Going One-On-One With THE FIGHTER

Might 2010 be the year of Boston-in-film? Between The Social Network, The Town, and now - THE FIGHTER - we've seen a number of Oscar-caliber films set in or near to Beantown. But of all the Boston-based movies in recent years, The Fighter might be the one that most embodies the scrappy spirit of the city. It's an underdog movie, and as we all know, Boston loves its underdogs. The movie takes place in the outlying city of Lowell, but it nails the local flavor with an eye towards the absurd - every thick "pahk the cah" accent, every oddball Masshole character - even the classic rock tunes that provide the movie's soundtrack - all have a ring of both authenticity and affectionate satire. But, more importantly, The Fighter is a pretty unique sort of boxing film. While the rather generic title might lead you to believe that this is just another would-be Rocky, The Fighter comes alive and stands out thanks to an entertaining mix of humor and heart. What's more, it is elevated thanks to a couple of knockout performances. Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams, and Melissa Leo all shine. But it is Christian Bale who steals the show - the actor turns in yet another dynamite method-acting clinic, that is sure to garner all sorts of acclaim and yes, awards-talk.

The Fighter tells the real-life story of boxer Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) - a local of Lowell, MA who followed in the footsteps of his older brother, Dick (Christian Bale), a former fighter who in his prime was known as "The Pride of Lowell." Dick's biggest claim to fame was that he once fought Sugar Ray Leonard and knocked him down (though some say that Sugar Ray merely slipped). Now, Dick trains and manages his younger brother - along with their mother, Alice (Melissa Leo) - as Mickey does his best to move up the ranks and have the kind of in-ring career that his brother never could. Mickey is the soft-spoken one in a family of loudmouths. His brother Dick (or Dickey) is a bug-eyed crack-addict who tells anyone in earshot that he's gearing up for a comeback. His mother Alice is a pushy, stubborn, and self-deluding woman (she refuses to openly acknowledge Dickey's drug problems) who has a stranglehold over Mickey's career. On top of that, Mickey has several (!) sisters who are nearly as pushy and obnoxious as their mother.

As you can see, The Fighter is a film that presents all sorts of colorful characters to us, and the result of all these personalities clashing is often very amusing and even funny. Throw Amy Adams into the mix as a tough-cookie bartender who falls into a relationship with Mickey, and you've got a rather combustable mix. In this respect, The Fighter can be a very quirky, funny film. At the same time, there is the more serious side of the film that is tracking Mickey's surprising ascension in the boxing world, as well as Dickey's escalating troubles with drugs and the law. That dual narrative track is a big part of what distinguishes The Fighter - it's not a singular story of one man's rise in the boxing world, but moreso a tale of two brothers - one on the threshhold of achieving something great, the other on a dangerous downward spiral.

Again, the movie's unique tone - that balance of almost cartoonish humor with some genuine, more traditional melodrama - is what makes it stand out from the pack. Director David O. Russell occasionally falls into the trap of mimicking movies like Rocky, of following the traditional sports-movie template, but mostly, he recognizes that he is making a sports movie that is also as much about family and roots as anything else. Like I said, there is tons of local color and detail here, and you get the sense that Mickey and Dickey represent certain aspects of their hometown. Mickey is the great white hope, the fighting spirit. Whereas Dickey is the fallen star, the secret shame, the guy who was once considered great just because he may have gotten in a decent punch or two on the Champ. Dickey was the guy who ultimately let Lowell down, but for him, and for the city, to come out and admit that is perhaps too painful. Case in point: camera crews are following Dickey around for an HBO documentary, and Dickey seems to think it's going to end up as some sort of flattering retrospective. In fact, it's a documentary about the perils of drug-abuse. And why shouldn't Dickey think this? His family treats him like a shining star. The locals love him. In this little corner of the world - in this cold, grey, working-class city - it's easier to think of Dickey as a hometown hero, to admire Mickey for sticking by his family, to hold on to any misguided notion that brings the people pride. Russell does a great job of portraying Lowell as down-on-its-luck, just like Dickey. He uses the mix of the comedic and dramatic to show that family can be so absurd that you have to laugh, but also a very real roadblock towards escape, individuality, and realizing one's dreams.

And by the way, I loved the movie's soundtrack, because to me Boston is the ultimate classic rock town. Watch any Celtics home game and you'll see the only arena in the NBA that blasts more Guns n' Roses, Ozzy, and Led Zepellin than hip hop or pop. Go to any Boston-area bar and, music-wise, it's like the 70's and 80's never ended. Boston is a place where true guitar heroes are revered, and The Fighter seems to recognize this aspect of Beantown. The movie appropriately frames the action with the sounds of The Stones, Aerosmith, AC/DC, and even Whitesnake. It might seem cheesy to some, but it works perfectly in the spirit of the film.

To get back to the acting, though ... again, Christian Bale is ridiculous as Dickey. Wahlberg may get top billing, but this is definitely Bale's movie in a lot of ways. This is one of those crazy, over-the-top performances (approaching Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood levels) that is so "big" as to be funny at times, but also super-impressive and captivating. Because as Dickey, Bale is basically a manic, twitchy, cracked-out force of nature. In terms of looks alone, Bale's transformation from Bruce Wayne to Dickey is pretty startling. Bale looks like an entirely different person than in The Dark Knight or other recent movies - he's gaunt, bony, and balding, and it's almost uncomfortable to watch him onscreen at first. But I guess that's Bale's thing - he commits 110% to these sorts of roles, and I don't know if there's any other actor quite like him working today. He manages to be both sympathetic and scary, and Dickey's arc is ultimately the one that will stick with you from the film. But man, this has to be up there as one of the actor's most memorable performances to date.

That's not to say that Mark Wahlberg doesn't do an excellent job - he does. It's harder to shine when you're playing a soft-spoken fighter in a family of over-the-top personalities, but as Mickey, Wahlberg is more the everyman trying to break on through to the other side. It's a quiet but effective performance. Amy Adams also does a really nice job, playing against type to some extent as Mickey's spark-plug of a girlfriend. Yes, ultimately she is just sort of playing "the girlfriend," but the movie does take pains to make her a well-rounded and entertaining character in her own right. The back-and-forths that Adams has with Melissa Leo are easily some of the movie's highlights, and its great to see them going at it with such great dialogue and zeal. Speaking of Leo, she is great as the Ward-family matriarch.

I really enjoyed The Fighter, but I also think it's a tough movie to get a read on in some ways. As a quirky character drama, it completely works. As a boxing movie though? It does sometimes feel like the big fights are sort of tacked on, and that Russell is a bit unsure of whether to stage them with Rocky-esque flair or to keep them more on the understated side. Particularly during the film's big, climactic showdown, you've kind of been built up to expect the bout to end all bouts, only to get a decent but somewhat abrupt conclusion. Part of that may be that the movie isn't really about the fights - it's not Rocky. Part of that is that this is a true-life story, and it's at least somewhat beholden to reality and actual events. The fact is - Mickey Ward's story is a great character study, but it doesn't seem to naturally lend itself to an iconic story in the grand tradition of other underdog fight films. I also think that the humor in the movie can go a little overboard at times. I got a kick out of Mickey's sisters, for example, but they felt like they were straight out of an SNL sketch. I couldn't help but wonder if some of the cartoonishness ultimately takes away a bit from the effectiveness of the movie's more serious moments.

