(Book Review) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is finally out. It's the official eighth installment of J.K. Rowling's fantastical world as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger pass the wand off to their children's experiences at Hogwarts. The book is a companion script to the play that will be begin on the London West End.

On Harry Potter's thirty-sixth birthday, the special rehearsal edition of the play was published. Of course, I lined up for the midnight release party and was super excited to be apart of the phenomenon once again. Even though we're encouraged to "keep the secrets", the play is public now and I couldn't help but want to share my thoughts.

WARNING BEYOND THIS POINT - this review contains spoilers.

Wizard Hair, Don't Care

It wouldn't be a surprise if fans were divided into different corners as the expansion of the wizarding world continues: some don't care about any new developments, many rightfully feel ostracized, others have trepidation but are still excited.

I would be lying if at some point I didn't feel all three over the past several years. (After all I hope I don't have the emotional range of a teaspoon.)

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them hitting theaters? Yes, please. a part of my soul is already standing in line at the movie theater.

Pottermore updates? haven't cared about it so much since the show was re-vamped the website as the wordpress encyclopedia J.K. Rowling promised us all those years ago.

Harry Potter and Cursed Child play? I'd be excited to see the play in person, but a nervousness creeps in with the book. Did I really want to see more of Harry's life post-Voldemort? Will the story live up to this wait we've had all these years? to the five star reviews for the stage production?

I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was more excited for the midnight release party than the book itself..

My journey with Harry is a complicated one:

Like all the other kids I read Harry Potter growing up as the books were released. But on my way to reading Prisoner of Azkaban, super conservative relatives shamed my love of the series and convinced me it was wrong to read them.

Not only was my relatives against the series, convinced I go to hell if I continued on my way (yes, they told an eleven year old this) but the books were also a controversy in my neighborhood.

At school kids were divided into those who could be allowed to read them, and those who couldn't, whose parents were concerned about the magical and occult aspects.

On the news I saw people burning the books and exclaiming J.K. Rowling was a witch trying to convert children into the occult.

The protests of the series both close to home and the world via the news, my love of the series scared me and so I stopped reading. This change wasn't something I told anyone about. From my brief description above about my family, it's pretty obvious that my family was quite dysfunctional.

My yearning for the the series became something I tried to hide very well. Every year I pined to go to the book and movie releases. I wanted to catch up by checking out the library books but felt they were permanently reserved in the restricted section. The trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince still stirs up certain emotions because of how much I wanted to see that movie.

I really didn't get into Harry Potter until the last movie was being released. Like if there was ever a definition in a fangirl dictionary of being the last person to jump on a fanwagon like Harry Potter, it would me: trying to cram seven movies in a month before the last movie release, buying the books after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two and taking my time to read them, feeling both elated and alone that the whole phenomenon passed without me.

As for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child itself, it can't necessarily be judged by it's spoilers but given that some of these spoilers are true, well, as Hagrid says, "What’s comin’ will come and we’ll meet it when it does". For a lot of fans, this may not be the 8th book some desired in The Mirror of Erised once upon a time.

Cursed Child might pre-emptively sound like a mess, but wizard hair, don't care, Dream come true, muggles! I can't wait to start the 8th book and then possibly, immediately regret my decision. I'll be back with my thoughts in a few days....

The Walking Dead Season 7 Trailer Reaction

The Walking Dead's season six left us on a massive cliffhanger - one that fans were either intensely disappointed by or just okay with. (Was anyone excited about the season finale...I can't remember...)

Anywho, we already know the identity of Lucille's victim is still left up in the air. AMC has kept the suspense going by premiering the season seven trailer at San Diego Comic Con!

If you haven't seen it yet, it's probably a good idea before going forward. This post contains spoilers not only of the trailer, but also predictions about character deaths including the Lucille victims. You've been warned!

The Nice Guys (2016) draws very, very nice laughs

Photo Credit: The Nice Guys / Warner Bros. Pictures

With so little classic detective stories being made today, director Shane Black carved a niche with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang nearly ten years ago. Taking the classic detective story, Black arms his dry-humored scripts with great unlikely pairings to the buddy cop genre.

This time around, Black sets his investigative comedy in the late 1970s. Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a drunk widow raising a teenage daughter Holly who runs into Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), a hothead enforcer who packs a serious punch. Literally. As a trio, they try to solve a case of a missing girl which slowly unravels the L.A. porn industry.

