My wife and I have just begun to delve into the world of Harry Potter this summer and of this posting, I am currently reading the 4th book and Vivian is reading the 6th, so these photos are pretty exciting. So far the movies haven’t lived up to the books but they are still entertaining in their own skin.

How many of you are excited about Harry Potter? Are you obsessed? Indifferent?

I don’t know what to think about this. I was a huge Friends fan while it was on TV, I even have all of the seasons on DVD, but I am at first doubtful and skeptical on how good it could be on the big screen. I think that one of the gems of Friends was its quick humor, which relied heavily on it only being a 30-minute sitcom once a week, and I’m afraid that a 2 hour movie would seem to REALLY drag on. What do you guys think? Would you want to see a Friends movie?

“First of all, expect some crazy new creatures. If you’ve seen Hellboy or his epic Pan’s Labyrinth, you know del Toro would go beyond Orcs and talking trees. He promises to respect J.R.R. Tolkien’s and Peter Jackson’s creations, but sees many more new ones. “I plan to bring myself to The Hobbit,” he said. “No doubt about that.”

“We’ll cast whoever seems to fit the pages,” del Toro said. Wannabe Hobbits may have to chase him down to New Zealand, though, where he’ll be spending much of the rest of the year, checking in with the creature designs and the Middle Earth set.

Seeing how my wife and I attended an advanced screening of Hancock before it opened, I am going to be careful not to reveal too much in my review. I felt like it was a great honor to write about a movie BEFORE it opened so I could truly inform my readers about whether or not to see it. Before I go any further, I want you to know that it is my opinion that this movie is worth seeing…but just don’t rush out in a hurry.

Now that we have the legalities out of the way, let me just tell you that whatever you have seen in the trailers and whatever sense you get about the story of Hancock, you are going to be very much surprised by the actual movie. Going into Hancock, I was expecting to see a totally different movie than what I did. Granted, I only chose to watch the opening teaser trailer and then one other trailer afterwards; I intentionally chose not to immerse myself in plot-revealing trailers that movies debut these days. I wanted to walk into Hancock with as little information as I could so as to not over-expect and end up being let down. Armed with an expectation of a summer superhero movie with a twist (the twist being that the superhero doesn’t actually want to be a superhero), I walked into Hancock expecting as much and left the movie feeling a lot more emotionally spent than what I thought I would.

The film stumbles a bit as it appears to be a comedy at first, then moves quickly to being dark, but then slides a little downhill towards a “take-it-serious” film. From the outset, a drunk hero with an attitude, who goes around saving people sounds pretty laughable and funny, but then it suddenly and quickly turns to a dark movie. The character of John Hancock (Will Smith) is not a likable guy. He is rough, and not just comically rough like you’d expect out of lovable Smith, he is a straight up jerk. Will Smith fans will have a hard time with this one. His distrust and general indifference towards human beings really pervades everything that he is about, so much so that for most of the movie I was finding myself rooting against him. I don’t root against Will Smith. I love Will Smith.

As strong as his performance is though, there are quite a few things about this movie that are just plain corny. There appears to be a few sequencing errors that left my wife and I wondering why they were filmed in that order…scenes that don’t make sense in the setting of the story. There is also a multitude of back story that we weren’t given yet had to make guesswork about because without it, the story doesn’t connect correctly. Let’s just say that the majority of my friends didn’t even know Charlize Theron is in the movie, and towards the middle of the film when she is heavily involved in another storyline (which is the storyline that eventually took over the movie) it was apparent that the movie shifted into more of a melodrama than a “summer blockbuster superhero movie.”

The first half of the movie is really exciting and engaging, the special effects and action sequences are spectacular and I love the ride that the film takes you on. One of the more subtle characteristics of Hancock that I find really interesting is that when he flies, he looks awkward. His arms flail about to his sides like he doesn’t really know how to fly like “Superman” because he’s not! He’s just a regular guy who happens to be indestructible and immortal and who also happens to fly. I was glad to see the director keep Hancock as human as he could because the story, I felt, would suffer if he was “more than life” or over-the-top superhero.

