What a picture.

A lot is said about how this series ages with its audience, and all of it is correct. The series’ depiction of the wizarding world’s gradual descent into fascism is incredibly effective, which makes me so so grateful that these movies preceded Brexit/2016 election. Can’t even think about it in fact, it’s too cringe-y to imagine.

As far as the seriousness goes DH the book manages to keep things a little silly, DH the movie leans all…

As you can see in my bio, my star rating philosophy is very simple. I judge a film both on its quality and my own enjoyment.

Mank is a 4.5 on the former, but a 2 on the latter, so here we are, stuck in the middle but shading towards the craftmanship, which is exceptional. The meat of the story unfortunately is not comparable to Fincher’s prior work, of which I’ve loved every film without Edward Norton and a 3…

Book:

I’ll know for sure when I read DH next week, but as it stands this’ll be either my first or second favorite.

Like everyone else, I loved learning more about young Voldemort and getting to spend real time with Dumbledore as opposed to just a scene at the end where he explains the plot.

Half Blood Price (DH even more so) fleshes him out where you really understand why he’s the only one Voldemort ever feared, perfectly setting up…

Book Thoughts:

Pretty good, but too long.

Harry’s a bit of a dumbass, but that’s explained pretty well, so it doesn’t bother me too much.

The lack of a central mystery leaves the story a smidge hollow, but a mystery wouldn’t fit, so it’s no big deal. 

It made me hate Hagrid.

The book is the best of all of them at giving the reader insight about what it would feel to actually go to a wizarding boarding school. I…

Criterion Collection.

Now that it’s out on Criterion, I’ll take a break from this. I want to really build the anticipation before I watch it again in a few years, since I can already recite some scenes from memory lol.

Any clumsiness you can attribute to the first couple thirds, whether it be youthifying, the actors playing younger than they are, whatever, is overshadowed by that last hour.

That last damn hour. Good lord. I love it as your basic,…

For this rewatch, I’ve been re-reading the books first and then watching the movies.

As a result, the GOF book has jumped into my top 3 books (its so good!) and now I’m a bit frustrated with the movie. I still love it (had to take away a half star tho) but I can see its faults more clearly now.

If they had followed through and split GOF into two, I’m pretty sure you could have ended part 1 (assuming…