nothing but a Miracle" came on VH1 as I was getting dressed for work. I often do this in the mornings, when VH1 and MTV actually play music, and VH1 typically has the better selection of artists (that's where I heard Corinne Baily Rae and Iron & Wine for the first time as well, among many others). I didn't recognize the name, obviously, and heard the sounds of what I thought was gonna be some new white girl trying to be an R&B singer, but at least with a cool voice (inviting, but with a bit of edge to it). Then the chorus kicked in and I realized I was listening to a very special Gospel/Soul/Pop kind of artist. Very subtle, yet impressive, piano work. Killer backing vocals (which I would later find out were all provided by her), and a melody and rhythm that I immediately couldn't get out of my head. So I decided to do what I always do when I find a new artist, I check their Wikipedia page to find out about them, and their music. Imagine my surprise when there was no Wikipedia page for Diane Birch. So I went to iTunes and looked her up, to make sure I got the name right, and found out that her album came out months ago, and I was just hearing about her now.

So although I didn't have the time to wait for it before I had to leave for work, I immediately downloaded her album. When I got home, I turned it on and was blown away by this gorgeous voice and these surprisingly strong songs. I found out that the same production team was behind Joss Stone's first two albums, but I knew that Stone isn't a musician or much of a songwriter, so I wanted to figure out whether Diane Birch was just a singer, or a more complete artist. Although you see her play a bit of piano in the video, you never know. Seeing that the iTunes download came with a digital booklet (an electronic version of the CD insert), I looked at it and saw "Music and Lyrics by Diane Birch", which made me very happy. So shortly, I began a Google search to learn as much about her as possible.

Although born in Michigan, she moved all over the world with her South African born parents. Her dad was a pastor who moved the family all over the world until finally settling back in the States while Diane was a teenager. She had started playing piano when she was 7, intuitively using her ear to mimic any sort of melody she heard. She heard essentially no popular American music until returning as a teen, so she taught herself by using classical music, as well as church hymns and the like. She was eventually introduced to the past 75 or so years of American music by her friends, and she soaked it all up. She didn't start singing until much later, only after the urging of her friends. Out popped her incredibly warm and powerful voice, and it didn't take long before she attracted a lot of notice. At one point even intriguing a certain audience member enough that he asked her to come over to his house and jam with his band. The audience member was Prince. Naturally, Birch went and jammed with him (as many of us musicians have dreamed of doing).

Listening to her album, which she called Bible Belt, somewhat in tribute to her dad, it's amazing that a young singer would come onto the scene with such a richly developed sound. I can listen to the whole album, front to back, and not really have any big complaints. A couple of the songs are a minute or two too long, but that's true of most albums. I especially like rhythmically upbeat "Valentino", the melancholy closer "Magic View", and the opener "Fire Escape", which she's said is the take that they recorded just so she could teach the band the song, since they'd never played it before. It was so good, they just put that take on the album. The whole album is timeless in a way that you rarely see. It sounds old, but not really like anybody you've heard. Her delivery of the material feels new, her voice is warm and inviting, and the material itself is so strong that I think it has a very wide ranging appeal. Birch is definitely an artist I'm going to be looking out for, and now I'll have this entry to prove that I was listening to her before she even had a damn Wikipedia page.

Here's a link to the song that made me sit up and take notice of her, "Nothing but a Miracle" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBU-FGzuP-w&feature=fvst

500 Days of Summer

"This is a boy meets girl story. It is not a love story."

So the narrator informs us near the beginning of 500 Days of Summer, a new romantic comedy. It is a romantic comedy in the sense that it is both funny, and about a romance. It is in no way your standard chick flick. In its use of split screens, a musical sequence, and the illustrations placed throughout, it actually has more in common with Annie Hall than it does with any number of Kate Hudson or Meg Ryan movies. Its two stars, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, are known in the independent film world as two of the brightest talents around, and are certainly not the type of actors you would normally see in a romantic comedy (although they've both been in one before). That, of course, is exactly why they're perfect here, and one of many reasons why this movie is so great.