Still, The Fighter really wowed me in a lot of ways. It caught me offguard, because I was expecting yet another riff on Rocky but got something very different - a funny yet moving character study about families, hometowns, and doggedly pursuing success on your own terms. The movie features one of the year's true standout performances from Christian Bale, and contains a number of individual scenes that are sure to stick with you. With a title like The Fighter, you might be expecting, as I did, a somewhat run-of-the-mill underdog story. Instead, the movie ends up being an unpredictable, quirky surprise.

My Grade: A-

COMMUNITY Relations ... Thoughts on What Just Might Be TV's Best Comedy

- I spent some time last week talking about some of the great TV drama from the last few months, but I haven't talked as much lately about comedy. This has been a year that's been overflowing with great TV comedy - stalwarts like 30 Rock, relative newcomers like Eastbound & Down and Modern Family, and freshman series like Louie, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, and Children's Hospital. But I will say this: as of right now, I'm not sure if there's a better comedy on TV than COMMUNITY, which has been absolutely killing it throughout 2010.

Community, over the last several months, has been operating on that higher plane of comedy existence that is typically reserved for the likes of The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Arrested Development. Although there have perhaps been one or two missteps along the way (sometimes, the show gets a tad overambitious - see the Abed-as-Jesus episode from several weeks back), for the most part, it's been swinging for the fences and hitting it out of the park. This past week's holiday episode was a perfect example of that. So often, even the most out-there and subversive shows do themselves harm by succumbing to a sentimental streak - especially during the holidays. Last year, the great 30 ROCK took a turn towards increasingly sitcomish character arcs, and it really hurt the show's old, laugh-a-minute sensibility. It felt like, in an attempt to draw in bigger audiences, 30 Rock was at times compromising its sense of humor in order to be less live-action Simpsons and more modern-day Mary Tyler Moore. But, what Community has managed to do is pretty remarkable, and it's something that really, only The Simpsons could claim up 'til now - and that's to create a show that's jam-packed with dense humor and blink-an-you'll miss 'em gags, yet also populated by genuinely endearing characters who are capable of eliciting real emotion from us, the viewers. The Simpsons in its heyday could be unabashedly sentimental, but it always felt earned, and the jokes and humor and intelligence factor never took a backseat. Community has managed to pull off something similar, where even the show's wackiest episodes (Paintball, Zombie attack, and now the Christmas episode) somehow manage to get us invested in the characters even in the face of outlandish plotlines and pop-culture parody.

In any case, the Community Christmas episode was a thing of beauty. Literally. The brightly-colored stop-motion animation was awesome-looking, and the show really was a visual marvel. Huge kudos to everyone involved in what was surely a painstaking, time-consuming process. Now, how was the retro-style animation used? Pretty brilliantly, actually. The plot device involved Abed losing his grip on reality (even more so than usual) and slipping into a mental space in which he viewed everything as part of a stop-motion fantasy world. Abed takes the group (who in theory are playing along with his hallucination) on a wild ride through his pop-culture-infused psyche, and in doing so, we not only get some great satire, but we also get a sad and surprisingly moving look into the ghosts of Abed's Christmas past. Abed has historically worked best as a supporting character, and episodes that have really tried to psychoanalyze him have often been among the series' weakest. But ... this one really nailed the character, and it did a great job of expanding Abed's weirdness into an episode's worth of gags, and also making us care about him without going overboard.

As always, though, Community works best as an ensemble show. And perhaps the best reason that the show's approached that next level of quality is that its embraced its cast and found the perfect dynamic for great comedy. Community realized early on that it didn't need to be a show about Joel McHale's search for love and maturity. It didn't need to be a standard sitcom or adhere to standard sitcom tropes. It's similar to when The Simpsons realized it didn't just need to be about Bart the troublemaker, but could expand into this whole universe of characters. Community is now one of those shows that can be about ... anything. The throughline is the characters and their relationships, their makeshift community, so to speak -- but the show has now become so wide open, so "big", that an episode can be an action or horror movie parody, or even a stop-motion tribute to old-timey Christmas specials. That sense that "anything can happen" is something that not many live-action sitcoms possess right now. 30 Rock is getting back to that a bit, but sometimes it seems slightly ashamed of its randomness, and tries to temper that with more traditionalist tendencies. Community, meanwhile, is ashamed of nothing. It will go just about anywhere for a joke, and yet still has some of the most real-feeling characters on TV. Malcolm in the Middle was another good example of that rare mixture of the real and surreal, now that I think about it. But it's still something that's very rare in a sitcom. It still impresses me, for example, how in the midst of Community's totally crazy zombie Halloween episode ("zombie attaaaaaack!") we got some of the biggest moments in the Jeff-Britta relationship to date.

Zombies AND character development? Now that's impressive.

Down The Rabbit Hole With BLACK SWAN.

BLACK SWAN Review:

- Dark, haunting, intense, disturbing, thought-provoking, and just plain %$&#'ed up, BLACK SWAN is an award-worthy tour de force from director Darren Aronofsky. Only with Aranofsky would you describe a movie as crazy as this one as a return to his comfort zone. But it's in the world of darkness and nightmares and hallucinatory psychodrama that the director seems to feel most at home. And so, after the grittiness and stark realism of The Wrestler, Aronofsky returns to the edge-of-reality surreal dreamscape he inhabited with movies like Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain. And once again, he creates characters, visuals, moments ... that will burn themselves inside your brain and leave you gasping. This is not the more subtle, more grounded Aronofsky of The Wrestler (although I do hope that, at some point, we get more movies from him in that style). This is the director giving us a story that's melodramatic, operatic, and entirely unsubtle. At times, it certainly walks the line between high drama and camp, and yes, there are moments that are so unsubtle so as to be funny. Black Swan occasionally even feels like a disaster waiting to happen, because it is a tightrope walk being performed by Aronofsky and his cast. And yet, the movie ultimately comes together in fairly spectacular fashion. Aronofsky, and the film's star - Natalie Portman - pull it off. They make it work. The end result is that Black Swan is one of the year's must-see films, and certainly one of its most memorable. It's a disturbing journey to the dark side, but if you can handle getting this close to the abyss, you're in for one hell of a ride.

On the surface, Black Swan is a simple story about a young ballerina, Nina, who is chosen to perform the lead role in her company's upcoming, reimagined performance of Swan Lake. Although Thomas, Nina's instructor and mentor, selects her for the part of the Swan Queen, he does so with some serious reservations. At first, he outright denies her the part. His reasoning is that Nina - a precise and measured performer - can pull off one half of the part, The White Swan, with ease. But, he worries that when she must transform into the darker, wilder Black Swan, Nina won't be able to muster up the sort of raw, seductive, untamed performance that the character's more sinister half demands. In his own direct, slightly menacing manner, Thomas pushes Nina out of her comfort zone to see what she's really capable of. When he makes a pass at her, she retaliates by viciously biting him ... and at that moment, Thomas sees that Nina just might jusy have a dark side waiting to be unleashed.

