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Posts Tagged ‘movies’

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

14.07.2011 01:32

DANIEL RADCLIFFE as Harry Potter in Warner Bros. Pictures' fantasy adventure HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS - PART 2, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Jaap Buitendijk.

The story has finally come to its conclusion. And what a conclusion it is.

I went to see the latest – and last – of the Harry Potter movie series today, on its world premiere day, expecting a worthy end to a long running series. I haven’t read any of the books yet, so I was truly going into the theater blindfolded, not knowing exactly how things would turn out. I bought my ticket about a month ago, and spread across these weeks, I’ve re-watched the entire Harry Potter movie series from beginning to end; the first 6 on DVD from my collection, and the seventh (Deathly Hallows Part 1) was downloaded from a file-sharing site. I chose to download it (technically, that probably makes me a criminal) because, given their titles, I merely want to wait until the last one comes out on DVD to buy the last two together as some sort of box set or collection. And over the last week, I must’ve watched “Part 1″ of this pair about 2 or 3 times, just to be buried deep enough into the story and not miss a thing when the final one would be released. That, and it’s really a great movie.

Those who have read the books, probably already knows how the last film turns out in the end, and those who haven’t, are in for quite a treat as well. If I had to make a suggestion: Don’t watch Deathly Hallows Part 2 unless you’ve seen the previous 7 movies first. I’d say that’s a necessary prerequisite before watching this one, or you’ll miss out a great deal on the story.

The movie picks up more or less where we left off, and the last scene from the previous movie (showing Voldemort) does make an appearance at the very start of the movie (before the title is shown). We are then returned to the beach safe house seen at the end of the movie, starting with Harry at the grave of *mumblemumblemumble*, mourning his friend (I won’t name names to avoid spoiling the end of part 1 for those who haven’t seen it yet). The trio (Harry, Ron and Hermoine) begin their plans for continuing the quest of finding the remaining horcruxes to destroy Voldemort, starting off at a certain storage location (again, not naming names to avoid spoiling too much of the fun).

I can’t really say much more without spoiling too much of the whole story, which I think really says a lot about how much stuff that happens throughout the movie. I feel I can say this much, though: Yes, some people we’ve known in the movies for some time now will die, but they do so in such a manner (and are minor enough) that we can mourn the losses and move on, although the moment of finding out they died certainly was filled with sorrow.

The movie’s story seems to take place in less than a day (not counting the epilog at the end), and is quite well-paced and filled with action.

Aaaarrrgh! I want to say so much about the story, but feel that I have to restrain myself to avoid spoiling the details!

We have followed these youngsters from a very young age, throughout about 7 years at Hogwarts and beyond, and along the way, these have become, at least in spirit, our good friends. It feels a bit sad to part ways with these friends, but it’s also a relief that so many bad things also come to an end.

All in all, a perfect conclusion to a long story.

Rating: 10/10 ★★★★★★★★★★ 

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Pineapple Express

10.07.2011 08:05

Dale Denton (Seth Rogen, right) and Saul Silver (James Franco, left) are two lazy stoners running for their lives in Columbia Pictures' action-comedy Pineapple Express. (C) 2008 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.

Today, I managed to turn my attention to one of those movies I bought on DVD because they had some promise (based on what I’ve read and heard about it in advance), but never had a proper chance to actually watch it. According to a colleague of mine, I just had to see this one, and now was the time to do just that.

Considering the theme (somewhat revolved around marijuana smoking), I was a little hesitant to go through with the viewing. Personally, I’m all for people smoking pot, weed, or whatever you’d like to call it, as long as you don’t overdo and are fully aware of the consequences. As the Cracked.com humor website recently pointed out, marijuana activists (if you can call it that, considering the dulling effect it has) often use bad arguments for legalizing marijuana, and about half of them came into play in Pineapple Express (more or less, it’s the top three of those five). Basically, what can be learned from this movie, is that smoking pot may make your life more mellow when smoking it, but it also makes you throw all logic and common sense out the window, which is what these two guys (Dale and Saul, played by Seth Rogen and James Franco, respectively) appear to be doing.