The boy, Tom, meets the girl, Summer, when she becomes his bosses assistant. They work at a greeting card company, where Tom is a writer, although his real passion is for architecture. The movie actually shows off many sides of Los Angeles that I'd never seen before. It actually looks like a pretty great city, who knew? They kind of intrigue one another, and although she assures him she's not looking for anything more than casual, they begin dating and we see the ups and downs of their relationship, as both friends and lovers, throughout its 500 day course. The tagline on the poster is "Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't." and that's pretty accurate. Summer makes no apologies about not believing in love, or what I think, not being ready or selfless enough for love, despite Tom being a hopeless romantic who is desperately in love with her. He falls so head over heels in love that he can't help but have his world turned upside down when she says they shouldn't see each other anymore. I'm not giving anything away that doesn't happen in the first few minutes of the movie, by the way.

The movie is told out of sequence, annoyingly so to some I guess, as the couple next to me and my girlfriend audibly complained about it before leaving halfway through. But I enjoyed the way it jumped around, sometimes shifting wildly between moods, often passing hundreds of days between scenes. There's a fun graphic every time, showing us what numbered day it is, with an illustrated backdrop of L.A. giving us a clue as to the upcoming mood of the scene (sunny for happy times, darker or rainy for sad times, and so on). The story is told from Tom's point of view, Summer is mostly kept as a kind of enigma. We know why she doesn't believe in love (her parents divorce scarred her as a child), but we don't know why she does the things that she does. Which is fine, because Tom doesn't know either. She remains somewhat of a mystery to him as well. He never figures her out, and we're not sure she wants to be figured out.

The actors are really something special, with Gordon-Levitt again proving that he is much more of an actor than his days on 3rd Rock from the Sun might've hinted (although I loved him on that show too). With his performances in Brick, Stop-Loss, and especially his incendiary turn in Mysterious Skin, Gordon-Levitt has proven himself to be likely the best actor of his young generation. His work here is just as good as you would expect from him, showing the layers of Tom's pain when Summer hurts him, his understated resentment when she keeps a secret from him, and his infectious happiness when everything is going well. Deschanel, with her big gorgeous eyes, is equally adept at showing Summer's different sides, although we don't get to see as many as we do of Tom's. I love everything about both of their performances, nearly everything about the movie, and I had high expectations going in. It didn't let me down. It will definitely end up on my shortlist of the best movies of the year.

The Hurt Locker

The world of film directing is one dominated by men. There are many theories as to why women still aren't as numerous in the field (deep seeded Hollywood sexism, women being generally less aggressive than men, etc.), but because there are fewer female directors, there are fewer great movies to point to to prove that women can make films just as well as men. Kathryn Bigelow has not let anything hold her back, not only being a successful director, but doing it in even more male dominated genres. Her western/horror film Near Dark has gained a large cult following, she directed the action bonanza of Point Break with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, and also the underappreciated sci-fi movie Strange Days, with Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett, which in some ways was a precursor to The Matrix. Every one of her movies I've seen has had something great in it, but she'd not yet put it all together into a brilliant whole. She does exactly that in her new masterpiece The Hurt Locker, unsurprisingly set in the male dominated world of the United States Army, specifically an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit (the Army bomb squad) working in Iraq.

Bigelow has essentially just made an action movie here, with no overt talk of the politics involved in the Iraq war, and with only a little talk of the soldiers feelings about it, which essentially consists of "I hate this fucking place". Bigelow knows that politics will only divide her audience, so she ratchets up the tension by making us actually care about these characters. These guys aren't stand-ins for the directors or writers political ideal or agenda or anything like that, they're just regular guys counting down the days they have to stay alive until they can go home. There are many Hitchcockian scenes of bomb disposal, some successful, and some not. That we know Bigelow isn't afraid to kill off any of our main characters adds to the tension of many of the scenes. What also adds to the tension of the scenes is the unpredictability of Sergeant Will James (Jeremy Renner), the adrenaline-junkie tech guy and leader of the 3 man squad. He grates on the nerves of the by-the-book Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), and just further worries the already traumatized Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). We get to see James as your traditional cocky action hero, but we also see the effect that his reckless actions have on him and his team, and Renner never makes him feel like a cliche.

