HP6

A sixth Hewlett-Packard? Of course not...

Lisa and I saw the sixth Harry Potter movie the other day. I think they've mostly improved since the first one, mostly in terms of the presentation of the characters and story. I thought this movie had the best dialogue and character interaction - there wasn't anything that I thought was really cheesy and made my eyes roll all over the place. Some of the lines from the previous movies were excruciating. However, this far into the series I'm taking the special effects for granted, and given that there wasn't anything spectacular in terms of action (it was all very good, but nothing way better than every other movie out there) I don't feel the need to see it again. As good as it was, the movies just can't compete with the richness of the books. It'd be fun to watch all the movies again, but not as rewarding as reading all the books again. The Lord of the Rings movies mean much more to me than the HP films. And...that's my big grand opinion on it all.

Praising Pixar

Discussing the greatness of Pixar's movies may become an annual tradition for me, right after seeing their latest film. In the past I ranked them based on how much I enjoy them, but they're all so well done that I feel bad leaving any of them at the bottom. So, instead, here they are in groups, not based on which ones are my favorites to watch, but just based on my assessment of their quality as films. They are all wonderful, really, and beautifully animated, but some are better than other. So, here it goes:

THE GOOD ONES

Cars - one of my favorites to watch (and I've done so with the kids a lot) but not the best as a film.

Monsters Inc.

A Bug's Life

THE GREAT ONES

Toy Story - this was the landmark first movie, and that almost pushed it into the next category, but I left it here.

Toy Story 2 - possibly better than the first one.

Finding Nemo - do ya? Do Ya? DO YA?

Up - a nice addition to the family.

THE REALLY GREAT ONES

The Incredibles - my favorite of them all, too

Ratatouille - underappreciated, I think, since it didn't have the marketing appeal that Cars or Finding Nemo did, but wonderfully original (as they all are)

Wall-E - it's incredible what they were able to do for the first half of the movie without dialogue.

And here's what we get to look forward to for next year.