Similar to Black's previous pairing of Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer, Black's casting of Gosling and Crowe seems entirely mismatched at first. Then over the course of the movie, their chemistry and timing prove itself. Gosling seems to be a really popular actor with younger crowds and old, but I hadn't found a specific role that really caught my attention. He appeals to me more off-screen than on, but here, he does a great job with most of the physical comedy while Crowe is more subtle, landing a few funny lines here and there. Together, they share great timing and ease as two bumbling guys who are simply in the wrong place, wrong time but ready to solve a crime.

Though the main Gosling/Crowe duo is engaging, Angourie Rice as Holly truly shines above the rest. As the highly inquisitive preteen jumping the gun and outsmarting the adults around her, Holly could've come across as forced. But instead, she is great at taking down the bad guys but doesn't lose her empathy. When the mystery continues to unwind and keep us guessing, she proves to be the sharpest one of the bunch and showcases a lot of heart a la classic fictional icon, Nancy Drew. Holly is easily one of my favorite characters of the year.

Black is a proven success, even a cult one, with these types of movies. The only potential downfall here is the foundation he's already established. There's nothing wrong with experimenting with old roots, but when the story and characters are really delved into, a lot of it feels almost identical to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. With the boost of another unlikely cast, he delivers another nice round of comedy and suspense, but the plot can feel a little deja vu and lose momentum towards the end. Even if the movie feels slightly repetitive, The Nice Guys is definitely entertaining and very, very nice.

Rating: ★★☆ Have you seen The Nice Guys? What are your thoughts?

Back Off Man, I'm a Feminist

The original Ghostbusters is one of me and my sister's favorite movies. It's right up there with other movies like Back to the Future that we watch, quote, and analyze all the time.

When news broke out about a Ghostbusters reboot, frankly we weren't surprised. Hollywood has been and will be remaking movies. Studios and producers are always up for revamping any kind of classic for a younger generation while also ignoring that the genre can be a tiresome idea.

Negative reception of the new version before the movie even reached theaters was, in fact, disappointing but again unsurprising. Unlike other re-imaginings that only get a whisper of unflattering reviews, Ghostbusters was put through the ringer of overwhelming misogyny.

Fanboys by the masses opposed the reboot to one of  'their' beloved favorites. Not just opposed the movie but absolutely vilified it and the cast. Their reaction reached new heights of erratic behavior: IMDb was flooded with one star reviews, conspiracies were created about Sony paying off reviewers, and made the new trailer the most disliked in YouTube history, dowsed the cast in vitriol backlash - to say the least.

While the unprovoked response was alarming, it was also not unexpected. Not when Renee Zellweger is criticized for aging, Blake Lively's Shallows is torture porn , profiles on actresses reveal critics' deep-seated sexualization and the list goes on.

It can't be denied that in film, books, and television we need other stories that don't focus solely or for a majority on the male's version of the hero's journey. Fiction is a reflection of the real world; it's universal and doesn't apply to just one kind of person.

When we go to the movies, we look for a good break from our regular lives, looking to escape, for a reflection of ourselves or where we are in life, to be entertained and/or enlightened. As a woman, I look for people who aren't there to be no-named sought after hotties whose only lines in a movie are to say No to a guy who won't take no for an answer and then inevitably gives in because he won't leave her alone.

As Viola Davis said upon her 2015 Emmy victory, "You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there..." Well we can't see movies with women if they aren't there.

One only has to look at the success of Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the complex nature of Mad Max: Fury Road, or the incomparable success of Frozen as examples of the importance of roles for girls of all ages. And, Ghostbusters is no different. Seeing women playing scientists and ghostbusters will give women and young girls something to identity with and vicariously live through.

Opportunity and equality is what levels the playing field. 30% of speaking roles belong to women, so it shouldn't be a surprise when we ascend upon the hogged platform and set up our own mics for a fellow audience that is surely craning to listen.

Films with all-male casts get the star power and the "original story" but aren't touted specifically because they are men. Everything is just accepted as if it's law. They're just marketed and believed as bad-ass, funny, smart, action-packed, and capable as is - so why can't women enjoy the same?

When movies star anyone besides the typical male star, they are the special snowflakes of Hollywood that were created by osmosis. Movies shouldn't be compartmentalized into a girl's thing, and instead women have access to tell layered and entertaining universal experiences. Case in point, rumors about an Oceans' Eleven reboot have been circulating. Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Lawrence have been attached without any further confirmation of its development, except again that it will star an all-female cast. This gives me hope that a heist film with women might actually utilize actresses to play roles other than love interests.

