Saturday, August 13, 2011

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011)

Director: David Yates
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson

Review:

I have been watching the Harry Potter films these few days from the start. I have never been much a reader and would be fallen asleep just by seeing the thickness of the Harry Potter books. Therefore I will express my opinion completely oblivious of what mentioned in the books. The series has been really taken a dark tone, from a family live-action cartoon to a war movie, and yes the whole Deathly Hallow Part 2 is basically a war.

There seems many elements that were supposed to mean something, but actually means nothing. Chekhov's Gun or Red Herring? Like Harry got his wand that is a twin with Voldemort's, but both of them just replace their wands instead, and it never matter if their wands were twins or not. Does it serves an excuse of getting a new wand and paves the way for the Elder wand? But Voldemort can still get the Elder wand just for the power, so the twin wands thing have little contribution to the excuse. And what does their pets do? Ron's pet does later revealed to be Peter Pettigew, but again, all the pet thing just for this plot point in one movie? Oh well.

Malfoy is nothing but a bully, and as the characters grow up, he become a cowardly bully. At the first several movies he does nothing but gives some competitions to Harry. His screentime contracted shorter and shorter as new threats and rivals show up, and in the last few movies everytime we see him he looks sort of crying. The only really evil thing he does was letting the Death Eater into Hogwarts, but I dont know why it takes a whole movie to do it, and that doesnt make him an effective villain at all. And his father is so stupid that I never seen him once win in a rap game of casting spells.

The main surprise that were praised was learning that Snape was the good guy all along, and he only killed Dumbledore to gain Voldemort's trust. But exactly what does Snape do after gaining Voldermort's trust? He followed his order and turned Hogwart's into a school of terrorists, and we never see him aid the Order in any way or betray Voldemort. Hell he even provide the Order's plan for Voldemort in the beginning of Part 1 so that they could be followed. Later he was just killed by Voldermort without knowing that he is a spy. Speaking of the killing, Voldermort kill Snape because to fully acquire the Elder wand one must kill its owner. Why doesnt Dumbledore gives the wand to Snape beforehand so that he can use the Elder wand against Voldermort, which might stand a chance? What was Dumbledore's plan or it is something made up on the spot just to squeeze our emotion?

And in the end something laughably stupid happened. Harry pretends to be dead. Malfoy's mother checks on him and answers Voldemort that he is dead, and Voldemort is so utterly stupid that nobody could just see it for himself or check his pulse or anything. No wonder when Harry gets up he is so angry on his own stupidity. So they have a little Dragon ball style energy beam fight, and they kill Voldemort snake which contains part of his soul, and killed Voldermort. The End. Wait. Why does Voldemort let his snake go so far away now that people hostile are near and conceal the snake in his robe when he is million miles away?

Oh and even better: why not make a Horcrux out of a tiny object and threw it into the center of the ocean, so that there is no possible chance for anyone to find it at all?

Overall, the Harry Potter movies are okay and I like it to a degree that I watched every single one of them. As for the final movie, I must say up to Snape dies I like it. The Hogwart's siege reminds me of The Two Towers (2002), which in my regard is the best castle battle of all time. Although when the character dies I does not have much feeling maybe because they have so little screentime. After Snape dies, everything went stupid, and the ending is so generic that there is nothing to talk about.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Female Trouble (1974)

Director: John Waters
Stars: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce

Review:

Comparing to the notorious Pink Flamingos (1972), John Waters' Female Trouble (1974) is relatively unknown. However I found Female Trouble more hilarious and enjoyable, while Pink Flamingos at times went a little bit too gross. Also it is incredible that the whole theme and style bears uncanny resemblance to Almodovar's movies, with all those drag performance, tacky woman and campy clothes. Yes it is preposterous comparing the master of bad-taste trash films to the master of arthouse cinema, but that is the genuine feeling that I have. It is almost a parody to Almodovar, only made earlier of the target it is making fun with.

The movie follows the live of Divine's character, Dawn Davenport, beginning from her high school life. She was too different from a normal rebellious school girl, bullying others and eating on class. On christmas day she verbally fucked her parents and left home just because they did not give her Cha Cha Heels for present. 

"Get off me you ugly witch! I hate you! Fuck you! Fuck you both you awful people! You are not my parents! I hate you!"
She ran off from the house and fucked with a driver than was passing by (played also by Divine himself). Davenport was pregnant, and gave birth on a couch all by herself and bite off the umbilical cord with her own mouth. How does she live through the pregnancy, given that her market being a prostitute would be limited, I do not know. But hey this is trash film. Logic does not apply here.

Biting off the umbilical cord.
She live her life as a thief with two of her friends. They introduce her to a private beauty salon own by Mr & Mrs Dasher, which marks the beginning of her descend to insanity, and it is hilarious every moment of it. Mr & Mrs Dashers has a really twisted sense of beauty. Davenport was disfigured by her ex-husband's aunt for getting divorced and drove her husband away. Mr & Mrs Dashers considered her melted face beauty and take a photoshot before calling the ambulance. 

Davenport poses for a photo before committing a crime: hitting her daughter with a chair.

They also have the crazy theory that relates crime with beauty, and encourages her to perform different criminal acts in front of the camera. They kidnapped the aunt for her to chop off her hand in return the favour of giving her such "beauty", and inject eyeliner into her bloodstream. Davenport, after all these flattering, was getting hysterical. She screamed happily after strangling her daughter to death right before going on stage for a nightclub act.

I do not know what Davenport is doing for the nightclub act, other than being pure hysterical. She was jumping, bouncing, putting raw fish into her mouth and on her crotch, and tearing a book into pieces. I could not stop laughing because everything was so disjointed and utterly stupid. At last she went berserk and shot the audience.

"Ah hahaha!! She's finally dead! Oh I think I'm ready to go on now!"

Davenport was caught and brought to court. Now it is everyone for themselves, and the Dashers denied everything but pointing the finger to Davenport. Davenport was sentenced to death, but she was so fucked up that she thinks the electric chair is the highlight of her career in the show business, and even gave a speech for it. Some people maybe consider the death scene sad, but I still found it funny. 

The whole movie is a laugh riot, but with cheap sex and bloody murder. It is true that it is not as shocking as the Pink Flamingos, with scenes like eating dog turd, that is what make it easiler to laugh along with. The most shocking scene in here would be seeing (supposedly) Divine's dick, which I do not know it is special effect or not, it looks like nasty infected. It's a constant flow of stupid events and keeps you interested with the dumb plot rather than hating it.