Category: Fanboy

The Union of the Snake


is on the climb…which means trouble ahead for Harry and Hogwarts in the surprisingly satisfying Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I said of Alfonse Cuaron’s Azkaban that it was probably the ablest representation of the Rowling books we were going to get on film, but you know what? I was dead wrong. Mike Newell’s dark and delectable Goblet is brimming over with energy and suspense, and, to my surprise, it’s probably the best Potter film so far. (And this is coming from someone who actually preferred Book III to Book IV on paper.)

I assume most of y’all out there already know the story, but in a nutshell, Harry’s fourth year at England’s premiere Magickal Boarding School is one marked by three novel, terrifying, and wholly inscrutable challenges: (1) The Tri-Wizard Tournament (held every few years against rival academies Beauxbatons and Durmstrang); (2) the possible return of You-Know-Who (as announced by the sight of His Mark at the Quidditch World Cup); and (3) girls. Yes, on top of their usual troubles with magical enchantments and strange goings-on, Harry, Ron, and Hermione have hit those awkward middle school years, when a brief conversation with Cho Chang (Katie Leung), a waltz with Parvati Patel (Shefali Chowdhury), a bath with Moaning Myrtle (Shirley Henderson), or a date with Victor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski) becomes as nerve-rattling as facing down a wayward basilisk. Nevertheless, the Yule Ball is only the least of Harry’s worries, as — for some reason and in defiance of all the usual protocols — he’s been picked as a fourth entrant in the highly dangerous TriWizard Tournament…and, even with the aid of new Dark Arts teacher Mad-Eye Moody (a superb Brendan Gleeson), it’ll take all the wits and combined resources of our teenage trio (well, and Neville) for Harry to make it through intact.

To their credit, Newell and screenwriter Steve Kloves have done an excellent job scaling down the dense 700-page novel into a sleek two-and-a-half-hour film. Goblet moves at such a brisk clip that rarely did I find myself (as I did in Azkaban) enumerating the remaining plot points to be explained. [For what it’s worth, the House Elf subplot is gone, Rita Skeeter (Miranda Richardson, note-perfect) has basically one-and-a-half scenes, and the other TriWizard contestants — particularly poor Fleur Delacour (Clemence Poesy) — get somewhat short shrift.] In fact, even Harry’s usual nemeses — Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) and the scions of Slytherin — are for the most part pushed to the background here (although fans of those Schoolboys in Disgrace, the Weasley twins, will be happy to know that they get considerable screen time, and Ginny’s always lurking around too.)

Whatsmore, we’re definitely in PG-13 land this time. [Warning: Here there be spoilers, particularly for non-book-readers] Goblet is a film filled with unsettling images from its opening moments, from the floating Death Head above the World Cup to the highly creepy Pensieve flashback of Karkaroff’s plea hearing (Given recent events involving torture and secret prisons, I found this scene — and the contraption they were keeping Karkaroff in — particularly perturbing.) So it’s a testament to Newell’s vision that the scene everyone’s waiting for in Goblet of Fire, the big climax, is the creepiest one of all. The wretched, fetal You-Know-Who was disturbing enough, but once Voldemort emerges in all his twisted glory (looking a bit like the head vampire in Blade 2), Ralph Fiennes ratchets up the freak to eleven and almost runs away with the film. As I went to sleep last night after the midnight show, it was Fiennes’ crisp, lithe, and serpentine Voldemort (and his band of Klannish Death Eaters) that stuck in my head, exactly as it should be.

[As a tangent, and I’m probably thinking about this too much, but now I really like the shaggy haired dos of all our protagonists in context of the film — I don’t think it’s just a nod to Kinks/Pink Floyd-ish boarding house visions or a post-Anakin fad. There’s method to Newell’s madness…As Stephanie Zacharek also points out, he’s deliberately invoking the 70’s as the uncertain, transitional adolescence after the heyday of the Sixties, as well as the cultural moment just before Thatcherism and the Tory revival. Everything’s going to change, indeed.]

Reel Around the Fountain

Big doings for fans of heady sci-fi: We’ve only seen the very creepy screensaver so far, but finally the powers-that-be have released this brief, mind-bending teaser for Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz (formerly Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett…this Fountain‘s been a long time coming. It was supposed to be a 2002 release.)

Tilting at Windmills (Again).

