Posted on 07/20/2009 7:29:41 AM PDT by ccmovrwc
Battling the dark forces takes a back seat to romance and Quidditch
By Alonso Duralde Film critic msnbc.com contributor updated 4:25 p.m. ET, Tues., July 14, 2009
Call it the calm before the storm, but “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” goes out of its way to balance its own dark doings — to say nothing of the dire events to come in the two upcoming movies based on “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” — with more character and atmosphere than we’ve seen in the last few movies.
If you’ve been missing Quidditch matches, love triangles, hanging out in the Gryffindor common room and general Hogwarts-iness, you’ll have a great time with this latest sequel.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I haven’t seen a discussion thread on the new Harry Potter movie yet. Potter Ping?
I heard some rumor awhile ago that JK Rowling compared Dolores Umbridge to Margaret Thatcher. Any validity to this claim?
Probably considering Rowling is a lefty ex-welfare queen.
Ping! I haven’t seen it yet,but can’t wait! I’ve heard it’s really good.
Well, Rowling writes good books, wish she would just shut up though. :/ Her statement that Dumbledore was gay in her mind sort of poisoned my mind towards her. And Umbridge being compared to Thatcher, ridiculous. She was so much more like Clinton’s Sec. of State than Thatcher!!! For some reason her name escapes me!
Madeline Albright.
Careful I once tried to say Rowling took a shot at Bush and was almost flamed to death. Maybe her “outing” of Dumbledore to a conference full of kids changed a few minds.
As to HP, which I love, The Half Blood Prince is one of the most beautifully filmed movies I have ever seen. The director did a masterful job with the story and the characters. The cinematography was fantastic. The new Dumbledore finally was made loveable again.
The ending was toned down from the book a bit, which I regretted, but it was a masterful film.
I thought the film was very good. It deviates from the book in multiple ways, but that’s pretty unavoidable. One aspect I found slightly humorous is that there is barely a nod given to the fact that the characters are attending a school. Harry has a potions class and ... well, that’s pretty much it.
Good movie.
I would have hoped that a movie with the words “the Half-Blood Prince” would actually have more scenes with that Prince.
Rickmann RULES!!!
Ohhhhh. I get it. Harry Potter.
I thought the “Half-Blood Prince” was some oblique reference to His Excellency Barack Hussein Obama, due to his being a Half-breed. (In which case maybe we should refer to Obama as the “Half-Breed Prince...?)
How can you tell I know next to nothing about Harry Potter?
“Probably considering Rowling is a lefty ex-welfare queen.”
If only all welfare queens would display her commitment to achieving self-sufficiency...
Hubby and I thought the movie was excellent: the most powerful HP movie so far. There were some shortcuts taken, but they weren’t offensive to me in view of turning these massive books into a standard movie length.
And I agree that Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore finally became a real Dumbledore before the end.
I thought there was another actress signed up to play Narcissa, though?
I doubt that's the fault of the movie. More likely, the reviewer projected all the evil "big government" undertones of the last movie onto the hated Bush Administration, but sees no parallels now that "He Who Must Not Be Named Hussein" has assumed power.
Goofball liberals can't even watch a kid's movie without BDS seeping into their brains.
Wouldn’t an ex-welfare person be a good thing? Seeing that she got a job and is off welfare.
If she's anybody, she's Nancy Pelosi! If the Ministry of Magic issued proclamations that said no gays at Hogwarts, you could make a fair argument that Umbridge was meant to represent Right-Wing Fascists. But regulating teaching? Disarming students? Preparing society for an oncoming storm of an evil despot telling everyone what to think? Umbridge is a Liberal Fascist!
As the author of the fiction, shouldn’t she be entitled to say what she wants about her own characters?
The Lefties will have a hard time with "Deathly Hallows", in that there the wizard government has been taken over by the Death Eaters. Then again, the Brit Lefties will have fun if a Conservative govt gets into power by the release date.
The Lefties also panned the new Transformers movie (giving it one star) because it's so politically incorrect. (My kids and I loved it).
Well, the left and right have been fighting over Orwell’s 1984 since publication... despite all clear indications that it is a condemnation of a communist society.
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