From this point on, the story depicts Nina's descent into darkness and madness. Driven harder than ever to do what it takes to be a success, Nina realizes that she has to shed the remnants of her innocent, virginal, childlike way of life in order to become The Black Swan. Nina begins to rebel against her scarily controlling mother, and forges a complicated, love/hate relationship with a new ballet student, Lily - who helps to push her even farther towards the brink. But at what price does this metamorphasis (both emotional and physical) come? Is Nina pushing herself too far? As her grip on reality begins to fade, and the line between reality and nightmare becomes less clear, we travel with Nina on this journey from light to dark, and we ourselves begin to wonder about the nature of what we're seeing on screen. What is real? What isn't? What does it all mean? Aranofsky has never been a guy who thinks small - Black Swan's story may be simple and personal on the surface, but tackles huge, grandiose themes on an almost cosmic level. In its own way, Black Swan is every bit the mind-bending epic as is The Fountain.

The central performance here from Natalie Portman as Nina is up there as possibly her career-best work. Portman adapts well to the story's over-the-top, heightened reality, and is all furrowed brows, paranoid glances, and short breaths as the stiff, sinewy Nina. However, I think the true genius of her performance is only revealed in the moments where she succumbs to her inner Black Swan. In those moments, Portman's transformation is pretty remarkable. When she is herself, that is, the White Swan, it's almost as if Portman is playing a version of her public persona as an actress - prim, proper, maybe even uptight - certainly not the most wild or expressive person in the world. Interestingly, Portman has sort of mocked this persona before - her SNL Digital Short from a few years back comes to mind. But the mirror that Black Swan holds up to real life helps to accentuate the fact that the story itself is a pretty scathing, thought-provoking commentary on fame and stardom and Hollywood - and seeing actors like Portman, along with Mila Kunis and Winona Ryder - in key roles that play with / against type, drives home the metaphor. But back to Portman for a moment - her turn as Nina is definitely award-worthy. If anything, it reminded me a bit of Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive (and Black Swan often takes on a similar, Lynchian, down-the-rabbit-hole vibe) - where there is that naive, innocent veneer that shockingly gives way to a darker, more unpredictable persona. Seriously - a stunningly impressive, risky, and fearless performance from Portman.

The supporting cast, as hinted at above, is also very good - and the best part is that everyone, like Portman, seems to be on the same page in terms of getting across the trippy tone that Aronofsky is going for. Mila Kunis and Winona Ryder both do a nice job. Kunis, as Lily - Nina's friend/lover/rival/stalker - is the classic youth in revolt / all-around bad influence. The role doesn't require Kunis to stretch to the extent of other actors in the film, but nonetheless I was impressed by how well the former sitcom star handled herself - easily her most impressive film role to date. Meanwhile, I've always been a fan of Ryder, and even though her screentime here is limited, she really makes the most of it. As the aging ballet star who feels she's been kicked to the curb prematurely, Ryder is scary and sympathetic all at once.

Still, there are two other supporting players who deserve special mention. One is Vincent Cassell as Thomas, the leader of Nina's ballet company. Thomas is perhaps the movie's most naturalistic character, which is itself an interesting contrast. When the film's most grounded character is a semi-sleazy French guy who has a history of preying on his young students - well, that's when you know you ain't in Kansas anymore. But Cassell does a great job in the role - and it's fun to watch the role reversal that takes place between he and Portman. At first, Nina seems out of her league when dealing with Thomas, but as Thomas continually prods her to unleash her inner Black Swan, he fails to realize the full extent of the transformation he's helping to provoke. The other actress whose role in this movie is going to haunt me for a while is Barbara Hershey as Nina's ultra-creepy mother, Erica. Hershey brings that same sort of Lynchian presence to the film, where even when she's externally calm and composed on-screen, there's so much built-up, palpable tension below the surface that it becomes almost uncomfortable to watch her. She embodies the film's unique sort of horror-movie sensibility, where certain characters and scenes are just creepy and disturbing - more so than those in most true horror films - because they are just left-of-center enough to be both real and nightmarish.

Now, there is again that fine line between creating a psychological thriller and a jump-out-of-your-seat horror movie, and occasionally Aronofsky comes a little too close to the latter. I think the movie is probably creepy enough as is without needing camera-swerve scares and other such horror movie tricks of the trade. At the same time, I think Aranofsky mostly gets the balance right. At the end of the day, there's no denying that there are campy, B-movie elements to Black Swan, and there are certainly moments of B-movie-style humor in the script. And that's cool - I think Aronofsky makes it work, and while the movie can be campy, the acting and direction easily elevate it to something far greater than a simple cult-favorite, midnight movie. There is so much artistry here - the hallucinatory direction, the sweeping musical score, the palpable sense of tension and horror - that this is clearly operating on a different level than your run-of-the-mill thriller. Even if it's with a lack of subtlety, Black Swan still manages to hit on a number of thought-provoking themes that are sure to stick with you, that will make you look at celebrity, at stardom, at the relentless pursuit of success - and the compromises made to achieve it - in a different light.

The more I think about Black Swan, the more I can't help but admire what Aronofsky and co. have done here. Perhaps that's because I can't stop thinking about the movie. It's been rolling around in my head all day, and I've been mentally replaying scenes from the film on a constant loop. This is a movie that is going to take a while to fully process, to be honest. In the Aronofsky cannon, I'd say that I didn't have the immediate, blown-away reaction that I did after seeing The Fountain, but Black Swan is also a cleaner, more coherant, and less messy film. At the same time, I found Black Swan to be a much more cohesive and well put-together movie overall than Requiem For a Dream, and the cast is probably better from top to bottom. The Wrestler might still be my overall favorite Aronofsky film, but that is also, apparently, something of an anomaly in his filmography - it's just a totally different beast than his other movies stylistically, even if it does share some common themes with the likes of Black Swan. But, in a year in which very few films have reached that next level of wow-factor, Black Swan has to be right there in the conversation regarding 2010's best. I would caution though that, again, this isn't a movie that lends itself to an immediate evaluation. I think it needs to sink in and simmer. I've been worried about both overrating and underrating it, because I'm still, to some extent, processing. But then I go back and think: how many movies can stick with you like this, can force you to analyze and review them to such an extent? Not many - and in that regard Black Swan is a rare breed of film indeed. So, with all that said, I feel comfortable in giving the movie emphatic, high praise. If nothing else, it reaffirms that Daren Aronofsky is one of the most interesting and talented directors working today. I can't wait to see where he goes from here.

My Grade: A

Getting TANGLED: A Look at Disney's Latest!

TANGLED Review:

- Despite its slick, computer-generated animation and modern-sounding title, make no mistake: Tangled is a classic piece of Disney animation through and through. Although the company's mainline animated features have been overshadowed by those of Pixar in recent years, I think that after the double-whammy of The Princess and the Frog and now Tangled, it's safe to say that Disney animation is back. For all its modernized trappings, Tangled feels very much like an old-school Disney fairytale musical - in the tradition of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. And what that means is that Tangled has a hefty dose of that old Disney magic. Hard to quantify, exactly, but it's there.

Tangled is, of course, a retelling of the classic Rapunzel story. In this version, Rapunzel (voiced by former teen pop princess Mandy Moore) is a long-lost daughter of royalty who was kidnapped as a baby by a youth-seeking witch - Mother Gothel (stupendously voiced by broadway actress Donna Murphy) - looking to harness the magical properties of Rapunzel's glowing golden locks. For years, Rapunzel is locked away in Gothel's tower, never allowed to venture out into the world. Now, she's an eighteen-year-old young woman, still locked away, but getting increasingly restless. Afterall, other than her controlling ans somewhat sinister "mother," she has no one to talk to except her pet chamelion (who happens to be a great source of comic relief). Enter the roguish Flynn Ryder (voiced by Zachary Levi, of CHUCK fame). Flynn, who seems to have modeled himself more than a little on his namesake Erol, is a thief who fancies himself a great adventurer. After stealing a crown from the royal castle, Flynn is on the run from the law, and from his duplicitous (and brutish) partners in crime, who tried their best to double-cross him. Flynn takes refuge in Rapunzel's tower, and together, the two seek escape and stumble into adventure - even if, in classic Disney fashion, it takes them a while to warm up to each other.