Dale is a process server (ie. those who serve subpoenas to people on behalf of civil courts) who leads a pretty much successful life, using a wide range of creative disguises to fool his targets into acknowledging who they are and receive their subpoenas. He has a girlfriend who’s in high school, and he smokes pot every day (but hides this fact from his girlfriend). After getting a batch of new high-grade pot, with the exotic name “Pineapple Express”, from his dealer Saul, he goes on to serve his next subpoena to a guy named Ted Jones (Gary Cole), who he had found out might be Saul’s dealer, separated by a middle-man named Red (Danny McBride). While finishing up his current joint soon after arriving in front of Ted’s house, Dale becomes witness to a murder inside Ted’s house, assisted by a corrupt female cop, and all hell breaks loose. Dale throws away his joint and gets the hell out of there, ending up at Saul’s house again, telling his story. After finding out that Saul is the only one who has a “preview” of the exclusive Pineapple Express marijuana, the two of them decide to go on the run, since Ted is bound to trace back the source supplier of the joint Dale dropped outside of Ted’s place sooner rather than later. This erupts into a series of bad choices and decisions from the pair, as they jump from running away to finally fighting back.

As I said, during their trip, not a single choice they make is bound by either logic or common sense, and I feel myself cringe at those moments in the film. And to make matters worse, they even take their time to refill their bodies with weed smoke, again, without thinking about the consequences, or sometimes even the fact that they are being chased by people intent on killing them.

The movie does have its high moments (in more than one way), which does pull it back up on its feet, although whenever Dale’s girlfriend (and her family) is involved in the story during their chase (even on a minor level), it all becomes awkward, perhaps hilariously awkward for some people, but just plain awkward for me.

This is more a little above the middle of the road in my case, although those more involved in the pot culture (either directly or in spirit) may enjoy it more than me. I, however, don’t plan to watch it again unless it’s suggested by others (once was enough for me).

Rating: 6/10 ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 

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The Adjustment Bureau

08.07.2011 01:17

I got the chance to see The Adjustment Bureau today, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, among others. And I have to say, I wasn’t dissapointed. I was previously a little bit hesitant about it being a good one, and in such situations, I download the movie from a file sharing site (I won’t name names, but you probably already know which one). But I can say, having watched it, I can say it has the quality worthy to be among the roughly thousand DVDs in my collection (meaning, I’m going to buy it on DVD in the next few months – I’ll probably wait until I get back from my vacation, though).

It starts out nicely; Matt Damon is David Norris, a United States congressman running for the Senate. Shortly after losing the election, while preparing for his losing speech, he runs into a woman named Elise (Emily Blunt), who he almost immediately gets a crush on. After running into her again on the bus ride to his job at a law firm, he finds himself chased by some men in suits and hats on several occasions, who seem to have some weird influence on the world, and one of their objectives is to prevent David from seeing Elise again, for unknown reasons (at first; the real reason is revealed later in the film).

This is quite a good “being-chased” action thriller, with certain religious overtones hidden behind it. But in contrast with the Left Behind series of books and films, The Adjustment Bureau tones this aspect down quite a few notches. I consider myself an agnostic, and I don’t like religion being thrust down my throat, as I felt with Left Behind (I bought the first movie of the series, more or less by accident, and without knowing what it was about – and I was severely disappointed and disgusted at the way a certain religious belief was being crammed down on me). Thankfully, this was not the case with this movie. The few religious overtones were introduced gradually, and, as I said, was being toned way down to a level that allows you to believe whatever the hell you want to believe. My personal belief is still intact, and I was left with a good feeling at the end of the movie.

The movie also set “if you have enough influence, you can nudge someone in the direction you want them to” kind of mood in the “Grand Scheme of Things” (or, as the movie called it, “The Plan”), yet people are still free to make their own choices, even if it’s on an unconscious level.

All in all, a good movie.

