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A bunch of us went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire (Mike Newell) on its opening night last week. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m a big fan of the books, but when it comes to the first three films, only Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuar?ɬ?n , 2004), the third in the series, holds any ground as a work in and of itself.

This is my favourite of the (so far) six books in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. This one sees Harry somehow entered into the Triwizard Tournament, hosted at his school, Howgarts, and including guests and competitors from two other wizarding schools. It introduces a few more characters, mainly Mad Eye Moody (Brendon Gleeson) and Rita Skeeter (Miranda Richardson, whose character I was hoping to see more of) and last but not least, Mr. He Who Must Not Be Named himself, Lord Voldemort, played splendidly by Ralph Fiennes.

Goblet Of Fire was a visual delight, but despite Newell?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s insistence that he wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t let special effects take over?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ they did. The book is huge so obviously some parts had to be taken out. Did I say some parts? I meant most parts. The story is truncated to such a degree that any of the flow that Rowling surely worked hard to cultivate was lost, resulting in one of the most uneven and fast-paced films I have ever seen. I do understand why things had to be taken out and I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t really have a problem with it ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s just that they didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t do it in a way that actually worked. But back to the visuals: some of them were breathtaking, such as the Quiddich World Cup stadium and the dragon sequence. Newell had apparently never worked with CGI before, so whoever was actually in charge of it did an incredible job of creating settings, props and even characters that looked fantastic. But it seemed like the visuals were treated as though they were a main character instead of blending into the background and creating a believable setting. He also used them to created major action sequences, which I think distracted us from the story.

There was excitement in regards to the fact that Newell is the first Brit to direct a Harry Potter film, which as you all know, take place in England. His main attraction was that he supposedly truly understood what a British boarding school is like, despite having not attended one in his youth. I will say that this film did indeed have the most believable scenes within Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The kids acted more like kids, and there were some amusing teacher-student interactions that did help to make it a bit more believable (not that I think Harry is real. I really don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t).

But he also went overboard a bit, here. I found some of the scenes between the students that didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t involve wizarding tournaments and the like to be a bit overdone. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s a shame to see young actors being coached to overact so relatively early in their careers. In some respects I would say that some of the child actors took a step back in their development as actors, despite (and probably because of) having now worked with Newell. Perhaps he should stick to working with actors who have already been written off, such as Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst and Julia Stiles.

It had its exciting moments, and it was sad at some parts… but some sections that I thought would be sad or whatever were really pretty blah. It was funny, though (almost as funny as the row of excited fifteen-year-old girls in front of us). All in all, this was a fun movie. Not brilliant, not terrible, but fun. I think that Azkaban, however, is still the only one in the series (so far) that can hold its own.

I went to see Jarhead (Sam Mendes) on opening night, and I loved it. Its main character is a 20 year old named Swoff (Jake Gyllenhaal) who, for reasons beyond even his own comprehension, signs up for the Marines and is one of the first groups of Jarheads to arrive in the Middle East for Operation Desert Shield (which we all know soon becomes Operation Desert Storm). It is based on Anthony Swofford’s memoir of the same name.

Swoft and his comrades, including his spotter, Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), are a bunch of young men who are in many ways average your average group of guys. Swoft is the sensitive intellectual, surrounded by some of the typical characters needed to round out a group: the joker, the intense guy, the dumb guy, etc. We watch them train relentlessly and then, with mixed emotions, get shipped overseas. There, they do a lot of nothing. Well, they train a lot, but it seems that their presence there is not justified by any actual action. This fact has obvious effects on them, as they question even more the reasons why they are there - not just physically in the desert, but why they joined the Marines in the first place. Jamie Foxx plays their die-hard Staff Sergeant, who acts as both a personal mentor and their stoic leader.

I loved the way that the film communicated the conflicts existing within Swoft’s psyche. Despite his mandate as a Marine, he feels directionless and is bombarded with an array of triggers that only contribute to his confusion: the vast emptiness of the desert, letters from his girlfriend (whose faithfulness he obsessively questions), varying degrees of camaraderie, hours of nothingness and an inexplicable desire to actually interact with “the enemy”. There is a scene where he is being interviewed, and asked why he is serving. After skirting the question a couple of times, he finally answers, “I’m 20 years old, and I was dumb enough to sign a contract.”