The actors all around never feel like anything but real people, it's a terrific ensemble. But still, the main draw should be the unbelievable tension that Bigelow is able to extract from these situations. There are many tense sequences in the movie, and they never feel repetitive. She is always able to give them a different spin. Amazingly, even the many scenes of bomb dismantling never repeat each other. There are sequences that just can't be a reflection of the reality of an EOD unit, or what soldiers really face in Iraq, but it's always in service of making the movie better. This is a movie that I would recommend to anyone, regardless of if they say they "don't like war movies". Probably because this isn't a war movie, it's an action/thriller that happens to be set during the war. The Hurt Locker is an extraordinary film, definitely one of the best of the year.

Funny People-A comedy?

Judd Apatow has made a name for himself the past few years as the creative force in cinematic comedy, despite only actually directing two movies. His work as producer and writer has given us some of the best comedies in recent memory, and he's now back with his third directorial effort, which he also wrote and produced, the semi-autobiographical Funny People.

Apatow cast his protege Seth Rogen in the role of Ira (obviously based on himself), a struggling stand-up comic who lucks into writing jokes for lowbrow comedy superstar George Simmons, Ira's comedic hero, and a character obviously based on the career of Adam Sandler. Not coincidental then perhaps, that George is played by Adam Sandler. But away from the big screen, George is a verbally abusive, depressed guy who kinda keeps Ira around as his de-facto friend, seemingly his only friend. George has found out that he has a serious blood disorder that he has a very small chance of living through. Undoubtedly inspired by his near death situation, he tries to get in touch with "the girl that got away", Laura, played by Apatow regular Leslie Mann (aka Mrs. Apatow). One problem is that "the girl that got away" really did get away, most obviously in the fact that she has a husband and two kids (hilariously played by Eric Bana, and the adorable Maude and Iris Apatow).

The movie isn't really a leap for Sandler, since he's already done his really serious movie Punch-Drunk Love, as well as another dramedy, Spanglish. But I think he continues to show a lot of depth and talent as an actual actor. His increasingly lined face tells us a lot about George's internal struggle with his disease, and his occasionally awkward relationship to Ira. George isn't an easily likable guy, and Sandler doesn't really seem to try to make him such. He plays him as a complicated man that occasionally makes us laugh, can make us uncomfortable, and actually felt like a character and not like Sandler acting a role. There are some funny supporting roles from Apatow regular Jonah Hill, semi-regular Jason Schwartzman, and hopefully future regular Aubrey Plaza as the token female comic of the group. Seth Rogen has really grown since his days on Apatow's ridiculously brilliant TV shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, and he has quite a few nice moments here, as does Leslie Mann, but for me this was all Sandlers show, and I was left greatly impressed.

One thing I would say though is that I wouldn't really classify Funny People as comedy. Apatow has accurately described it as a dramedy, and he doesn't shy away from the drama. He's said that he had had an idea for a movie about a guy dealing with a disease and how that affected his life, and realized he should mesh it with the other idea he'd long had, a movie about stand-up comics like the ones he idolized and occasionally wrote for before he was famous. He and Sandler had been roommates while trying to make it big, and had stayed friends over the years, so it was a natural fit that Sandler star in the movie.

Overall, I think just as highly of it as I do of his previous movies The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, but it's in a different mold, he's dealing with different issues here, more adult issues. It looks terrific, and I would like to see Apatow work with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski again. But Kaminski should know how to shoot a movie, as Steven Spielberg's go to director of photography, Kaminski has so far picked up 2 Oscars, and has another 2 nominations under his belt. Apatow is a master of surrounding himself with talented people, and I'll be very interested to see where he goes next as a writer/director.