It's funny, because going into Tangled I was worried about the animation. From the previews, it was just hard to imagine that the movie could recapture the feel of classic Disney storytelling via CGI-rendering. Well, I was wrong. The animation in Tangled is absolutely phenomenal, some of the best CGI I've ever seen in film. It really did feel like a near-seamless melding of cutting-edge computer animation with the traditional Disney house style that characterized their 90's-era animation renaissance. I mean, man, the animation in Tangled is just bursting with style. So much CGI animation nowadays has a certain sort of simplistic, clean, uncluttered style to it. It's cool to finally see a 3D animated film that emulates the fluidity and dynamism and chaotic feeling of hand-drawn 2D. Also, rarely have CGI animated characters felt this expressive. The animation on the characters' facial expressions is probably the best I've ever seen in a movie of this sort - a clear throwback, in a way, to the expressiveness and almost eerily-human quality that characterized Disney's 2D animated features. In short, Tangled proves the naysayers wrong by very effectively transferring the uber-recognizable Disney animation style to 3D.

In addition, the direction of the movie is pretty breathtaking as well. If you think back to the sweeping camera work and thrilling action scenes in movies like Aladdin, that same sort of directorial prowess is on display here. Tangled has some action sequences that are just plain awesome - including a great chase sequence that is a real showstopper. There are a number of other sequences that are also just pure eye-candy, from a montage set in a crowded village to Rapunzel and Flynn's moonlit boat-ride. By the way, the use of 3D in Tangled was excellent - adding yet another dimension to the movie's eye-popping visuals.

Meanwhile, the voice acting in Tangled is also top-notch. It was funny to hear Zachary Levi, so distinctive as Chuck, sort of bring a variation on that theme to his animated alter ego of Flynn. But he does a great job with the material, and creates one of the more likable and personality-rich male Disney characters in a while. Mandy Moore also does a really nice job as Rapunzel. Again, she gives the character a ton of personality that makes her feel a little more endearingly quirky, and in turn a little more relatable and grounded, than your typical Disney princess. And man, Donna Murphy knocks it out of the park as Mother Gothel, at once snooty and scary. She also absolutely nails her big song, "Mother Knows Best," and helps make it one of the movie's big standout. Also, there are a number of fairly kickass character-actor types who provide some of the supporting role voices. Can you say Ron Perlman as one of the imposing thiefs out for revenge on Flynn? How about Lost and Justified's MC Gainey as the captain of the Royal Guard? Not to mention Jeffrey Tambor and Bradd Garrett as two of the comical thugs that Flynn and Rapunzel encounter on their travels.

As for the music ... I think that overall, the soundtrack to Tangled is not quite at the level of some of the other Disney classics. There just isn't the breadth of great musical numbers that you'd get in a Little Mermaid, Lion King, or Beauty and the Beast. That said, there are at least a couple of really great, memorable songs in Tangled. My favorite was, by far, the funny and oddly inspiring bar-room number "I've Got a Dream," in which all manner of brutes, thugs, and rogues sing about their big dreams and desires. It's a great, instant-classic tune. And as mentioned, Donna Murphy's rendition of "Mother Knows Best" is a great villain song - it's not so much scary as it is a chilling reminder of every overbearing parent out there in the world. Again though, those two are the highlights, but other than that, there wasn't a lot of music in the film that really stuck with me.

I guess my only other quibble is that Tangled never really gives us a great villain on par with other Disney favorites. Mother Gothel is sinister, sure, but she's more overbearing Jewish mother than epically evil (and it's funny, you can't help but wonder whether the whole movie is some sort of reflection of typical Jewish anxieties / hang-ups - I know, it sounds weird, but I got that vibe from the script - anyone else?). In any case, I kept expecting Gothel's controlling presence to be a mere warm-up before we got to a bigger, badder badguy of some sort, but no dice. It does kind of mesh with the movie's less epic, more personal style of fairy-tale, but still.

In the end though, Tangled really won me over. Like I said, it just seemed to possess that intangible quality that makes Disney animation so often feel a cut above the rest. The magic was back, no question. The movie looks amazing, and the voicework is great. Tangled - Disney's 50th animated feature - is, I think, a worthy addition to the Disney cannon.

My Grade: A-

TV Dramarama: WALKING DEAD and BOARDWALK EMPIRE Finales, FRINGE thoughts, and ... SMALLVILLE Fights Back!

It's been a big week or so for TV drama - in more ways than one. In one respect, there's been, well, a lot of drama regarding TV series. As I spoke at length about yesterday, one of TV's best series - Terriers - was cancelled by FX after only one (albeit brilliant) season on the air. Meanwhile, there was great news for AMC, as The Walking Dead's season finale scored the highest rating EVER for a scripted drama on cable in the advertiser-friendly 18-49 demo. Lesson learned: never underestimate the drawing power of zombies. But, speaking about the TV drama in terms of genre, it's been a pretty damn good couple of months for quality scripted series. Sure, there have been the usual duds on the network side and elsewhere, but personally, I've been more than happy and satiated with stellar seasons of FRINGE, THE WALKING DEAD, TERRIERS, BOARDWALK EMPIRE, and, surprisingly, SMALLVILLE. I've already covered Terriers, but let me talk for a moment about the other series I just mentioned.

- Let me start with THE WALKING DEAD. To me, the success of The Walking Dead on AMC is absolutely one of the coolest things to happen to TV in a long, long time. Has the show been perfect? No, not by a longshot - we've seen some clunky dialogue, some rather questionable new characters who don't measure up to their comic book counterparts, and plotting that has on occasion been a bit all-over-the-place. But - and this is a big but - despite some flaw, The Walking Dead has been six episodes of true must-see television. Maybe it's a work in progress, but hey, after only six episode, the series is already more compelling than just about anything else out there. The caliber of talent involved in the show - from a savvy showrunner in Frank Darabount to a great lead actor in Andrew Lincoln - is still off the charts. And the story possibilities - both in terms of adapting material from Robert Kirkman's comics and for creating new stories -is nearly endless. Already, we've seen several major deviations from the comic - Shane still lives! - and that's cool. Though I'd like to see characters like Michonne and Tyreese introduced, I'm also happy that the show has found its own identity. To me, the series has recaptured that feeling from Lost where you're eager to know more about these characters and excited to see what craziness they end up in next. Again, I am continually somewhat shocked to see just how much backlash is out there, particularly online. I mean, come on guys, chill. This is a high quality zombie-apocalypse series on TV, one that in six episodes has already produced at least a couple of excellent hours of television.

In particular, I thought the finale was quite possibly the best episode since the kickass pilot. The whole CDC thing was a completely new plotline, not found in the comics, but it was handled extremely well, and served to really up the tension and set the stakes for the rest of the series. A tenant of The Walking Dead has always been that the zombie plague needs no elaborate explanation - it just is. But, the CDC plotline helped to get over that initial hump of "how did this happen" and establish that there is no true safe haven - the entire world has, as far as we know, been overrun with ravenous zombies. Basically, civilization is %#&$'ed.