“It’s got to the point that I think I just have to get it out of my system. Everyone’s been asking me questions about it, so just to shut everybody up I’ve got to make a film.” By way of Quiddity, Terry Gilliam, fresh off The Brothers Grimm and Tideland, may try to give The Man Who Killed Don Quixote another go. And word is, Depp’s still on board.

My little green friend.



“You must feel the Force around you, here; between you, me, the treat, the squirrel, everywhere!…yes, even between the land and the frisbee.” Ok, I know this is wrong on a lot of levels, and I’ve even gone on record (4/9) as being opposed to dressing up animals like Star Wars characters in the past. (Caped crusaders, tho’, are another matter.) Nevertheless, my sister‘s boyfriend Ethan saw this particular outfit and thought it screamed Berkeley, and, well, he does look ready to lay a Jedi-by-way-of-Wookie smackdown, doesn’t he? At any rate, happy halloween out there, y’all, and be safe.
Update: In barely related news, Yoda channels Honey Daniels.

Civilization (and its discontents).

Joyous news for both my dissertation research and my circadian rhythms (but ill tidings for Abe Lincoln of Minas Tirith): I picked up Civilization IV yesterday, but it has an as-yet-unfixed conflict with ATI video cards and won’t run on my PC. So the unhealthy 36-hour gaming-binges that usually accompany a new Civ-iteration will have to wait another week or two. Speaking of which, I haven’t written up a game update here in awhile. So, in brief:

“The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is…where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies and threats led him on his long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there…in peace. War will make corpses of us all.” Alas, as Faramir predicted, Battle for Middle Earth (which I borrowed from my sister at the end of summer) is somewhat disappointing. A Warcraft-style strategy game based on Tolkien lore, it makes great use of Howard Shore’s score, and admittedly there’s something viscerally satisfying about watching your own contingent of Rohirrim cavalry cut a swath through some lowly orc footsoldiers. But, frankly, too much of the game is a grind. Most of the levels very quickly turn into wars of attrition, where you’re just building units to send them to oblivion, over and over again, until you slowly but surely conquer the map. There’s very little strategy involved, and, as such, even despite the fidelity to Tolkien (by way of PJ), I lost interest in the game relatively early on. Then again, Boromir was always the soldier.


F.E.A.R., recommended by my brother, is basically a Half-Life 2-ish FPS that’s taken its cue from the recent wave of Japanese horror: The Big Bad is a ghostly little girl that for all intent and purposes could have materialized right out of The Ring. To its credit, F.E.A.R. displays impressive A.I. and includes a really fun slow-mo option for Matrixy melees. That being said, much of the (relatively easy) single-player game is standard FPS, whereby you face identical squads of enemies several times over. Frankly, F.E.A.R. could have used more Splinter Cell-type stealth missions or, better yet, some Infocom problem-solving and “lurking grue” caprice. The game starts out frightening, but pretty soon one figures out the only way to die is the usual manner: health to zero. And, ultimately, even despite the supernatural backdrop, that’s rather mundane.


NBA 2K6 is the latest installment in the 2K sports series, which, to my mind, eclipsed the more popular EA NBA Live line several years ago in terms of gameplay and simulation. This one’s a definite improvement over last year’s ESPN 2K5, most notably in handle and free-throw shooting — both are much more intuitive, and now, 85% free-throw shooters can actually hit 85% of the time, rather than 33% as before. If you’re into building out your crib a la NFL2K5, as some friends of mine are, that’s now an option here as well. And, whatever happens to the Knickerbockers this year, I gotta say, they turned out to be an offensively-lethal video game team — Stephon has put up career numbers (although waiving Allan Houston has killed my 3-ball percentage.)

To EA’s credit, tho’, I’m not usually one for car-racing games — They’re often boring, repetitive, and nothing like driving, IMHO — but Burnout 3 and now Burnout: Revenge are far and away the best racing games I’ve ever played (well, aside from the broader-themed Grand Thefts Auto.) True, most of the angst-rock, punk-lite soundtrack gets irritating after only a few minutes, Franz Ferdinand notwithstanding. But, aside from that, both Burnouts have a sense of speed and a visceral crunch to ’em that you don’t find in a lot of Pole Position‘s descendants. Burnout 3, only $20 these days, is worth checking out if you’re of the XBox nation.