{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 opened in Seattle on Friday, July 14 and is playing at the Majestic Bay, the Pacific Science Center IMAX®, the Cinerama, and other area theaters}

THE END of Harry Potter is here. And as I’ve said before, I’m not a huge fan. But Amie! You’re nerdy. And you love supernatural things. And you heart the crap out of reading. All this is true, but the first 5 HP books (won from a work contest many years ago) sit dust-covered and untouched on my bookshelf.

See, Harry Potter is one of those things where every single person and their brother’s brother said some variation of this to me, “OMFG they are so amazing you will totally love them read them all right now whatiswrongwithyou?” - which is the best way to make sure I NEVER do something. So instead of reading, I just went ahead and cheated by seeing all the films. And while there were a few moments I appreciated, they kind of all blended together and I just wasn’t that impressed.

So I wasn’t really expecting to be blown away by this, but I joined in the hype just because it was fun. And on the day of the press screening for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, I had to go ahead and post this smartass tweet:

Which naturally totally screwed me, because I ended up pouring out some serious waterworks over the course of 2 hours and 5 minutes. So I’ll just say it: this movie surprised me.

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{Larry Crowne opened in Seattle on Friday July 1 at the Metro, the Meridian, the Majestic Bay, and Thornton Place}

When I first saw the trailer for Larry Crowne, I was overjoyed.  I'll admit taken on its own, it looked like the sort of over-the-top annoying saccharine nonsense that gets made when a big star writes, directs, produces and stars in his own romantic comedy. But then I realized that it must be the "what if they met years later?" mashup of Forest Gump and Pretty Woman I've been waiting forever for Hollywood to wise up and make. It was a heavy blow indeed when I realized that wasn't the storyline at all! Probably akin with what my friends described to me a few years back when they realized the characters in Sweeney Todd weren't going to stop singing anytime soon. Though at least presumably that situation had a bloody catharsis thing going on providing some sort of release..

In terms of likely box-office success Larry Crowne definitely has three things going for it - Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and an unchallenging plot. Unfortunately, to be a really great film that's not going to be enough. In short: it's a basic romantic comedy that had me seriously groaning by the end.  Actually pretty close to the beginning, though I was laughed enough that I was distracted for a bit from how treacle stuffed the entire enterprise was.  If you love, love, love Hanks and/or Roberts I don't think there's anything here that's gonna change your mind.  So don't be too scared of seeing it.  It's not like either of these folks is turning in a performance likely to shock or offend their core constituencies (Jim Carrey inThe Cable Guy this is not). Lots of folks are going to dig this film, don't worry - I won't judge you if you're one of them. But for me I'd have to suggest seeing last week's Bad Teacher first - at least they were reaching for something.

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{Bad Teacher opens in Seattle on Friday 6/24 at the Landmark Metro Cinemas, the Regal Meridian, Crossorads, Thornton Place, and Lincoln Square Cinemas}

I've got to admit I was super excited when I sat down to see Bad Teacher with a crowd full of people Wednesday night. While I knew there was a risk that all funny bits were in the trailer, the combination of Cameron Diaz playing an teacher with what appeared to be an "all children left behind" policy and the likable Jason Segel made me uncharacteristically optimistic. Completing what I can only assume to be the conclusion of a trilogy of films started with Bad Santa and Bad Lieutenant focused on people failing in their chosen profession, Bad Teacher applies that formula to our education system.

It's a watchable comedy that provides a decent number of laughs and a good number of smiles. What it didn't do for me is deliver the steady stream of deep belly laughs that a great comedy can/should. It's possible (OK likely) that if I'd gone in without having seen any prior clips from it I might have had a much better time. My suspicion is that this will become one of those things that you watch a piece of with nostalgic fondness when it's on TV - not quite an Animal House or Old School, but perhaps somewhere in the Dodgeball range.

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{Green Lantern opens in Seattle on Friday, June 17 and is playing at the Metro, AMC Pacific Place, the Cinerama and Oak Tree Cinemas}

Even though I have a comic-nerdian background, I’m only slightly familiar with this particular superhero's lore, and thus probably not qualified to judge whether Green Lantern does it justice or totally ruins it—that said, I found it to be pretty damn entertaining.

The whole thing reminded me of vintage Superman (as in Richard Donner’s 1978 version), with a lot of exposition at the beginning explaining the origin of the Green Lantern Corps, and a ton of space exploration with prettily colored stars and crystalline spaceships. With uh, much more advanced special effects and some pretty damn fantastic alien makeup.

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{Vampire screens at SIFF on Wednesday, June 1, 6:30pm and Thursday, June 2, 4pm at the Egyptian; and again on Sunday, June 5, 8:30pm at the Admiral Theatre}

I hereby claim Vampire as a fine example of modern psychological horror (for its own category, the Seattle International Film Festival 2011 puts it in its "To The Extreme" canon, which is a good way of telling people it's probably going to shock you but not necessarily scare you, and avoids being punchy with genre tags).

It's about a shy, scruffy, but charming high school biology teacher who has a brain-sick mom (Amanda Plummer! I was just watching her hold up the restaurant with Tim Roth again at the beginning of Pulp Fiction! Weird timing, where's she been in the meantime?) who has to be tied up with big white balloons by her offspring whilst he's working. She's a piping hot mess expresso! That's some creative home-care health solutions there, sonny boy, but then like most mother-son relationships in horror movies it's less than DSM-V ideal. That of course spills over into his dealings with the ladies.