Mostly, that finale was simply intense. The desperation of the survivors to escape the about-to-blow-up CDC compound was palpable, and their last-minute run for safety was truly thrilling. And man, how about Noah Emmerich, guest-starring as sole-surviving CDC employee Jenner? Simply badass - it was a shame to see him get blown to kingdom come because he would have made for an interesting addition to the show's cast of characters. As for what he whispered to Rick? There are some pretty obvious guesses, especially for fans of the books, but hey, nice little moment of mystery.

All in all, I seriously do not get how people can be hating on The Walking Dead. There is certainly room for improvement in Season 2, but man, the show has me hooked, and the possibilities for awesomeness in the season(s) ahead is huge. My take: kickass finale that left me wanting more - the wait for Season 2 is going to be tough. Luckily, I've got Volume 13 of the graphic novels sitting on my desk at home.

- Now, sure, The Walking Dead very quickly became the king of Sunday night drama, but let's not overlook the rich, complex storylines of HBO's period gangster series, BOARDWALK EMPIRE. I haven't talked a lot about the show here on the blog, but honestly I think it's a tough show to talk about episodically. The show unfolds more like a novel than a traditional TV show, with episodes seamlessly flowing into one another, and storylines methodically progressing over the course of the entire season. That made the show feel slow at times, but to me, the build up was worth it, and paid off in a big way as the season wound down and the intensity heightened. The show has so much depth, it's staggering. Each episode is jam-packed with characters, places, historical details - you almost need a Wikipedia session after each episode to keep up. But, even if some of the details of the storylines could become a bit confusing, the characters are what ultimately made the show pop in Season 1. I mean, holy lord - what an incredible assemblage of acting talent. Steve Buscemi, Michael Shannon, Michael Pitt, Michael Stuhlbarg, Gretchen Mol, Kelly McDonald ... the list goes on and on. All of the priciples were turning in award-worthy work throughout Season 1, to be honest. Though of course, Michael Shannon was a huge scene-stealer. His religious-zealot federal investigator character was intense as hell and ultra-disturbing.

This is the rare show on TV that feels both gripping and enriching. There's sex, violence, and intrigue but it also serves as a fascinating window into another era. Obviously, it's heightened reality and somewhat filtered through a modern lense. But, I can't remember the last time a show prompted me to do so much research about historical fact in relation to the storylines presented in each episode.

I do think Boardwalk stumbled a bit in the middle of the season, but it really regained its footing for the last five or six episodes, to the point where, each week, I was 100% absorbed with each new episode. Here's another show where there seemed to have been some backlash - perhaps because the prerelease hype was so big. Well, I think Boardwalk Empire enjoyed an incredibly successful first season - one of the most interesting, unique, high-quality shows on TV.

- And then there's FRINGE. Look, it's clear that there are a lot of great shows on the air right now - some really excellent dramas across both network and cable. But, if I had to choose my *favorite*, it'd be hard to say anything other than Fringe. Even last year, while Lost was still on the air, I felt that Fringe trumped it in almost every way. And now, with Lost gone, Fringe to me is the clear flagbearer of kickass sci-fi TV. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, Fringe has suffered in the ratings and was recently condemned by FOX to Friday night purgatory.

Now, is Friday night an instant death-sentance for Fringe? No, not necessarilly. Some genre shows - Smallville, for instance - have managed to grab solid ratings on Friday and, thanks to DVR, have maintained their core audience despite a less-than-ideal timeslot. Fringe at this point has a dedicated enough fanbase that it should be okay. But still, you can't help but worry. Fringe is a show that seems to have A LOT of life in it - I could easily see it running for several more years. A lot of that is due to how well the show's been plotted. Everything seems to be moving in a forward direction, towards a clear endgame. The show's storyarcs have been impeccably told, but at the same time, they've been incredibly ambitious.

I mean, how many shows would dare go for half-a-season with every episode alternating between two alternate universes? Fringe, this season, has just done that, taking place on "our" world, Earth 1, on even weeks, and shifting to a darker, parallel universe, "Earth 2," on odd weeks. On Earth 2, we've seen mirror-image versions of all the core characters, and that's been the catalyst for great storytelling, and also for some absolutely kickass acting from the likes of John Noble, Anna Torv, and Lance Reddick - who have each stepped up and played two versions of Walter, Olivia, and Broyles with remarkable effectiveness. It's pretty amazing - everyone remembers that when the show first started, many, including myself, singled out Anna Torv as perhaps the show's weak link. How wrong we were. Torv has positively ruled it this season and over the last couple of episodes especially. Her performance in last week's climactic episode was downright gravitas-infused. And hey, that's saying something when you're acting alongside the likes of Lance Reddick (who was also 100% badass this past week) and John Noble (who helped Walter coin yet another memorable term - "vagenda" ...!).

It's amazing though that, for several weeks now, Fringe has pulled off the delicate balancing act of presenting individual stories within the two separate worlds while also linking them all back to the big, epic, overarching plotline. Again, Fringe has very craftily paced itself this season so that we really feel like we're watching chapters of a story that is slowly building towards something huge. And there is that definitive sense that the pieces of the puzzle are slowly being revealed. It's something that Lost never really accomplished. But Fringe's mysteries are there to service the story, not just there for the sake of having mysteries - and that's what's helping to make Season 3 of Fringe serialized TV at its finest.

Suffice it to say, the story of the two Olivias swapping places - with the "real" Olivia trapped and brainwashed on Earth 2, and the faux-Olivia ("Fauxlivia") impersonating her on Earth 1 in order to carry out the Walter of her world's nefarious agenda -- well, it's been one hell of a sci-fi epic, the likes of which we've rarely seen pulled off so well on TV. There's been action, humor, and a real sense of intellectualism. Fringe never fails to make you think. It never fails to stretch your imagination. It's been on a roll, and it's quite possibly been the best thing on TV. If nothing else, it possesses that old "must-see" feeling that shows like Lost and 24 and The X-Files once had. This is the show where you have to put aside everything else, turn down the lights, and get comfortable in order to fully enjoy. But if you're not onboard - what are you waiting for? Catch up on DVD, on Hulu, whatever. If you're not watching, you're seriously missing out.

- Finally, I do want to mention SMALLVILLE. Don't call it a comeback, but ... okay, call it a comeback. Because yes, I'm as shocked as anyone, but Smallville has actually been building some serious momentum in recent weeks. As the clock ticks down on the show's final season, lo and behold, the show is actually starting to fire on all cylinders. It's enough to bring a smile to this hardened Superman fanboy's face.

I'm not sure exactly what's responsible for the uptick in quality on Smallville. The writing seems a bit sharper, for one thing. So often, this show has relied on the same, tired cliches in every episode ... Someone is possessed by someone else, misunderstandings and altercations ensue. Clark doubts himself, goes emo, and broods for a while. A cheesy villain of the week appears, and Clark conveniently deals with them without anyone ever suspecting that he and The Blur are one and the same. But thanks to an intriguing mix of ongoing storylines and villains, Smallville's actually been a bit - dare I say it? - unpredictable as of late. We've got the all sorts of anti-vigilante stuff going on, with the Suicide Squad, General Lane, and Slade Wilson. We've got the looming threat of Darkseid and his Fourth World minions. And the slow-build towards the return of Lex Luthor, who we recently found out is, in fact, the half sister of one recently-deputized Tess Mercer. The existence of a couple of compelling serialized storylines has helped Smallville mix things up this season, no question - there are some cool storyarcs that can rotate around a bit, so there's not the early burnout we got from neverending arcs like the Doomsday thing from a while back. Meanwhile, as a longtime comics fan, I'm definitely getting a kick out of seeing the likes of Deathstroke and Deadshot on TV. I mean, I never ever thought I'd see out-there Jack Kirby characters like Darkseid, Desaad, Granny Goodness, and The Female Furies on primetime television ... and yet, here they are.