Knowing

Roger Ebert, a critic I admire a great deal, has received a lot of flack over his 4-star review of the movie Knowing. Review aggregating website RottenTomatoes.com shows that only 32% of published critical reviews were positive, with the general consensus stating "Knowing has some interesting ideas and a couple good scenes, but it's weighted down by its absurd plot and over-seriousness." Well, the movie is about a man finding a sheet of paper that predicts the end of the world. It's a sort of disaster movie, of course it's ridiculous. And since it deals with the apocalypse, I would hope it would be over-serious. Do we really want apocalyptic movies any other way?

The movie kicks off with an elementary school class in 1959 creating a time capsule full of their drawings of what they think the future will be like, to be opened 50 years later. We see little Lucinda (an effectively creepy Lara Robinson), whose contribution to the time capsule is a page covered in numbers. Cut to 2009, where Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) is part of the elementary school class that gets to open up the time capsule, and he is the one that receives Lucinda's paper. His father John (Nicolas Cage) starts looking at the paper one night and notices the group of numbers 91101, or 9-11-01, with a number beside it that happens to be the number of lives lost on that day. He begins going through the paper, front and back, and finding dates and lives lost of many tragedies that've happened over the last 50 years, including 3 that will happen over the next few days. John also gets in contact with the now deceased Lucinda's daughter Diana (Rose Byrne) and her daughter Abby (also played by Lara Robinson, though less creepy this time).

The movie was directed by Australian visual virtuoso Alex Proyas, who directed one of my favorite movies, Dark City. The visuals here are less impressive than they were there, but there is a tremendous plane crash that was obviously influenced by Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, as it's a single take of the crash and its destructive aftermath, with Nic Cage wandering through the chaos. I think Proyas keeps the first two acts of the movie believable enough that we're invested enough in what is happening to go along with the "ridiculousness" of the final act. It's a bit difficult to review the ending of the movie, since it really requires a back and forth discussion, but I'll just say that it worked for me. There are a lot of religious evocations happening that I think turned some people off, but all of it was well done, and I thought very effective.

I feel like many people didn't give this movie a fair shot due to the presence of Nicolas Cage. He's done such a vast amount of shit over the last few years that I think most people had a pre-existing prejudice against this movie just because of his recent track record. Because of my previous love of Alex Proyas's movies (not just Dark City, but also The Crow, and I even enjoyed I, Robot despite its many flaws) I looked at Knowing as an Alex Proyas project that happened to star Nic Cage, which is what it was. I'm saddened that many people didn't give the movie a chance, Cage isn't as great as he's been in the past (Adaptation., Bringing Out the Dead, Leaving Las Vegas, Raising Arizona, the man's given us a lot of great performances), but he's good enough to not ruin the story, and the other actors are at about the same level. No one is great, other than young Lara Robinson, but nobody ruins anything either. This movie is more about the story, no matter how ridiculous, and how well it works. I thought it worked tremendously.

Moon

Sam Bell is a lonely man. He is the solitary employee at a mining base on the Moon, with only the base's computer, Gerty, to keep him company. He's nearing the end of his 3 year contract, and can't wait to get back home to his wife and young daughter. The communications are such that he has to record video messages to his family and send them out, because there's no live feed off of the Moon. Sam keeps an eye on all of the mining outposts, and sends containers of Helium-3 energy back to Earth when enough has been mined. But after nearly 3 years alone, Sam is starting to crack up. He begins having hallucinations, and accidentally crashes his vehicle into one of the mining units. He wakes up in the infirmary with no recollection of the crash, other than Gerty telling him that he's had an accident and must go through some tests before he can return to work. He gets even more confused when he is able to sneak away from base and check out the crash site, and finds in the cab of the vehicle, the body of Sam Bell. Has he gone completely crazy, or is there something happening that he doesn't know about?