Case in point: The 1960 original starring the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis. Jr.), practically the only woman is Angie Dickinson as Sinatra's wife, who is given little to do in terms of the heist or her husband's cohorts. Likewise, Steven Soderbergh's 2001 remake limits roles for women as spouses with little agency such as Julia Roberts to George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones to Brad Pitt, and an independent and powerful right-hand woman (Ellen Barkin) who is tricked to beg Matt Damon for sex. It's embarrassing that nearly fifty years passed, and the results are the same: if the women were removed, the plots could go on as if business was usual.

The lack of depth a female character is not given isn't right. But we can't go back in time and change the original, and we shouldn't want to solely because they had male casts. Just like literature mavens have to contend with changes of their beloved books when they're adapted to movies, we must be able to separate remakes from originals. Rarely does the makers of the former want to eradicate the former; everything is just about expanding on the other and growing it. I's okay to watch a movie, know the era it originated from, the gender politics of this time and then, and be aware of the differences (if even rare ones).

Unlike the initial ugly reception of the Ghostbusters reboot, it would be great to see a heist film, or film in general with women that exclude the emphasis on gender but instead focus on the material, strength of it's script and direction, the talent (not looks, race, weight or age) of its cast. A movie like Ghostbusters is just the beginning. Certain critics, official and unofficial know how to do this, but not enough. (The surface hasn't even been scratched for movies with racial diversity, LGBTQ community, trans community, people with disabilities, etc.)

As a fan culture, a territory has been marked around 'the classics'. If anything happens to selected untouchable favorites, well, it's just forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria...Only it isn't. This reboot could've been something the pre-emptive haters enjoyed if they looked past themselves to give it a chance.

Women's contribution to film shouldn't be devalued and discriminated. Gender equality within entertainment, within the world, can be accomplished if we just make the right calls.

An Ode to DVDs + my recent haul

Last month when my sister and I discovered that the sole local DVD rental store was closing, the news was bittersweet. Many Christmases or afternoons while my mom shopped for groceries were spent at this store where hung out with the cashiers to talk about movies.

We'd be lying if we didn't see the signs that a massive clearance sale looming. Last year the shop divided its space into DVDs and (overpriced) pop culture merchandise. The move essentially cut the movie buff demographic in half. Who wanted to see all the dvds squished to the side for toys and gadgets you could buy next door at Wal-Mart? People sprinkled in to rent movies and attend midnight release parties, but not in droves like they used to.

It was weird to visit the store as it was closing down and seeing rows of DVDs marked down. (I can't lament too much about this: I saved like $200....) That's where this very rare dvd haul comes from.

In this awesome world of streaming whatever we want wherever we are, are DVDs officially going out of style? I guess, in a lot of ways, yes, especially for people who don't live like a cave person.

Similar stores like Blockbusters are extinct. Grocery stores have RedBoxes, so renting is still available but the physical location of hanging out with other geeks or parents taking their kids to pick out a special Friday night movie (a faded tradition my family had) has become a thing of the past.

With all of the instant access we have to movies these days, it's hard to remember a time when DVDs were in-style. Almost twenty years ago news broke out that these strange but awesome little discs were going to replace VHS tapes. It was a totally weird concept: discs? like a CD? how would we tape shows to them? WHAAATTT? That's not gonna last. Subsequently, Me and my sister spent that whole summer saving up for our own television, DVD player, and our first buys: The Mummy and Twister. DVDs were once the ultra-cool way of the future.

The massive transformation of VHS to DVDs soon ushered in other eras like Dial-Up to Wifi, CDs to Ipods, and VHS Players to DVR devices.

Some things never disappear. Vinyl records for the masses temporarily vanished but it's been coming back. People used to claim that books would be dead and replaced with kindles and ebooks, but literature is flourishing with bookworms. In fact Barnes and Noble sales have plummeted online but risen with physical stores. The community is as active as fandom culture with the conversation about what are you reading and what do you want to read growing exponentially.

But the future for movies looks more and more like it's going to be online in some form of streaming content; less dvds, less movie theaters, less of it in a physical sense. Which is ironic considering this I blog about movies that I, for the most part, watch on my tablet.