In what I believe to be the most important scene of the film, Swoft and Troy are on an assignment to snipe an enemy tower. They are both scared and excited, and both for the same reason: they finally get to fire their weapons at an enemy. The way I interpreted their excitement was because this could possibly justify their lives of the previous few months; it was an end to the means. They needed to feel like their presence there had a purpose. When their mission is suddenly aborted, Troy freaks out and desperately pleads and begs to allow Swoft to take the shot, as if it is a sort of payback for the psychological and emotional torture they had been enduring, rather than a real desire to fire at an enemy.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s acting is superb. He portrays all of his character’s conflicting moods with convincing sincerity: it was like truly seeing a person in three dimensions.

Every aspect of filmmaking is used in true form here to effectively tell this story. It’s an action movie with no action, a comedy with no jokes and a drama with no heart. You don’t feel for the characters because you especially like them; rather, you see the emptiness that this experience has imposed upon them and you find yourself trying to feel for them. It is a statement about how war can and will permanently scar you. The epilogue was hardly soothing and the film ends with no conclusion; perhaps this is how Swoft and his friends felt after returning from months of nothing.

Sometimes I feel bad saying that a movie was terrible, because I’m sure that a lot of work probably went into making it. That being said, however, I could not find one redeeming quality about this movie. Everything was weak: concept, story, acting, direction… you name it.

The tagline reads: “There is no escape from the nightmare in this dark psychological thriller.” Well, there was nothing thrilling about Experiment (Dan Turner), and it was quite literally dark - I think that perhaps they forgot to hire a lighting crew. It was successful, however, in making me feel like I couldn’t escape.

I won free passes to the first annual Fantasy International Film Festival in Toronto and this was the one film that my dad and I were able to attend. Thankfully, no money was wasted!

Okay, this one wasn’t my choice, honest. Le notti erotiche dei morti viventi (Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead) (Joe D’Amato) was viewed as part of an ongoing series of “odd” or cultish films that my friend Ryan and I are going through. (Our previous film was Pasolini’s Sal?ɬ? (1976), which you will probably never hear me speak of.) Anyway, this sexploitation film was… I don’t know. I don’t think that either of us were expecting it to be good - we just wanted to see it for the sake of seeing a genre piece with such a cult following.

We both know a lot about tons of different films and directors, with a little bit of crossover; granted, Ryan is way more into the B-movie obscurities than I am. I do enjoy zombie movies and was interested in seeing an extreme example of the classic sex-and-violence combo.

So here’s the story: A rich guy bought an island on which he wants to build a resort. Nobody will take him to it, because the supposedly deserted island is believed by locals to be populated by zombies that are controlled by a cat. Yes, a cat. (We do see the cat, and it makes some very funny noises. Spielberg definitely took notes from this movie for his Jurassic Park noises.) The only person who will take him to the island is George (Larry O’Hara aka Louis Montefiori, a frightening beast of a man), but his crew is too scared to come along. This may be because a zombie just attacked somebody right next to his docked boat. Anyway, one thing lead to another (many times, and in more than one way, if you know what I mean) and then FINALLY the zombies appear. They move so slowly that I was surprised that they were violent. Our hero boat-driver, George, is the only survivor, thanks to the small idol given to him by the beautiful Luna (Laura Gemser). She is special because she seduces each of the film’s main characters, and doesn’t appear in photos taken of her.

The dubbed audio track was hilarious. The sex scenes were explicit, and there were more of them than zombie scenes. They were also really bad. Well, the zombie scenes were bad, too. I guess the whole movie was bad, but it was still fairly entertaining to watch.

Apparently D’Amato is known as “Italy’s worst director”, and he admitted to being a bad director, with interest only in making money. He made films in almost every genre, taking whatever was popular at the moment and completely exploiting it in with as low a budget as possible. IMDB lists 189 directing credits, and I’m going to see them all!

Not really.