John’s Movie Musings

Back in 2001, Microsoft released Halo for their brand new Xbox.  The game was an enormous hit and the sequel, Halo 2, pulled in millions, rivaling box office numbers (unheard of for a video game).  In the months prior to Halo 3‘s release on the Xbox 360, Microsoft wanted to go all out in the marketing campaign, so they hired indie director Neill Blomkamp to make a live action Halo short.  The film was released for download and got quite a bit of attention because it was far better than it should have been. (Watch it here)

Around this time, the Halo franchise was making waves in Hollywood.  The studios smelled money and got Peter Jackson on board to make a Halo summer blockbuster.  Jackson checked out Neill Blomkamp’s little marketing movie and hired him as director.

Unfortunately, this happy story has an unhappy ending.  Hollywood got greedy and everyone wanted the largest piece of Halo pie.  Fingers were pointed, mothers were insulted, and eventually the entire project died.

Tired of all things Hollywood, Jackson and Blomkamp were determined to do a project together.  Literally, the day after the death of the Halo movie, District 9 was born with a smaller budget, a more focused original story, and a streamlined production schedule.  The movie is so good I imagine Jackson and Blomkamp do drive-by studio moonings.  They’ve certainly earned them.

District 9 is one of those movies where you don’t want to read any reviews prior to going in.  It’s gotten a lot of positive press and probably will get even more in the coming weeks, but avoid the plot spoilers as much as you can.  If you only know there are aliens and you hate Sci-Fi movies, let me say that this isn’t your standard alien flick.  It uses the imaginary to speak of the human condition.  I’ve heard from several people who have been affected by the story.  At a minimum, it’ll leave you thinking.

Easily my best of the year…so far.

Grade: A+

Most people look forward to the next Harry Potter movie with an excitement only equaled by the latest Lady Gaga hit.  One might say it’s electrifying.

I’ve never been that much of a Pot-head as I’ve only followed the story through the movies.  I have read Twilight and lived to tell the tale, but Harry Potter has become sort of an experiment for me.  It’s one of the few series that gets better with each chapter and I’ve been watching to see how well those stories translate onto the big screen.  The Order of the Phoenix was the first film I really noticed the shortcuts taken to squeeze the book into two hours. Not bad considering how thick the books get.

So how did The Half-Blood Prince do?  As a movie, it stands on its own quite well, except for one small point that I’ll get to in a bit.  I knew most people ranked HP6 as their favorite.  Now, I can see why.  It’s fantastic.  One note of full disclosure, however: I enjoyed a near-perfect Guinness with the movie (Cinebarre Theaters – check ‘em out).  While that makes life itself better, it had no bearing on my enjoyment of what was on screen.

One fascinating aspect of these “events” – we get to watch the actors grow up before us.  Like many child actors, it may all end in tragedy, but for now it’s great.  The kids are getting old enough to where love starts causing problems and the director uses those moments as comic relief in an otherwise dark story.  It all works and there are plenty of good laughs to be had.

On to what didn’t work.  They maybe mentioned the Half-Blood Prince maybe three times during the entire story, including the revelation at the end.  By that point, I was thinking, “Yeah.  So what?  Who cares?”  I figured he had to be important, being in the title and all, so I asked my friends what it all meant.  After they told me how the book played out, I realized the movie missed the whole point.  But that realization only came with the added knowledge.  Without it, the movie stood quite well on its own and had a great setup for the last chapter (actually last two since Book 7 will get split in half).  Other than an odd title, I didn’t feel anything was missing.  +1 for ignorance.

For those of you who did read Book 6, be sure to point out all those missing details to your clueless friends.  Or just tell them to read the books.  I’ll get to ‘em eventually.

Grade: A