Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Review

Damn, Daniel Radcliffe is short.

Warning: I am not a "die hard" Harry Potter fan. I have not read the books nor do I intend to any time in the near future. This post contains spoilers about the movie Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and my sarcastic ass comments and opinions. If you are easily offended or take HP way too seriously, then do not get mad at me after you read below.

My sister, her spoiler-phobe boyfriend, and I went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on Friday night. I know, wait a minute, WTF was he doing there? If you read my post in June about how seeing the Harry Potter movies in the theater with just my sis was our ritual, you didn't hallucinate. Thinking ahead, my sister went ahead and bought two tickets to the movie earlier in the day. Read that, two. Our tradition was spoiled since the boyfriend came along even though he knows about our tradition. So dear husband, you are going to see New Moon with me and my sister when it comes out. She can't complain since her boyfriend went to this!

My sister wanted to get to the theater early. Getting there 45 minutes early was a good thing, that movie theater was already starting to get packed. We sat in a set of four handicap accessible seats, so we had an open seat by the boyfriend and tons of leg room. I'm 5'10" so leg room is mega important. The sis and I were super duper excited about seeing the New Moon preview on the cinema screen. Unfortunately that was a no go, they didn't show it.

I've mentioned before that I have a huge case of movie Tourettes. You should have seen Dawn of the Dead with me. I got so many dirty looks for laughing during that whole movie. It didn't help that my sister jumped at everything, which made me laugh louder. Anyway, I can't keep my comments to myself and I'm always asking what happened in the books since I haven't read them. The spoiler-phobe boyfriend gets pissed if you talk during the movie, so I had to use my sister as a buffer between us. The lights went down, I said WTF no New Moon trailer probably a little too loud and the movie started.

(I don't remember the whole sequence of events in the movie since I was talking a decent chunk of the time, so forgive me for stuff that's probably wrong.)

I'll just list the stuff I didn't like first

1. That guy who plays Malfoy gets uglier and uglier every movie. Maybe it's the bleached hair, but yuck. And I know bad teeth is a British thing, but if the Luna hippie chick can fix Harry's nose, why can't Neville fix his damn teeth?
2. Really, killing off Dumbledore? They're all freaking wizards, I'm sure Snape could have just used a spell that made everyone think he was dead. (And yes, my sister had to text me what happened in the last book so I now know that was all a ruse.) Then Dumbledore could go to Jamaica for a few years. Drink lots of drinks, get a tan.
3. The nostrils on young Tom Riddle (Voldemort) drove me crazy. They were like two giant caves in a very smug and manipulative head.
4. Lavender's (Ron's girlfriend) bandannas and 80s hair irritated me too. Unless you're riding bitch on a Harley, don't do the do-rag.
5. At the end when Harry's chasing after Snape and the rest of the Ugly Crew, clearly magic wasn't working on anyone. If I made this movie, I would have had Harry chuck a sharp rock at Snape's head. He's expecting magic, not a rock. I bet Harry could have at least nailed him in the balls or something. And I totally would have used that wand to shoot electricity through all that water in the bathroom, frying Malfoy to a crisp. Or at least burning all of his hair off.

The things I loved:

1. I really loved how the first half of the movie was so comedic. They really showed how angsty and uncomfortable being a teenager could be. I didn't laugh as hard as I did at The Hangover, but this movie was definitely pretty light.
2. As the movie opened, I really liked how they went right into the death eaters messing with everyone. They didn't waste anytime getting right into the action.
3. The movie was just gorgeous. The landscapes were especially breathtaking.
4. Recognizing the actors from other movies. My sister didn't appreciate me saying "Hey look, there's Bridget Jones' mom and dad!" every time I saw them in the same scene together. Luckily, it only happened a couple of times. She didn't know that's who they were, so now she does thanks to me.
5. I really loved how Harry acted after drinking the luck potion. There were definitely more adult jokes and themes in this movie. (Which gives me hope for Breaking Dawn being more adult, cough*juicyhoneymoonscenes*cough.) Also, in all of the quidditch scenes, much phallic imagery.