When everything is just tapped into online by a smartphone, tablet, or our televisions now, the tangible feelings I have towards movies are getting lost in the shuffle.

My sister and I made memories searching up and down the aisles for that one title we wanted to take home with us, or muddling through the subtle disappointment when some indie movie wasn't in stock and hoping for better luck next time.

Sometimes it's nice to have something physical of a movie similar to the popular ebooks and physical copies debate. Kindles are great to carry 100 books wherever we go, but physical copies are more intimate i.e. holding a book in our lap while sipping a cup of coffee or cuddling into bed.

I'm ALSO a person who, as much as she loves to stream Jessica Jones over and over, has thought: when is Netflix gonna release this on DVD? Not only do I have regular EPIC moments of brain-fartery, but I do get a little giddy popping a DVD in and getting comfy for a movie night, and that somehow feels different to me than streaming.

Amazon, and what's left of stores like Wal-Mart, Target, etc. will surely still stock DVDs as far as we can tell. Getting a movie shipped to my house is a great convenience, but makes the experience of being among other movie buffs a thing of the past. DVDs might not be going out of style just yet; they're just taking on another form that I'll guess I'll have to get on board with....soon.

P.S. The haul itself was pretty good. I bought a fair amount of movies I just wouldn't pay full-price for i.e. Leatherheads, Eat Pray Love, and Loser. I was so excited to get Gone Girl and have watched it....quite a few times. I think my sister and mom suspect there's something wrong with me.

Favorite Movies of 2016 (So Far!)

It's hard to believe half of the year is gone! A lot of great movies hit the theaters with a bang leaving an impression on fans and critics alike. Not to mention raking in the dough. With so many great films that have come out this year and many more to come, who will lead the box office for 2016?

I just couldn't help thinking about hitting the half-way mark and what were knock-out favorites of the these first sixth months. Looking back my picks, they include Critic Approved, Box Office Smash/Disaster, or well-loved by all. 

Which movies have been the most memorable, action-packed, heartwarming, and entertaining so far for you? It's tough to predict but what movies for the rest of the year will be definite crowd-pleasers, but Suicide Squad seems like a definite Yes? Yes.

What were your faves for 2016 so far? Feel free to share below!

Brooklyn

A young Irish girl Eilis immigrates to the United States, and her heart is divided between a new home of Brooklyn and her old roots. My heart goes out to this movie so much. Saorise's performance and the eye-popping gorgeous direction makes this one of my all-time favorites, not just 2016.

Yes, this came out sometime last year just in time for Oscar season (but I saw it in January, soooo), and it was definitely worth it's weight in gold. The movie garnered three nominations, including Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Actress. After award show season hype has wavered, there are certain movies whose Oscar bait becomes pretty obvious while others will just remain classics well into the future. Brooklyn is definitely the latter.

Captain America: Civil War

I couldn't stop raving about this one, and neither could critics and movie goers. A huge fork crashes smack down into Roger and the Avengers's road when Tony Stark and the United Nations want to enforce an accords which controls their missions.

Talk about the movie of the summer before the summer even officially kicked off. The Russo Brothers carries Captain America's final individual installment over the finishing line with a bang; an action-packed, feels-heavy bang. It's hard to even watch the first two Captain America movies without wanting to dive right into the third one again and again.

How To Be Single

Replacing the usual romantic comedy where two love-sick characters force themselves into finding true love because of Plot, How To Be Single attempts to do the opposite but doesn't succeed. Alice takes a break from her long-term relationship to try to find out who she is on her own. It's admirable (???) but she ends up taking ill-advice from other single people trying not to be single or mastering a life without romantic attachments, and the whole thing ends up being a mess.

LIKE A BIG HOT MESS, mostly because the movie doesn't click until the very end. That being said, I really like the cast and some of it is pretty funny. Surely, if the script was more polished, it could've been a bigger success and I could recommend this one more....but it's become one of those movies that I am regularly in the mood to watch and don't really know why.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Love. Adventure. Kick-Ass heroines. Maybe the world is over it's zombie-obsession, but the updated twist of Jane Austen's classic novel is so much fun!! Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy ward off their own pride and prejudice as the undead dominate the world.

 If there was one movie I wished didn't bomb at the box office and with critics this year, it's definitely Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. There was so much room for another installment and I can't imagine how the story would've awesomely moved forward. Myself, and some fans, will just have to enjoy this one on it's own. AND PRAY FOR A SEQUEL.