Rating: 8/10 ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 

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Summer is here, and so is Monday

20.06.2011 20:09

Yes, summer is here, hot weather, ice cream (outside!!), brighter days, the whole shebang. Such things make my spirit lighter, even though “hot” around here means sun with anything above 13° Celsius (around 55° Fahrenheit), or above 15° C (59° F) without the sun. The picture above is of me enjoying the sun, composited over a panoramic view over Brosundet (the sound between the two main city islands in Ålesund), both taken on my way to work today.

Then again, although I don’t usually experience such things, today was also what could be called a “typical” Monday. About 10 minutes before I was due in a teleconference meeting (over the Internet – via WebEx), my laptop started to slow down on me. Every browser window or new program I wanted to run/open took at least a few minutes just to show some activity. This meant that I was also unable to connect to the meeting and participate. When I finally got to a point where I could connect, the meeting was already over. Shucks, indeed. Thankfully, I was able to get a second meeting, with a summary of the first, about 45 minutes later. This gave me enough time to reboot my laptop completely, just to root out any programs running in the background that was causing this slowdown.

Even if the client contact and I have such a good tone that we could brush it off in the end, such breakdowns in technology do darken my originally bright day.

On a brighter note, I was able to secure myself one ticket to see the sneak preview of the latest Harry Potter movie on July 13, just three days before I leave for USA. I just wanted to get it out of the way before I go, and in the time leading up to the movie premiere, I’ll be watching all 7 of the previous movies, 6 of them on DVD. I admit, I’ve downloaded “part 1″ of this two-parter illegally, rather than getting it on DVD, but that’s because I want to buy these two parts as a complete set, and not separately. I assume these last two in the series will be sold together as a boxed item once the last one is ready for release on DVD and Blu-ray.

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IN THREE DEEEEEEE!!!!

14.06.2011 01:45

Over the last week, I’ve watched the first three “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, just to catch up on the storyline, and on Sunday, I finally got around to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in the story of Captain Jack Sparrow, based on the Disney ride of the same name. And since the early showing was the 3D version, I decided to go for it. I’ve heard so much hype about movies in 3D, and having tried it briefly on my visit to Disney World and Universal Studios two years ago (although only for 5-10 minutes at a time), I thought I’d give it a whirl.

To be honest, it didn’t impress me much. Sure, some segments had some “cheap 3D tricks”, such as pointing a sword in your face, and sitting in a small rowboat (making you feel like you’re sitting right across from the person). The beginning, with the 3D version of the Disney logo, and looking across the ocean in darkness, were quite impressive, but as the movie progressed, I got the feeling that I might as well could be watching the “regular” 2D version. And with the Norwegian tradition of subtitling everything in Norwegian when another language is spoken, it broke the illusion at a few points in the movie. Granted, the subtitles were “floating” in front of the movie (and was more or less unreadable when I removed my 3D glasses, just to double-check), but when a person was supposed to be closer to us in distance, at a eyeball’s measure being “in front” of where the subtitles were positioned, the illusion broke as soon as that person moved sideways to where the subtitles were. Also, the fact that the movie screen is a limited rectangle did its job of ruining the 3D illusion at some points.

The movie itself was pretty good, though. It did keep in canon with the rest of the movies, even though I missed seeing both Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly from the previous movies, even if their characters’ stories are more or less done at this point. Only a few small cameo appearances would’ve been enough to satisfy me, though, just as some reassurance that their characters were still around.

In any case, I’ll be looking forward to parts 5 and 6, which are coming out in 2013 and 2014 (if the rough release dates listed on IMDb can be trusted).

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Music and movie piracy

29.01.2010 16:35

Earlier this week, it became clear that RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) wants to settle in the lawsuit against Jammie Thomas for $25,000. This is after the judge in that lawsuit had decreased the original $2 million “fine” (actually closer to $1.92) to $54,000 only a few days before. Not surprisingly, Thomas declined because they wanted her to accept it “without me knowing what I’m agreeing to”.