I really did like this movie and I'll have to watch it again when the dvd comes out. I'll borrow my sister's of course. I'm waiting for the complete series on blu-ray how ever many years from now. Oh and as a last note, if the Harry Potter Experience comes to a museum near you, go see it. It's at the Science and Industry Museum here in Chicago and it was pretty cool. Except you couldn't bring a stroller in. And I had to carry a sleeping baby through the whole damn thing.

Beware: Twilight Saga can be hazardous to your mental well being

***Disclaimer, post is not very funny, really long, and may be TMI for everyone, myself included. Oh, and there's a few WTF pics too.***

Back in my very first post on this blog I alluded to my opinion that reading the Twilight Saga books gave me post partum depression for a few days. I luckily have a lovely support system in my husband, mother, and sister so I wasn’t like this for long.

I’d gotten Twilight and New Moon for Christmas as a gift from my sister. Since I was already starting to feel not so hot from being pregnant and working on my feet full time, I wasn’t reading as much as I usually did on the train. I mostly surfed the net on my crackberry on the commute home and tried not to kill the people who routinely annoyed me on my rides to and fro. I tried to pass out in my seat on the way to work which isn’t so easy when you’re ballooning to walrus size and aren’t very bendable. After waiting an extra week after my due date, I finally gave birth via an emergency c-section (no squished head!) to the cutest baby boy (okay, I am a little biased) towards the end of March.

Fast forward to April, I’m really sleep deprived and still sore from the major surgery I had undergone to have baby C. I’d been at home since the beginning of March, there was only so much of the internet I could surf. I’d basically played Mahjong Safari on pogo.com for 2 weeks straight waiting to have the baby while the husband played Call of Duty. This was pre-Twilight blogs and websites to check each day. When the Twilight DVD came out, my sister bought it and eventually made me watch it with her. Now I’ll admit to being a movie talker, I’ve got some kind of movie Tourettes and I can’t shut my trap for very long. You so don't want to watch a scary movie in the theater with me, I get dirty looks from everyone from laughing so loud. So you can imagine how my first viewing of Twilight was. The lipstick on all of the Cullens drove me nuts the entire time. And I mentioned that, a lot. The movie did pique my interest though so I decided to start reading the books. I did have plenty of time to read them, since I was on leave until June 1.

After that first viewing, my sister and I headed to Target for some much needed baby supplies. We walked past a display housing all of Stephenie Meyer’s books. I figured I might as well buy the Eclipse and Breaking Dawn since I have Twilight and New Moon waiting for me at home. There is nothing I hate worse than having to wait to read the next book in a series. Once I know I like a writer’s style and the book, I usually buy the rest of the series that is available. I should probably own stock in Amazon, I buy so much from there (I don't only buy for myself, I'm an enabler and preordered Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for the hubby. Guess I'm a glutten for punishment). Our local Barnes and Noble is a crap shoot and we’re always looking over our shoulder because our crazy neighbor goes there a lot. We’d rather not get stuck talking to him so we have to cut our trips short if he’s there. When we got back to my house, I let my sister borrow books two through four since she already borrowed Twilight from a friend, and I start reading book one.

The hubby can regale you with stories of how I’ve ignored him in the last 16 years while reading books and magazines more than he has with his crap-ass Call of Duty game. So he probably does have me there. And now I started another consuming book series where the books just got longer and longer. I read Twilight in a day with an infant in my lap, continuing on through books two and three without incident. You try holding a 700 page monstrosity in one hand without hitting your baby with it. It’s not that easy. Finally, I got to Breaking Dawn. And this is when I could swear I was having panic attacks at night for a few days. I was fine through book 1, no problem with Bella and Edward’s wedding, honeymoon, even when she got pregnant. Again, reading Jacob’s perspective was pretty uneventful, until the birth was about to begin. Then I was really tweaked at night and pretty bummed during the day.

