It also meant that the movies couldn't include one of the best WTF? moments of the books. At the beginning of book 7, when Harry's running away from the Death Eaters on his broom (or Hagrid's flying motorcycle, I can't remember which) he sees Voldemort flying toward him without anything else aiding him, and it's…

I did think it was funny how the Ginny subplot was quickly shoved to the sidelines once it became clear that she couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. Book Ginny was a spitfire; Movie Ginny was practically a mannequin.

Thirded on the moral determinism. The Slytherins are to Harry Potter as orcs are to Lord of the Rings, except that at least orcs actually were subhuman monsters. Rowling seems to expect us to regard the Slytherins as otherwise normal kids (what with the occasional lip service she gives to Slytherins having good…

I can't sing worth a damn
… so I'd usually go with Cake's "The Distance" or "Short Skirt/Long Jacket." Those songs could have been made for terrible karaoke singers, and they're recognizable and a lot of fun.

It looked promising
until there was that one obviously CGI'd shot of some guy's face going all weird. One thing that made all the mayhem in the original so stomach turning was the 100% practical effects. All the viscera and transformations looked real and tangible. If the Thing in this one is some rubbery CGI creation…

Best Directing, Comedy Series: Louis C.K.

Cookie Monster has a kid named Bagel Monster? Oh my goodness Cookie I love you.

I'm going to make Netflix continue mailing me DVDs until I can watch Oldboy on Instant Watch with subtitles instead of crappy dubbing. I would happily pay the price increase if I thought their poor streaming library had anything worth the extra seven bucks. I'm going with the $12 two-at-a-time DVD plan and using other…

"Everything I do has to be well-written"
I call bullshit. We all saw that Anna Paquin movie "Darkness." Well, judging from the way it performed at the box office, maybe I'm the only one who saw it, but still. MAN that movie was a steaming pile.

Yeah, I don't think they've gotten Instant Watch to the point where it's worth forgoing physical DVDs entirely. Until their streaming service reaches the volume of available titles as their DVD library, I'm just going to drop Instant Watch entirely and use Hulu for my streaming-video needs. It's not like I'm using…

Careful what you wish for, Boombox. If the videogame reviews on this site are any indication, "Settlers of Catan" would probably be graded a C minus because the robber isn't sufficiently developed as a character.

Oh, Fixda, it does my heart good to see someone else experiencing the same impotent rage at the spectacle of an awesome sci-fi show completely squandering every ounce of potential it had. The only difference between you and me is that I thought BSG was circling the drain pretty much from the second half of S3 forward.

Thanks, pairesta! As much as I hate the show, it was still fun to rant about it. I wish I'd had the idea to blog about my experience when I first started watching the series. Sadly, by the time I realized it had turned to utter shit, I was too far along for the blogging idea to make sense anymore. Maybe someday I'll…

Internet Shithead: I recently saw "Limitless" too, but I hated it. I guess it might be kind of fun if you watched it as a sort of "so bad it's good" thriller, but otherwise I'm amazed that anyone would defend it. Stuff like the blood-drinking, or the main character using his amazing brain superpowers mostly to get…

Hey, it's that dog.

Whichever episode features David Brent doing his weird dance at the office party. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. Really, the back half of S2 is all gold - the motivational-speaker episode, the dance, Brent's realization that he's going to be sacked, Tim asking Dawn, everything.

Sad as it may be, Archmage, the first "Cars" was a passion project for John Lasseter. The fact that it was such a merchandising bonanza is just luck. "Cars 2," on the other hand, is so transparently a money grab that everyone outside its target demographic (little kids) seems to have sussed out its intentions, hence…

Spent Saturday on a double feature of "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (good) and "The Tree of Life" (awesome). Satisfied my Chicago-explosion-lust with fireworks at Navy Pier, which obviated the only reason to go see Transformers. It was a great day! I'm also happy to finally have a Malick film that I can wholeheartedly…

"You're half-right, Twilight isn't nostalgia in the literal sense. However, it may be more a case of nostalgia for similar young-adult entertainment they enjoyed back then, and attaching that nostalgia impulse onto it as a surrogate."

Funny you should bring up "The IT Crowd." After watching the first couple of episodes, I immediately thought of "When the Whistle Blows." I was shocked to come on here and witness seemingly the entire AV Club raving about it.