Sam is brilliantly played by Sam Rockwell, one of the best and most underappreciated actors working today. It's the best performance I've seen so far this year. Although we have Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey) also around, Rockwell is the only human that we don't see simply through video messages. The entire film rests on his shoulders, and he's fascinating in the role. We believe that Sam is going a little nutty, but even he doesn't know what to believe at first. He's flabbergasted to find himself in the cab of the vehicle, and I never doubted once that these two Sam's were occupying the same space when they're both onscreen. Rockwell will hopefully not be forgotten once award season rolls around, because both he and the movie deserve the attention.

Moon is the first feature film by director Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie. He shows a remarkably sure hand, not afraid to let us be just as confused as Sam is as to what's going on, and why. He also doesn't let the movie get boring, which is always nice. Although it is certainly slow paced, something interesting, either on the surface or below it, is always happening, we're always engaged. The look of the movie is obviously greatly inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Jones just takes inspiration from there, I never felt like he was copying Kubrick either in the visuals or in the atmosphere of the movie. He took inspiration, but Jones has created a masterpiece that is his own.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince evokes J.K. Rowling's books better than any of the previous 5 movies, and is unsurprisingly the best of the series because of it. David Yates returns to the director's chair and he seems to really understand how to make these movies. The first two in the series were too slavish to the novels, afraid to make any changes to Rowling's material, even though some changes are always necessary when switching between formats. The third film saw visual mastermind Alfonso Cuaron taking over the directing duties and adding a certain flair that was missing from the flatness of the first two. But it was frustratingly clipped in its running time, making it feel rushed and having none of Rowling's small character moments that make her books such a joy to read again and again. The fourth film was less visually pleasing, but benefitted from a far better story. The fifth in the series, and the first from Yates, showed much of the darkness that runs through the novels, without forgetting the humor, and added many of the smaller moments that I love so much. Half-Blood Prince takes that same approach to another level, and becomes both a great adaptation, and a great movie.

The kids that play our three heroes, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, have grown up right in front of our eyes over the past 8 years. There have been a number of the awkward moments that you expect from young actors, but I found none of those in this movie. Daniel Radcliffe has really embodied Harry, not simply resting on his resemblance to the character description in the books (which has always been almost exactly as Rowling described Harry). Rupert Grint has an ease on screen as Ron, this time around getting the chance to be more than just the comic relief. Emma Watson has not only grown into a stunning young woman, but proven that she's probably the most talented of the group, imbuing Hermione with intelligence, grace, and a heartbreaking vulnerability that you don't often expect to get from an actress her age. Half-Blood Prince is her best chance yet to prove her skills.

The teachers and other adults have often felt, to me, simply like cameos from some of Britain's greatest talents. They mostly still do here, but there is less of them. Michael Gambon could never have pulled off a Dumbledore as he was created in the books, I don't think any actor ever could. He is still immensely effective in this movie though, bringing the humor that he'd brought in the past, while also bringing some of the gravitas he'd been missing from the character. Alan Rickman thankfully enjoys more screentime in this outing, and the movie is much better off for it. His Professor Snape is one of the great joys of the series, and Rickman is better here than he's been in any of the previous films. I'm afraid that I'm not quite happy with Jim Broadbent's Professor Slughorn, who got turned into little more than a bumbling fool in transition from page to screen. Helena Bonham Carter, on the other hand, perfectly cast as Bellatrix Lestrange, is a bit more reined in in her performance, in a good way. She makes the absence of Voldemort himself a little less noticeable.

Visually, I think that Yates has created the best of the series. His framing of shots and scenes, as well as his seemless transitions add both a visual and storytelling flow that I don't think the series has yet had. Also, along with writer Steve Kloves, Yates isn't scared of not being plot driven, and adds in moments that build the relationships between the characters. The budding romances between Ron and Hermione, and Harry and Ron's sister Ginny are both handled beautifully. A scene in the Room of Requirement between Harry and Ginny is completely nonexistent in the novel, but is perfection in dealing with the development of their relationship, as well as just being a wonderful moment all on its own, one which could've easily been written by Rowling herself.