There were too many coincidences in the birth of Reneesmee (what a stupid name) and baby C. We both had to have emergency c-sections, there was no chance of a regular birth. Bella would die so no option there. Baby C was starting to have heart rate fluctuations and I didn’t dilate enough or have strong enough contractions after 15 hours of labor. Bella didn’t get to see her baby after the birth. I had to wait several hours before I could hold my own baby C after going through recovery, etc. Plus, Bella and I were both really doped up. Let me tell you, an epidural of fentanyl straight into your spine combined with vicodin and ibuprofen make you feel nothing. I couldn’t remember what I had done 10 minutes before, let alone stay awake without nodding off for a few minutes over the course of two days.

The worst thing was not being able to move. Bella couldn’t move due to the morphine and I was immobile as well. I’m extremely claustrophobic and not being able to move anything below my neck during the c-section was pure hell. I had a blue sheet in my face so I couldn’t see anything, an oxygen line in my nose, and a husband in my face. How I didn’t totally freak out, I don’t know. I know my husband was just trying to comfort me, but he got yelled at for his effort and I am sorry for that. He doesn’t grasp how my claustrophobia has gotten worse the older I get. I had to get an MRI of my head for migraines, and I was barely able to do that. The kicker is that I didn’t have a choice. If I wanted baby C out and healthy, I had to endure this living hell. The decision was made and 10 minutes later I was being wheeled into surgery. I’ll readily admit that I feel ripped off that I didn’t get to have a regular birth. But what really pisses me off is that if we want more children, I’m going to have to experience a c-section all over again. I’m not sure I’ll ever be strong enough to endure that again. And now I have a shelf gut now to show for the first one.

When I went to bed that night at about 2 am after reading the birth scenes, I couldn’t sleep. I just lay in bed thinking how I wouldn’t live forever, I couldn’t live forever. Eventually baby C would be without a mom and dad. I’m sure a lot of this stems from fear of death and what follows. Reading the twilight books, especially Breaking Dawn really struck something in me. Fluctuating post partum hormones and severe sleep deprivation weren’t exactly leaving me the most rational woman around. This sleeplessness and panic about dieing and leaving everyone behind continued for another night. I realized that for my own sanity I had to stop reading that book.

By this time it was the beginning of May and I had preordered two books by authors that I really love. I didn’t read anything at all until I received Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris and Pretty In Plaid by Jennifer Lancaster, both New York Times best selling authors. The new Charlaine Harris book is the ninth book of the Southern Vampire Series that the HBO series True Blood is based on. Jennifer Lancaster’s books are autobiographical and she is one of the funniest authors that I read. She is very snarky and borderline bitchy, but it makes for some hilarious reading. This book is her fourth and I really recommend reading her other three in order. You can read their descriptions on amazon.com (damn you Amazon for taking all of my money) or find them at your local bookstore (damn you too local Barnes and Noble).

So I had a choice, read something that was sure to be very funny, or take my chances with another vampire book. I chose to read the further adventures of Sookie Stackhouse, so I read Dead and Gone first. This book didn’t give me any panic attacks. I really just think there were too many coincidences between my birth story and that of Bella. My subconscious fears about death and dying really came to the front during those few nights. So, a word of warning to people who are pregnant, newly post partum, and have issues with death. You might want to wait to read book four of the Twilight Saga until your hormones have leveled off and you're mentally stable. Plus it still bothers me that Stephenie Meyer described the birth scene in detail but faded to black on Edward and Bella’s honeymoon. I mean, come on, your audience has grown as your books have come out. You can describe a huge bloody mess but not a word of some action? Even a little description of the nookie would have been fine.

Obviously I’m incapable of being serious for the whole length of a huge ass post such as this, so here are a few new WTF pictures that I got in an email recently. Sorry to anyone that I have scarred for life on the ideas of childbirth or claustrophobia. Since my husband might be the only one reading this, now you know what I went through during one of the hardest and best times of my life. And we have a beautiful, perfect son to show for it.

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Notice anything in particular about what this shirt is made of? I really hope those were new underwear.

Um, where I hail from, we usually wind up running racoons over, not feeding them. Especially not feeding them this way. Have they not heard of the lady who was polar bear bait? Or what about the person who was panda bear bait?