Four words to blood-boil it down: First date suicide pact!

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{Surrogate Valentine screens at SIFF on May 29, 9:30pm at The Harvard Exit and again on May 30, 3:30pm at the Admiral Theatre}

Goh is San Francisco musician Goh Nakamura, and he is living the life you are, your comrades, or your indie singer-songwriter heroes are. Creating songs and getting cut-rate studio time to record them; playing small venue and living room gigs between Seattle and Los Angeles; still awkwardly and desperately in love with one childhood crush back home, and having a romantic friendship with a fan somewhere else. Because of his DIY status, and being in debt to his mother and pals, he takes on a weird job: helping Danny, a hack young soap opera, star learn guitar to star in an independent movie written by Goh's old friend Amy.

Director Dave Boyle has done similar work about young people of different races trying to find their place in the world with previous films Big Dreams Little Tokyo and White On Rice. This explains why Surrogate Valentine is so well-written, excellently cast, and wonderfully shot in Seattle, San Francisco, LA, and points in-between. But what makes this a can't-miss selection for Seattle music fans are the broad but informed characterizations of people in the music business. One meeting with a Seattle rack jobber (distro guy who places product in stores) who's a veteran of the pre-grunge rock scene here rings true, as he diminishes Goh's own work while showing off his fancy gear and gun collection.

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{A Cat in Paris screens at SIFF on May 30th, 1:00pm at the Everett Performing Arts Center, on June 5th, 1:00pm at the Kirkland Performance Center, and on June 11th, 11:00am at the Egyptian Theatre}

I sometimes like to play a little game while watching animated films called “Why Is This Movie Animated?” Animation is not a genre—we can all agree on this, yes? There are roughly as many genres of animated films as live-action ones, and all sorts of reasons to animate besides getting kids in a theater. But especially as the price of special effects goes down, I’m sometimes curious why someone would decide a story is best told with drawings rather than actors.

A Cat in Paris was good for this game. Though the style of animation isn’t photorealistic at all (it’s much more stylized and primitive), it conveys the feeling of reality faithfully, with subtle details like moonlight shadows on the folds of clothing. Very few things happen that couldn’t as easily be filmed as drawn—a couple of minor script tweaks and you’re there. And finally, the plot feels so familiar that I’m surprised I can’t think of a particular film with the same story. It goes like this: Zoe is a girl who’s stopped speaking since her father was killed. Her mother is a police officer intent on catching the killer. And a cat burglar, who’s accompanied by Zoe’s cat while she sleeps, gets mixed up in the case.

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{L’amour fou opens in Seattle Friday, 5/27, and is playing exclusively at the Landmark Seven Gables}

Fashion junkies rejoice: L’amour fou covers every bit of master couture designer Yves Saint Laurent’s life as a trendsetter and style-making icon.

Told through still images and handheld camera footage from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s—including tours of their grand houses (an art-filled apartment on the Left Bank in Paris, a lush mansion in Marrakesh, and a beautiful house in Normandy)—this film should satisfy both history buffs and people longing for a glimpse inside an elite and glamorous world. From runways to discos, each frame of this thorough documentary resonates with impact.

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{Boy screens at SIFF on May 26th, 6:30pm at the Renton IKEA Performing Arts Center, and on June 4th, 6:30pm and June 6th, 4:30pm at Neptune Theatre}

The film Boy, by Taika Watiti, is about a boy whom everyone calls Boy. He’s earnest and guileless, and prone to fisticuffs, but basically a good kid. He lives with his grandmother, along with his younger brother and a passel of cousins. Grandmother kicks off the movie by leaving for a week or so to attend a funeral in a neighboring town. It turns out that “leaving” means “entirely without any other adult supervision.” Boy is the eldest, or at least the most senior, so he makes everyone dinner, keeps them occupied until bedtime, then helps tuck them into bed.

Boy is delightful for a lot of reasons, and one is that the movie isn’t really about this potentially rather shocking absence of parental oversight, or about the fairly profound poverty they all live in, which seems not to weigh on them any more than it might on a middle-class American kid who never has as much pocket money as he wants to buy candy or video games. They entertain themselves contentedly in the derelict cars on their respective properties and hang out at the river or on the beach. Watiti likely knew that the majority of his audience wouldn’t be super familiar with daily life in a Maori town in the mid-eighties, but nothing in the film reads as anthropological curiosity.

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{Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides opened in Seattle on Friday, 5/20, and is playing at the Majestic Bay, the Metro, the Meridian, and the Cinerama}

Well thank god Disney for a swashbuckling return to form after the last two abysmally long and confusing PotC movies. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides has cast off the dead weight of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly's complicated romance in favor of focusing solely on the star of the show: the scruffy, drunken, and hilariously awesome Captain Jack Sparrow (obvs. played by Johnny Depp).

After seriously botching an attempt to break first mate Gibbs out of jail, Sparrow discovers the nefarious Barbossa (Geoffery Rush - now one-legged) has joined sides with the royal guard, and is now seeking legendary Fountain of Youth--which only Sparrow knows the way to.

What follows is a kick-ass adventure involving a very sultry Penélope Cruz as Angelica, the former scorned lover of Sparrow, and the recently reunited daughter of the evil and ruthless Blackbeard--played by Deadwood's Ian McShane with heaps of Al Swearengen swagger, if Swearengen had a foofier outfit, a magic sword, voodoo dolls, and the power to raise the dead that is.

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