Today I’m a movie critic

Any time I can watch movies is a good time. In general, I’m pretty easy to please. Although there are several I would not want to see again, I have never walked out on a movie. I was able to watch three movies this weekend: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dead Calm and Night at the Museum. All three were new to me, but only HP was seen on the big screen.

My thoughts in a nutshell:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Great entertainment, not as good as the book, super stage for the beginning of the end. For more, see my previous post.

Dead Calm: Eerily convincing performance by Billy Zane (perfect for the part). Too hard to believe John and Rae (Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman) couldn’t have ended it sooner. Very focused, two-pronged storytelling. Great psychological, strategic game play. I loved the suspense.

Night at the Museum: (Not the recent sequel, but the original) Honestly, the beginning of the movie stressed me out! Perhaps it’s the ESFJ in me, but why didn’t Larry (Ben Stiller) read the list sooner! Outside of that, I liked the historical entertainment, humor was fun and appropriate, plus it’s a great concept to think that history comes alive.

Today I’m a Harry Potter fan

I’ve been looking forward to this movie installment of the Harry Potter series for a long time. The unbelievable frustration that fired up last Fall when they delayed the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has since diminished and transformed into great excitement again.

This morning, I was able to slip away to the theater (sans family) to enjoy the latest HP flick on the big screen. I was NOT disappointed! Although the movie couldn’t touch upon a lot of the plot points in JK Rowling’s book, I didn’t feel robbed of any level of detail. And although the movie stretched well past 2 hours, it moved along quickly. I loved seeing Quidditch again and enjoyed the touch of humor used to balance the dire situations Harry and friends faced. I also thought this was a great story to get new Potter followers on board for his final trek — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Sadly, I’m back to waiting again. I’ll certainly reread the books (in fact, HPHBP is on the table in front of me now) and eagerly await the final two movies that will finish out the series. In the meantime, you’ll find me at the Leaky Cauldron if you want to talk.