I would agree with Thomas here. I’d fight the ridiculously high demand to my very last breath. Not because I don’t want to pay for the music I have, but because I disagree with the methods these trade organizations (RIAA, IFPI, BSA and MPAA being the major offenders here) are using to battle content piracy (“content” being music, films, software and whatnot — I’m counting games under the “software” umbrella here, btw).

I admit, I download music, films and TV shows illegally on a semi-regular basis. But, I buy a lot of it legally as well.

Once the most recent episode of Heroes or CSI (just to mention a few) hit the pirate networks after being aired in the U.S. a few hours earlier, I download it (or, at the very least, later that same week, depending on when I remember to check in). I don’t want to wait until the one of the local TV networks decide to air it, mainly because they are constantly one or two seasons behind the U.S. broadcasts. And some of those TV shows are even available on the pirate networks in both standard definition and HD. For the sake of simplicity (and storage space), though, I usually go for the standard definition ones. That’s not to say I’m not willing to pay for it. Heck, I’d gladly pay a monthly subscription fee if I could get all of my favorite TV shows legally, and the second they are available from the respective production companies. The only services I’ve heard/read that do this, are only available to customers inside the U.S., which is a shame to me, as a customer in Norway. Sure, I can use a proxy service to mask my IP address as if I was in the U.S., but why go through all that trouble, when I can get the same episode from a pirate network for “free” – and keep the episode afterwards?

I’ve pirated a few movies as well. Whenever I’m very uncertain about whether the movie is worth the DVD price and/or shelf space, I usually download it from a pirate network first. If the movie was bad or disappointing, I’d leave it at that. If the movie was great or absolutely worth my money, I later go out and buy it on DVD. The latter has happened to me on several occasions; Chicken Little, Cloverfield, Jumper (the latter two being surprisingly underrated), just to mention a few.

I’ve also bought (or gotten as a present from my wishlist) Heroes (season 1 and 2), CSI (seasons 1 through 7) and Stargate SG-1 (all 10 seasons and the two movies following the series) on DVD as a result of downloading these illegally first.

The same goes for my music collection. I have roughly 30-40 music CDs (maybe even up to 50, I don’t have the exact count), but close to 60-70 GB of music on MP3 (roughly 13-14,000 songs), all of various quality (128-320 kbps). I don’t add to my collection as frequently as I did before, but I still get new music, roughly a half of a CD album’s worth once or twice a month. Some I get from pirate websites, of the AllofMP3 type, some I get from genuine online music stores (DRM-free).

The current count of DVD units (TV series seasons and movies) at the time of this post was close to 940, all purchased or gifted 100% legally, so in a way, I consider myself a good customer of the movie and TV industry. Yet, when I pop a DVD into my DVD player, I feel intruded upon whenever the usual video regarding piracy comes up (the one with “You wouldn’t steal a car…” etc). I can’t skip it (“next” or “menu” on my DVD remote), even though I’ve literally seen it thousands of times before. I feel like I’m being stamped as a criminal even though I’ve bought the movie myself. Besides, those who pirate this DVD is not likely to include that short video when they distribute it anyway. It has no purpose.

The only positive anti-piracy campaign I’ve seen, was a pamphlet included inside the cover of one of the DVDs I bought from Play.com (UK-based, which means region 2 encoded DVDs, suitable for all of Europe – for you Americans, they also have an American division for those region 1 DVDs). I don’t remember the exact words on this pamphlet, but it basically said that by buying this film legally, I support the creators and producers of the film, and encourage them to make more. Now, that’s the type of spirit I want to see.

No matter what these trade organizations do, they won’t be able to shut down piracy completely. If you shut down services like The Pirate Bay, a few weeks up to a month later, a new website just like it will pop up (either from the same creators or from some other part of the world) and become the most popular piracy website instead.

And yes, there are people who have the ideal of “everything should be free”, even if that applies to software, music, movies, TV shows or other performing arts.