It's not flawless, but most of the complaints I had were extremely minor. I would've loved to have had more of Evanna Lynch's pitch-perfect Luna Lovegood, but that's just wishful thinking. I think many fans of the books might be disappointed in the staging of the climax of the story (and the omittance of a legendary fight in the series), but I am not one of those people. All the changes made are understandable, and they all work just fine in the context of the movie. The Inferi aren't quite what I pictured them as, but Gambon's acting in the sequence, and Yates' conscious evoking of The Ten Commandments work terrifically to make the impact that the scene needs to make.

Overall, as a giant (and longtime) Harry Potter nerd, I was thrilled with this movie. It's by far the best in the series, and gets me even more excited to see how David Yates handles the final chapter of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which is going to be split into two movies. I'm just sad I'll have to wait until next fall to see part 1.

Public Enemies

Director Michael Mann has already made one of the great crime movies, 1995's Heat, and I was really hoping that his Public Enemies would be able to ride alongside it in greatness. It doesn't, but it's still a damn fine movie. It stars Johnny Depp as infamous 1930's bank robber John Dillinger, Marion Cotillard as his girl Billie, and Christian Bale as FBI man Melvin Purvis. Purvis had previously taken down Pretty Boy Floyd, and would also take out Baby Face Nelson in the process of hunting "Public Enemy #1" Dillinger.

Although he's now 15 years older than Dillinger was when he died, Johnny Depp is completely believable as the charismatic bank robber. When he tells Billie "I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars, and you. What else you need to know?", it's spouted off in such a way that we can't help but think this vicious bank robber is a cool guy. Mann and Depp don't sugar coat Dillinger either, during a robbery a bank manager tries to stall by fumbling with the keys to open the vault, likely in hopes that the cops would be there shortly. Dillinger whips him with his pistol and says "You can either be a dead hero, or a live coward. Open it up." Mann also doesn't make Purvis into a saint, showing he and his guys beating people, and withholding medicine from a man who's been shot in the head because he can give them information about Dillinger's whereabouts.

One of my biggest complaints in the past few years about action movies, or in this case movies with action scenes, is the proliferation of the "shaky cam". It's not a new technique or anything, it's simply badly done hand-held camera work, but it seems to be everywhere now. Mann doesn't use it a lot, but there were more than a couple of times that I was wishing someone knew how to work a camera so that I could visually understand what the hell was happening on screen. It's nowhere near Paul Greengrass's movie ruining use of it in the last two Bourne movies, but when I can't even focus on an actors face because the camera is jostling so much, it becomes a problem for me as a viewer.

Depp, as I mentioned, is terrific here. Not that that should surprise anyone, he's one of the best actors in the world. Depp lets us into Dillinger's mind as he initially doesn't think about anything beyond today (or maybe tomorrow), but slowly starts to think about a "final score" and a retirement as he finds something he cares about so deeply, Billie. Christian Bale is solid, if unremarkable, as Purvis. We get that he's determined to take Dillinger down, but I didn't feel Bale hinting at anything deeper than the surface the way Depp did. Marion Cotillard, who gave us one of the great performances of all time with her Oscar-winning role in La Vie en Rose, is a little disappointing here. She's not bad, but she isn't special and doesn't make Billie anything more than the standard gangster's girl type.

It seems like I did a lot of complaining in this review, but I really do like the movie a lot. There are certainly some below-par things in it (and I didn't even mention the often misplaced score), but I certainly would recommend it to anyone who asked. Mann fills the screen with such wonderful period details that the movie has a great sort of lived-in feel that is crucial to period pieces. It just feels like maybe it could've been more, like it could've been a truly great movie but just didn't quite make it. Still, you could do a lot worse than a movie that's only "really good".