Perhaps the most noticeable factor in Smallville's current hot-streak, however, is the suddenly-clicking relationship between Lois and Clark. Now that Lois FINALLY knows all of Clark's secrets, the show has been free to really deepen their relationship and make it, well, fun. Not solely based around angst and secrets and lies anymore, the Lois & Clark moments on the show have really popped as of late. And I'll say this: Erica Durance has really stepped it up, doing some of her best acting to date on the show and really starting to embody the Lois Lane character. Durance has always had the basic ingredients to make for a great Lois, but of late she's really added a new depth and weight to the character. All of a sudden, I'm finding myself really liking and rooting for Lois, and really believing in this show's Lois and Clark relationship. Kudos to Durance, who has really become an iconic Lois Lane - not an easy feat.

Meanwhile, this past week's episode was particularly fun, if only for the much-appreciated return of Jonathan Glover as Lionel Luthor - who was the show's best villain for much of its run. Thanks to some alternate universe shenanigans, Lionel was able to appear despite being dead on the show thanks to Lex. Not only that, but the writers cleverly found a way to bring this alternate Lionel back into the show's main universe. It was awesome seeing Glover back in fine form as the ruthless and maniacal Lionel - he had some truly sadistic scenes with Tom Welling's Clark, including a brutal belt-beatdown of a depowered Clark that had me smiling gleefully at its sheer over-the-top evil-factor.

In any case, it feels good to say that after years of inconsistency, Smallville has pulled itself up, scraped itself off, and delivered a string of several near-Super episodes in a row, a rarity in the show's ten-year history. In fact, Smallville might be the most consistently enjoyable right now that its ever been. Who woulda thunk it? It's nice to see though. Even amidst the rough patches (and there have been some very rough patches), I've always rooted for Smallville, because its shown itself capable - when it is at its best - of delivering great moments worthy of the Superman legend. It's cool to see the show fighting the good fight and, let's hope, on its way to going out with a bang.

- That's all for now - once more, Happy Hanukkah!

Standing Up for TERRIERS - Another Great Show Bites The Dust

"Got a ride with a trickster and a javelin man / To a town down by the sea ..."

- Another week, another great show cancelled before its time. This one is particularly painful though, as TERRIERS wasn't just a great show, but a phenomenal one - arguably right up there among the year's best series, and certainly one of the brightest stars of this year's new Fall TV season. Since the Fall, I've held off on doing many episodic TV reviews, for a variety of reasons. Time was / is a big factor - it takes a lot to write up reviews of TV episodes in a timely fashion, and there are places like The AV Club that are doing an outstanding job of providing weekly reviews of most of the best / most interesting shows on TV. I guess I was also just burnt out on writing so much about shows like Lost and 24. With those series completed, I figured it was time for a break in all that blogging. But, even if part of me misses doing weekly write-ups of shows like Fringe, an even bigger part of me wishes that I could have used this space to be more of an advocate for a show like Terriers. In the past, I've gone all-out to do what little I can to spread the good word about low-rated-yet-awesome series like Arrested Development, Veronica Mars, and Pushing Daisies. This year, the show that would have / should have gotten that same sort of push from me, and from TV fans in general, was TERRIERS. It was that good. It deserved more viewers, and hopefully it finds 'em on DVD, digital download, etc.

I first tuned into Terriers on a whim, intrigued by a new FX series starring Donal Logue. After Justified turned out to be all kinds of awesome, I was curious to see what else FX had up their sleeve. That said, the marketing for the show was certainly less than stellar. The ads made the series look goofy and lightweight - almost similar to FOX's recent series The Good Guys, which I didn't really take to. The marketing also failed to really convey that the show would be less bouncy buddy-cop show and more serialized, darkly-funny, neo-noir - not all that dissimilar from something like Veronica Mars. At first, I was hooked by the great characters - Hank and Britt, two scraggly, down-on-their-luck PI's - were an immediately likable duo with a lot of soon-to-be-revealed depth. Later, I was roped in by the deft mix of case-of-the-week capers with an ongoing mytharc that grew increasingly intense and absorbing with each passing episode.

Taking place in the small, hardluck SoCal beach town of Ocean Beach, Terriers filled out its world with all kinds of fascinating and colorful characters. It had such a great sense of place and setting - it looked and felt different from other shows on TV, and the photography really captured that sunsoaked SoCal vibe - albeit in a slightly menacing manner that implied that shadiness and scandal lay buried in the town's corners and alleyways. And Hank and Britt - played to perfection by Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James, were the perfect antiheroes for this place and for this story.

Michael Raymond-James, who I had previously only seen in his small part on True Blood, was absolutely fantastic as Britt. Britt was such a complex, nuanced character - a big-hearted guy who also had a vicious streak, a would-be career criminal who was trying his best to do right by his friend and partner, Hank, and his girlfriend, Katie. Britt was a nice guy, on the surface, but as the series progressed we saw just how close to the edge he really was, and how unstable the life he had built for himself could be. Again, a superb performance from Michael Raymond-James, an actor whose career I will now eagerly follow, if only because he was that damn good on Terriers.

But man, the heart and soul of the show was Donal Logue as Hank. This was, quite simply, a career-defining performance from Logue. I've been a fan of his for a while, but I honestly had no idea he was capable of this level of acting. He tore it up on just about every episode of Terriers. And if the Emmys want to be taken seriously, I don't see how they can overlook this performance. Logue's Hank was a near-broken man who was somehow still standing. He'd survived divorce, alcoholism, and getting kicked off the force. Now, trying to start over as a PI, he was fully embracing the scrappy, underdog status he'd always had. But the thing with Hank was that, if anyone could take on the Man, could fight the power sans badge, sans credibility, sans resources - it was him. He was too big-hearted to ever quit, too stubborn to ever know when to say die. He could be a jealous, scheming, paranoid asshole, but he was also a loyal friend and a fighter who was determined to take on anyone, no matter the odds. Man, what a great character, and what an awesome performance from Donal Logue. The guy had moments on this show that were off-the-charts intense. Moments of anger, of sadness, of humor. Maybe my favorite lead-actor performance on any TV drama this season. It's a total shame that Logue won't be able to keep this character alive, because Hank is a character who you want to spend time with, check in on, see what crazy-ass fight he's picked this time.

