Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince

I will admit that as an adult, heterosexual male, the fact that I am a Harry Potter fan makes me a bit of an enigma. Add in the fact the I don't have a kid, I don't still live with my mother, and I have found someone with a respectable job to love me damn near makes me Bigfoot in a world dominated by nerds and fat children.

I should also point out that I have NEVER even picked up a Harry Potter book. I just like the movies. I think the franchise has managed to become reliable, while at the same time each film has it's own style and voice. It's partly because Potter gets a new director seemingly each time out. It's also because the stories are just well written and well written stories are rare during blockbuster season and well written stories that feature plenty of eye candy are rare during the holiday season. The Potter movies have managed to fill each of those voids at various times in the franchise's history on film.

The latest offering, Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince, is a tale of deception, maturity, and despair wrapped up in the usual Hogwarts magic. It's a good movie by summer blockbuster standards. I still walked away a little disappointed, because by franchise standards Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince is middle of the road film. I liked each of the previous three movies more. However, if you haven't read the novel (as I haven't), the movie really leaves you yearning for the two part finale The Deathly Hollows, which will begin in 2010 and finish in 2011.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the second movie in the franchise for director David Yates. Warner Brothers has decided to ride him to the end too. Yates is working on The Deathly Hollows right now. One thing we learned about Yates in the previous Potter film, is that he knows how to get the most from his actors. Helena Bonham Carter was awesome as the evil Bellatrix Lastrange in Order of the Phoenix. She's even better in The Half Blood Prince.

The three actors at the core of every Potter film are as good as they have ever been. Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint have become so comfortable with their characters that it's hard to think of them in any other role, and we've become so comfortable with them that we can't imagine those characters any other way. These actors are growing up with these characters and that is good for fans of the franchise. Ron Weasley (Grint) is starting to fall for Hermoine Granger (Watson), just as most of the world is starting to notice that Watson has grown into a beautiful young woman. It makes us root for Ron that much harder.

Yates is also right on the money with the use of CGI and other special effects. They don't over power the movie like they do in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen or Terminator Salvation, but come on - the Harry Potter franchise is all about magic! Yates has to impress us. He does. The special effects are great, but they all fit the way they are supposed to. Anything that's supposed to be frightening (The bad guys jump into the scene in frightening clouds of black smoke)is. Anything that is supposed to be amazing (Dumbledor repairing a destroyed muggle house) is. We have seen zombies interpreted a million different ways on film. Yates' zombies for a climactic scene in The Half Blood Prince look like they belong in the Potter universe.

There really isn't much wrong with Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The movie is genuinely exciting and funny. Seriously, I don't have a complaint that I can come up with right off the top of my head. I was a little disappointed with the ending, but The Half Blood Prince is to Harry Potter what The Empire Strikes Back is to Star Wars. The point is to leave you wanting a resolution and I do! Too bad we'll all have to wait until 2010...and then until 2011. I guess I could pick up a copy of The Deathly Hollows, but let's be serious. I'm never gonna read.

My one problem really isn't a fair one. I want less relationship crap. I don't really care about Harry Potter's romance with Ron Weasly's little sister. But then again, the books were written for kids less than half my age. So who is wrong here? Probably me.

The Greek gives it a B.

I Love You Beth Cooper

There is no getting around it. This movie just wasn't made for me. I knew that going in. I knew that the film maker's target demographic was boys age 13 - 18 looking for a laugh after seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for the third time, not 28-year-old men with film degrees. Yet, still I gave I Love You Beth Cooper a chance. Why? Mostly because it was free.

Did I get what I paid for? Yeah, kinda. This isn't so much a movie as it is a collection of one-liners and side boob. I Love You Beth Cooper tells the story of Dennis Cooverman (played by Paul Rust, who I wasn't familiar with but was instantly struck by the size of his nose) and the graduation speech that leads to the greatest night of his young life. Most people would use a valedictory address to impart some wisdom to his class mates. Not Dennis. He uses his time in the spotlight to confess his love for the very beautiful and very popular Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere of Heroes fame).

My problems with the movie are the same as my problems with most teen comedies. The first problem is that director Chris Columbus (how the mighty have fallen, right?) can't seem to decide if this is a comedy or a coming-of-age piece. Most teen comedies straddle that line, but at times you get the impression that Columbus is trying to make something more akin to Stand by Me than American Pie.

The movie also has a very streaky script. Dennis' speech is great, but it happens in the first fifteen minutes of the film. After that it is for the most part down hill. Chase scenes involving Beth Cooper's 'roided up cadet boyfriend, Kevin (Shawn Roberts) , usually start out funny but aside from a locker room towel fight featuring Dennis' best friend Rich Munch (Jack Carpenter) - get it? Richard Munch...Dick Munch - they all go on too long and the fun disappears.

I Love You Beth Cooper suffers from one very common problem that most teen comedies share. The movie was made by a guy who was likely a nerd in high school, so he didn't really know what the parties that the cool kids had were actually like. That means everything the cool kids do in this movie is just ridiculous. I went to high school. I was friends with a lot of people - many of them very cool. No one I know had a threesome. No one I know broke into the school for a co-ed shower. No one I know drove a car through someone else's living room window.

The best thing that I Love You Beth Cooper has going for it is the soundtrack. Is every song used a classic? No, but they all fit perfectly. Dennis is a nerd, so it stands to reason that his graduation night mix tape would feature the hella-lame "School's Out" by Alice Cooper. Also, mega kudos to whoever decided to use Ray Lamontagne's "Let it be Me" for Dennis & Beth's heart to heart in the wilderness.

The movie has it's moments. I certainly laughed more than a few times, and I truly appreciate Hayden Panettiere giving up the side boob. Don't worry guys. She's 20. You can enjoy the show. Overall though, I just don't feel like I would have missed anything if I had never seen I Love You Beth Cooper.

The Greek gives it a C-.