I really think Jason Bateman is a perfect cast in this movie. I have always liked him as an actor, fell in love with him in Arrested Development, and think that his role in Hancock is one of the more endearing and “saving” characters of the film. His character is humble and wise, trusting in Hancock when he’s too screwed up for anyone else to give him a chance. His discernment in Hancock’s situation truly serves as a cornerstone for how heartfelt and caring Bateman’s character is. He added that much needed laugh when the movie tried too hard to engage your emotional core, it was like his character was telling us, “Look, this is about a guy who is immortal like Superman but who drinks and cusses, let’s not get too carried away with reality.” Besides the humor he adds to his roles, I also think, as an actor, he adds a comical class and charm to the films he makes.

It was a very enjoyable film regardless, it just needed to pick a direction that it wanted to go in and stay the course. It’s not one of Will Smith’s best films and it won’t be remembered as his strongest, but it will make a lot of money and be at the top…for about a month, until The Dark Knight comes out of course.

I want to start off this review by thanking my good friend Chris Blanchett for introducing me to the world of Once. He is the one who suggested I check out this soundtrack from a movie called Once, this little nothing of a movie that completely captured his heart. So, Chris, thank you!

If you’ve never heard of Once or don’t know what I am talking about, then that’s great! Here at ToC, I get the privilege of introducing you to the wonderful and amazing little world of Once, a dramatic, romantic, musical filmed entirely around 2 characters, “Guy” (played by Irishmen Glen Hansard) and “Girl” (played by Czechoslovakian Markéta Irglová) in and around the streets of Dublin. This little movie that came out of nowhere utterly captured my heart with warmth, reality, authenticity, humility, and true love…all centered around some beautiful love ballads written by Glen and Marketa.

This movie shouldn’t work. It’s filmed on a shoestring budget with one camera starring very inexperienced actors, and yet it brims with small pleasures that pay major dividends. The story is simple, Hansard stars as a Dublin songwriter who takes his guitar to the streets and sings himself hoarse to people who could care less. He barely makes anything from playing, but that isn’t his goal, he just wants to sing his songs. Supplementing his non-existing singing career is his job as a Hoover vacuum repair man with his Dad. Can you get any more real or depressing than that? His life seems to be heading nowhere until he meets a pretty Czech pianist (Marketa Irglova) who gives him the guts to quit his dad’s repair shop and start finding the bucks to make a recording. That’s it for the story. It’s a bittersweet love story that has Hansard’s gorgeous music at the center with an aching romance for the soul.

There is something so hauntingly mesmerizing about the music that pervades this entire film. It’s music in its rawest form, no studio extras, no synthesizing, just emotion, heart, and a broken guitar with lyrics that paint a sad and bare picture of heartache. The film is driven by and depends on the power of the songs for its heart and they become indispensable towards the end of the film. It’s the uniting power of music that keeps this movie together, without Hansard’s songs this movie doesn’t work, it would fall away into oblivion just like every other small film. It would still be a good film if the songs played over the action as like in every other movie, but the fact that they drive the story, the fact that both Glen and Marketa actually sing them on film at the most poignant times in the story is what makes this film GREAT!

You can’t afford to miss this movie. In a world full of dramatizing and analyzing and “blockbustering” love, this is a quiet little film that shows the reality of love, the pain of love, the joy of love, the awkwardness of love…the song of love. Writer-director-musician Jon Carney (he played bass in Glen’s band “The Frames” until 1993) has made a sweet film, which elevates itself to an entirely different plane of film musicals, by using the simplicity of plot, character, and style to craft a sort of cinematic poem. After you see this movie, you will immediately want to buy the soundtrack and check out Glen’s band “The Frames…” because that’s what I did. Of course, I already had the soundtrack, I just moved it to the top of my iPod in listening priority.

We rarely fall in love at the movies enough, but this is one to adore.

Content Warning: Rated R for language. They use the “F” word as much as we would use the word “the” in a sentence. The funny thing is that because of their accents, it doesn’t seem as harsh sounding. Be warned, there is a lot of language, but believe me, it did not take away from the movie, it actually fit within the context of the story. It was more cute than harsh…you’ll just have to see for yourself.