The supporting cast on this show was nearly as great as the two leads. Laura Allen did a bang-up job as Britt's rocksteady girlfriend, Katie. The two had one of the most realistic-seeming, likable relationships of any two characters on TV. When they stumbled later on in the season, it was truly heartbreaking to watch. Rockmond Dunbar, who was great on Prison Break, was quite simply badass here as Hank's ex-police-partner, Gustafson. He and Donal Logue had many a great scene together, and I hope that Dunbar continues to get cast in roles like this one that take advantage of his acting chops. Meanwhile, Donal's real life sister, Karina Logue, came in mid-season for a memorable turn as Hank's in-series sister, Steph. Steph - a mentally-unbalanced savant - could have been an annoying character in lesser hands, but man, those Logues can act. Karina Logue put in an amazing performance, turning Steph into one of the show's most likable and memorable supporting characters. And hey, I've got to mention the awesomely evil Ben Zeitland, the scheming attorney helping to orchestrate a destructive land-grab in Ocean Beach. What a great villain - played with smarmy relish by Michael Gaston. He made Zeitland into one hateable bastard, one jerk-off sonofabitch - aka, a perfect foil for Hank and Britt.

The writing on the show was also fairly incredible. In between the moments of total intensity and drama, there were smaller, quieter moments of banter and wit and humor. The way the various ongoing plotlines weaved in and out of each episode was always impressively seamless, as the show created this living, breathing world for these characters to inhabit. There were any number of gripping twists and turns as well - this was just damn good storytelling, period.

Terriers just seemed to get better and better with each episode. And the show covered a lot of territory despite its relatively short run. We saw flashbacks to Hank and Britt's first meeting, saw the painful arc of Hank having to endure his ex-wife Gretchen's remarriage, saw Britt and Katie's various struggles, and saw our two underdog heroes almost singlehandedly save their city from being demolished by ruthless, murderous, corporate sharks.

As for the final episode? It was bittersweet. In many ways, it seemed to work more as a series-ender than as a mere season finale, wrapping up most of the season's ongoing threads while also giving us a classically-Terriers existential ending. Would Hank drive Britt to jail to serve out his latest sentance, or would the two say "to hell with it" and drive down south of the border to sip margaritas on a Mexican beach? We'll never know, but that's fitting, because in many ways Terriers was a show that never gave us easy answers. Its characters were complex and at times morally ambiguous. Its storylines took unexpected twists and went down surprising roads. The show was unpredictable, and that's what made that final scene with Britt and Hank so effective - either choice was possible, either was valid. How many shows can claim to have created such living, breathing characters in that way, where they seem to have that sort of existence outside the often paint-by-numbers world of television plotting? I won't use this space to specifically grade the show's finale, except to say that it was msot certainly in the "A" range. As were the vast majority of Terrier's episodes, to be honest. Again, how many shows can claim such a consistent level of quality?

Unfortunately, most people just didn't tune in. The numbers were very low, even by FX standards, and there was never much momentum in the ratings despite the small but vocal fanbase. Still, sites like The AV Club were a good indication of how much people liked the show - every week, it was one of the most commented-on series on the site. It's hard to blame FX for this one, but man, it would have been cool to see the show get one more shot. Give people a chance to see the DVD, give the show a real Emmy push, etc. I mean, if nothing else, I would imagine many would be hooked after simply hearing the series' amazingly catchy and mood-setting theme-song, which is always stuck in my head after catching a new episode.

It's funny, because the characters on Terriers were scrappy underdogs, and in the end, so was the show itself. I'd urge anyone who hasn't seen it to check it out on home video - it's good enough to warrant some marathon viewing. The good news is that the show's storylines should ultimately work well as a self-contained story. What we're left with is essentially a great TV maxiseries, a one-season wonder that will hopefully be rewatched and rediscovered and held up as an example of what great TV should aspire to. Still, it's a sad day for fans of the show - like Hank and Britt, Terriers deserved better.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 1 - Reviewed! Plus: HAPPY HANUKKAH!

- Well, I'm back in LA, and, whoah, it's already Hanukkah. How did that happen? Don't the holiday overlords realize that, for us Jews, having Thanksgiving and Hanukkah in the same week is simply food overload? In any case, I had a fun time last night celebrating the first night of the Jewish holiday with the crew from Valley Ruach - good times - and I look forward to seven more crazy nights still to come. So, to all my fellow members of The Tribe: Happy Hanukkah!

Now, there's a lot to talk about, and I wish I had more time to bang out some additional blog posts for your reading pleasure. I want to talk about Leslie Nielson. I want to talk about how awesome Terriers is and how everyone needs to watch it. I want to get into some Fringe and speculate on just how awesome tonight's mid-season finale will be, and state how much it sucks that this is the series' final episode before it heads to FOX-imposed Friday night purgatory. I want to discuss The Walking Dead, and how it's been one of the this TV season's most fun and exciting new series, despite some flaws and haters be damned. I want to talk about all the potentially kickass movies coming our way in December, from Black Swan to The Fighter to Tron Legacy to True Grit.

But instead, I'm going to talk Harry Potter. This will make some of you happy. It will make some of you groan. But hey, it's time to weigh in, so let's get to it.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 1 Review:

- I waited a bit to see this latest Harry Potter film. It's funny, because when it comes to certain movies, certain franchises, I'm as big a geek as anyone, and I'll be there opening night, in line, soaking up the atmosphere of being with fellow fans psyched to see a new film about characters or concepts that we love. But, knowing how crazy fandom can be, it makes you all the more weary of getting caught up and entangled in it when it's a franchise you're not particularly passionate about. And man, Harry Potter fans are a special breed of crazy. No offense, I'm just saying. I don't know, part of me just doesn't get it. I mean, grown men digging superhero fiction I get - most of it is male empowerment fantasy that you don't ever really outgrow. But grown men being hardcore Harry Potter-ites? It just doesn't click with me (grown women, you are excused). And no, I still haven't read the books, and yes, I realize that I should. At some point, I'd like to. But there's no question - the cult of Potter is, to me, a big turn-off. And one thing I particularly dislike about the new breed of geek, the type that screams and shrieks for all things Potter and Twilight and such: they love everything without much discretion (don't they realize that the grand tradition of fandom is to hate on everything?). Logging on to Facebook the weekend of the latest Potter's release, I was mildly shocked to see SO MANY people absolutely raving about Deathly Hallows. But hey, I thought, who knows? Maybe it IS that great. Afterall, even if I'm not a bonafide Potter acolyte, I can appreciate that the last couple of Potter films HAVE been pretty damn good. As the series has gotten darker, it's bulked up its cast of awesome British thespians, making the recent films positively bursting at the seams with legit acting talent. Meanwhile, talented directors like Alfonso Cuaron and now David Yates have given the films a more sweeping, epic, artful tone. They've upped the ante, no doubt, and with each film, I admit, I've become a little bit more invested in the series and the characters. So yeah, there was a real chance that the series' penultimate chapter could have been the movie that transitioned the Potter series from decent to good to very good to *great.*

After seeing the film though, I felt like this was, in some ways, a step back. Don't get me wrong, there are some fantastic sequences in the movie. The acting is top-notch, and I'm continually amazed at how the three principles have each become such great young actors. But The Deathly Hallows is supposed to be the series' endgame, and that fact highlights what is surely the franchise's biggest flaw: the story just does not work in and of itself, apart from the books.