I’m not saying they should just give up, I’m saying they need to reconsider their current business and earning model. They count each instance of illegally copying a song or movie file as a lost sale due to piracy. Trouble is, what if that person who illegally downloaded wasn’t going to buy that song or movie if he/she could afford it? What if that person wasn’t willing to spend money on something he/she had never heard of or seen before, or on something that has gotten very mixed reviews? A file is just a file, much like a piece of paper.

They treat each of these “lost sales” as a physical copy, even though they are not. Comparing movie piracy (through downloads) to the theft of a car is like comparing Apple and Orange. It just doesn’t work that way. Movie piracy is more like borrowing a book at the local library, scanning every page of that book into your computer, and then returning the book afterwards. Those scans are then given away to anyone who asks for it. The original physical copy is still intact as ever, but did the publishing company and/or author actually lose sales over it?

When portraying their current and potential customers as potential criminals (as they do with the today’s continuing campaigns), they are only going to deter the most skittish of pirates, while the piracy bigwigs won’t even flinch by these campaigns. Instead, they should rather promote the positive effects of paying for movies, music and software — like helping artists, producers, designers (and all others involved in the production process) to continue their work and make more.

Second, instead of fighting sites like AllofMP3 and The Pirate Bay with lawsuits and sanctions, they should rather look into why they are popular and see the business opportunities in the distribution and pricing models (of the type used in AllofMP3) used.

Also, when I’ve tried to watch a certain music video or try to access certain types of music/video content (non-porn, for those who try to insinuate something), I’ve been countered with the message that my country is not allowed to see that content. There are no real country borders on the Internet, and the rights owners should realize this by now. When there are things I want to access, but can’t do it legally only because of where I live (considering the content itself is not against any laws or regulations in my country), I’m more likely to obtain the same content illegally.

Also of note: first of all, the fines and outcomes of those close-to-frivolous lawsuits (by my standards) are not going to the actual artists whose rights have been stepped on. They more or less line the pockets of the executives and the executive branch of the industry. The artists and composers down the line are not compensated, as I’ve understood it.

Second, take a look at some of the targets of these lawsuits and/or fining campaigns (the latter being offering the target to settle the case for a single fine rather than going to court); single mothers, young students, grandmothers, children, computer novices and even dead people. This seems more like hunting for humpback whales with a BB gun and a butterfly net (terrible analogy, I know, but I’m just trying to project an image of futility here — btw, the bigwig pirates would be the “humpback whales” in this particular analogy).

There, I just had to get it off my chest.

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The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005

28.04.2005 17:07

This week in America, “Dubya” signed a legislation named the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, which is a “movie piracy and filtering bill” (according to GovTrack).

Now, I don’t mind it being illegal to make distribution copies (ie. not backups in case something should go wrong), but that filtering part of it just makes me mad. I mean, when will it stop? So much for the “land of the free and the home of the brave” when the freedom is ripped from you by means of additional legislation, lawsuits or overzealous politicians, and the brave are just sitting around, waiting for someone else to do something about it.

Quoted from the CNN news story:
The bill gives legal protections to the fledgling filtering technology that helps parents automatically skip or mute sections of commercial movie DVDs. Bush signed it privately and without comment, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

There goes the artistic freedom out the window along with the actual parenting responsibility of parents. It’s simply allowing parents to slack off when it comes to being parents to their children. I mean, for crapping out loud, the movie ratings are there for a reason, right? “Not intended for ages below 18″. OK, so don’t let your children under 18 watch it, then.

In other political news from the US this week, Gerald Allen (Alabama) wants to ban all books containing subjects about homosexuality as well as books written by homosexual authors. As librarian Donna Schremser points out, this seems to be the beginning of some sort of “though police”. Now that’s 1984. George Orwell might’ve been right after all, he just missed the year of the events by a few decades.

By the way, from what I can tell, you can read the entire book 1984 by George Orwell online, and for free. Also, I’d recommend watching the movie with the same name, starring John Hurt (“Alien”, “Contact”, “Hellboy”).

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