The confusing onslaught of characters and concepts in the movie only served to emphasize how the movie universe's mythology seems to be coming apart rather than coming together. I don't think you can level the same complaint against, say, The Lord of the Rings. Those are incredible films, period. On the other hand, the recent Harry Potter movies seem to think that staging memorable scenes from the books, and throwing those scenes together in a sort of "greatest hits" package of JK Rowling's novels, is enough. It isn't. That was okay until now, if only because I could assume as a viewer that all would eventually be revealed. I assumed that in this movie, I'd finally have a grasp on why Voldemort is such a badass villain, and why he hates Harry Potter so much. I thought I'd understand the character dynamics better - Does Harry have a real love interest? Does he really care about Ron's sister, or Hermione? Are she and Ron starcrossed lovers, or does he just harbor a hopeless crush? And what, exactly, does Harry need to do defeat Voldemort? This movie gives us a vague notion that Harry must go on a videogame-like quest to find and destroy various magical items, but beyond that, we don't really know. I don't even really get a sense of what sort of final conflict we should be expecting here. Are magical armies gathering for a huge battle? Or is everyone just sort of waiting to watch Harry and Voldemort go mano e mano in a wizard's duel? And what does Voldemort even want to do, really? Just cause chaos? Take over the world?

The movie doesn't quite make clear where this is all going, and it means you're just sort of wandering around with these characters without much narrative drive to give the movie forward momentum. And that's on the macro level. On the more micro level, Deathly Hallows bombards you with names and places and items that feel like they're supposed to be important, but are never followed up on. For example, in this film, a semi-big deal is momentarily made of the fact that Dumbledore has a previously-unrevealed brother. It sounds like an important tidbit. And then it's dropped. It's just one of many aspects of the film that feel incomplete - perhaps included for the sake of inclusiveness with regards to the books, but here only serving to muddle things and leave someone like me scratching my head. I do think there's a distinction between this sort of thing and shout-outs, as well. It's one thing to include a little fan-service in the script. It's another to take a wishy-washy approach about whether to include certain characters and plot points, and to ultimately include things but in a half-baked fashion. Again, I look at the LOTR movies, which are based on extremely detail-oriented and complex books, and I can't help but admire how Peter Jackson and co. skillfully carved out the fat while still maintaining the essence of the story and creating movies that are self-contained, that work for readers of the books and non-readers alike.

What's more, there's just a feeling of detachment that permeates throughout the movie. The various locations that Harry visits seem to bleed into one another. When Harry goes to visit the town where his parents lived, is he in a "real" town, a "magic" town, or what? And why is he so compelled to go there in the middle of his quest? Where *are* Harry and Hermione during their extended "camping" sequence? We keep seeing them in these vague places full of rocky cliffs and gray skies, but we don't really know where they're going or how far they've travelled. Given the fact that the final chapter of the books was broken up into two movies, you would think that the movie would be in a better position to really create a sense of time and place and scope. Not necessarilly.

It's interesting though, because like I said, this latest HP has some truly dynamite sequences, and I actually wish that they had been expanded upon, because they touch on some really cool ideas. I loved a set-piece action scene towards the beginning of the film, for example, where Harry and his pals are zooming through urban highways and tunnels on their flying cars and broomsticks and whatnot, while being chased by a gang of badguys. The sequence had all the energy and dynamism of a classic Spielberg-style action scene, and I was intrigued by the idea of all this magical stuff taking place right in the midst of the "real" world. I wish the scene had been longer - because it really was fairly kickass. And yet, it ends abruptly, and without any exploration of its rather sizable fallout. Another really excellent sequence is when Harry, Hermione, and Ron magically disguise themselves and sneak into the Ministry of Magic (which I thought was the same thing as Hogwarts, but apparently not - thanks for the correction, diehard HP fans!), which is now practically a prison camp run by the Nazi-like minions of Voldemort. The idea of seeing the normally-whimsical place become this dark and scary mirror image was pretty darn cool. At the same time, we also get hints that Hogwarts has now been similarly corrupted, and I was curious to see how all the students were getting by under the new, evil regime. However, we only get brief glimpses of the new, darker Ministry, and don't even go to Hogwarts. This is disappointing -- especially since the sequence where Harry and friends infiltrate the Ministry's walls is easily the most fun portion of the film. Again, it just speaks to the fact that these films haven't necessarilly been created with a singular vision or master plan. So it's only natural that you get these really cool moments, but that those moments fail to gel into a cohesive whole.

Now, I know I've done a lot of critiquing, but a lot of that is in response to all the people that shouted out to the heavens how this was the movie to end all movies and was some sort of genre-defining movie experience that was the pinnacle of an all-time great film franchise. Sorry, but no. Canonize the books, sure, but the movies? Don't kid yourself.

That said, The Deathly Hallows Part 1 is in many ways a really well done movie, even in spite of the criticisms I've mentioned. I've talked about the stellar set-piece sequences - the great chase scene, the really fun, exciting scenes at Hogwarts. And I've alluded to the truly awesome cast, who make scenes pop in a way they might not have otherwise. Let me run through a couple of favorites:

Emma Watson has really helped to carry the emotional load in the last few movies, and I think she just might be the true standout of the three main actors in the franchise. She helps to sell a lot of the drama in this one, and has a real presence about her that helps to ground the films.

Helena Bonham Carter is always awesome, and she is just awesomely evil in this film as Voldemort's right-hand-hit-woman, Bellatrix. She chews up the scenery with goth-girl aplomb, and is just a lot of fun.

Bill Nighy is another guy who is basically always great, and he continues the streak in this latest Harry Potter film. I only wish he had more scenes. Same goes for Alan Rickman, who really only cameos in this one despite having been the best thing about the franchise to date.

And hey, I'll give a shout out to Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint. While I maintain that Emma Watson is the MVP of the trio, both of these guys have developed into fine actors, and Radcliffe in particular has some real dramatic chops that he shows off here.

So where does this leave us? The fact is, there's a lot to like about The Deathly Hallows, and it's an entertaining movie through and through. Great acting all around, some sweet action / chase scenes, some cool concepts, etc. At the same time, this movie had a job to do. It had to set up the next and final installment as being the epic conclusion to end all epic conclusions. It had to leave us in a place where we absolutely couldn't wait to get to that final chapter. But where does the film leave off? With both our hero and our villain still very much in the midst of their prolonged fetch-quests, wandering around trying to find / destroy magical artifacts, for reasons we never fully understand, at odds with each other, well, just because. It's funny, because there are a lot of big moments in this one for various supporting characters, yet most didn't 100% register with me. I didn't care much about Mad-Eyed Mooney (despite appreciating the great job Brendan Gleason does in the role), because his character hadn't done much of interest to get me emotionally invested. I felt like I was really supposed to love and care about the CGI creature Dobby, but I didn't, because I couldn't recall many fun or memorable moments he'd had in the series to date. I know I'm supposed to think of Voldemort as the ultimate evil, but I didn't, because he didn't do much in the film except scowl and bark a couple of menacing-sounding orders. There are things I like about the world of Harry Potter from the films - I like Hogwarts, I like the newspapers with moving images, I like all the various creatures, I like Snape. But I also don't really feel like I fully understand this world. The movies, on their own, haven't fully realized it, at least not in my opinion.

Look, I get the feeling of loving a piece of source material, and then getting that jolt or thrill when you see it translated to the big screen. But seeing bits and pieces of a great story get adapted does not a great movie make, and to me, the HP movies don't get a pass simply because the source material is so widely-known. The movies need to hold up on their own merits, and to some extent they've done that - with consistently great casting, interesting set pieces, etc. But there are also a lot of holes, a lot of things unexplained, a lot of moments that feel rushed or vague - and while they don't keep The Deathly Hallows from being a good movie, they do keep it from being a great one.

My Grade: B