Hector's Talk

Enter the Void (Soudain le vide)

FROM TIFF:
Enter the Void has been called the 2001 of our time. I can acknowledge the validity of that statement, and I would definitely argue that Gaspar Noe is the Stanley Kubrick of our time. While Noe is not as well known as Mr. Perfection, both filmmakers have created films that challenge almost everything we have come to accept about society while diving head first into controversial themes, images, sylistic choices, etc. A Noe movie, much like a Kubrick one, is an experience, not a piece of entertainment.
Noe's third and best feature explores what happens after death. Death is terrifyingly evil because it permanently takes us away from all that we know and love, and brings us to a place where we have no idea what is in store for us to stay for all eternity. Noe's film focuses on characters who live at the brink of death, associating themselves with the worst of Tokyo's infamous underworld. A young drug dealer named Oskar is killed, and his ghost is able to watch over his sister while seeing his entire life flash before his eyes.
Imagine what it would be like to feel somewhat alive after your death. You can float over your body, fly through walls, race across city blocks within seconds, and oversee anything. As freeing as this may sound, however, you also can't escape the more horrific times of your life. A tragic event that changed your life forever may manifest itself in everything you see. On top of that, you have no control. You can no longer think, feel, or communicate.
2001: A Space Odyssey imagined what space and life have been and will be like as time progresses. It also ponders over what is time, what is the infinite. Similarly, Enter the Void imagines what death would be like. It makes you question what exactly is death, and if there is any salvation for any of us.
The key difference between the two films is that Enter the Void plays out like a nightmare. We see the characters left behind spiralling further into a more fucked up way of life. We witness an onscreen abortion, orgies, and a terrifying car crash. This is not a movie for everyone. There are many who will be turned off simply by the style because the movie is literally seen through the eyes of the main character, alive and dead. The camera wanders left, right, up, down, never staying still. It can cause motion sickness and nausea. Others may be turned off by the depressingly dark subject matter, the 160 minute running time, or the graphic violence/sex.
One major asset this film has is the way it uses CGI. This is the way CGI should be used in movies. Fuck giant transforming robots. CGI is supposed to help tell the story. And the CGI in this movie is subtle, but nothing short of jaw-dropping incredible. Oskar stands in front of a mirror. So does the camera. But the camera is nowhere to be seen. Oskar then splashes water on his face, and water trickles down the lens. Brilliant stuff.
Enter the Void is meant to disturb you, but it also wants you to think about death. Not a subject we want to think about, but if you continue to watch this film, you can't help but reflect on it. The film's ending is particularly interesting, and provides the audience with a sense of hope, unlike Noe's previous film, Irreversible. I saw several walkouts during the film, and by the time the credits roled, the only response was from someone who said, "Thank God." But I bet if Gaspar Noe attended this screening, he would have been proud of that remark. After all, if you can sit through a Gaspar Noe film, you can sit through pretty much anything.

[Rec] 2

FROM TIFF:
[Rec] 2 is awesome! So rare is it to see a sequel that at times is as good as or even better than its original.
The nature of a sequel dooms it to suck. A sequel has to make the story bigger, grander, but at the same time keep what made the original a hit. It's like being pulled in two opposite directions; make it new and keep it the same. Too much of either one will result in a failure. There has to be that perfect balance, and damn it, [Rec] 2 gets it right.
It picks up literally right after [Rec] left off. The focus is on a SWAT team going into the apartment to help an official get what he needs to end the quarantine, as well as rescue any survivors. When they get inside, however, they learn that there are no survivors, and the official is a priest trying to find the blood of the possessed girl who started the infection.
The original [Rec] left us with the notion that the virus was started because of occult practices. In [Rec] 2, that idea is played on in great detail; the zombies are more like demons being controlled by this evil girl.
The action feels bigger as well. Instead of one camera, several cameras depict the action. Each SWAT member is equipped with a camera on their helmet, and the action cuts in between them. This is a brilliant decision, because it allows the film to feel bigger while keeping the concept the same.
[Rec] 2 ties up some loose ends as well. We find out what happened to the journalist from the first film, and we get to see more of the possessed girl's powers, and just how scary she can be in the dark.
My only complaint is the addition of a group of teens who sneak into the building without being detected. First off, the whole idea of a quarantine is so that no one can get out or in, and their being in the building felt cheap and a ploy for a coming plot twist. And that plot twist could have been better executed without the teens even being in the movie.
But that aside, [Rec] 2 is the sequel that does justice to [Rec] while taking the series in a whole new direction. No small feat, since I consider [Rec] to be one of the best horror films ever made! [Rec] 2 is undoubtedly scary, filled with suspense, and some of the scariest scenes I've seen in a long time.
Unfortunately, this film won't get the wide release it should. Instead, it will probably be remade, shot for shot, as Quarantine 2. Fortunately, there was a whole theater filled with people who would boo at the very mention of Quarantine. These are the real horror fans, who know why the foreign original is always better than the pointless Hollywood remake.

Survival of the Dead

FROM TIFF:
When you think about it, George A Romero has only had two good films: Night of the Living Dead, and Dawn of the Dead. Of course, both of these films not only spawned the entire zombie genre as we know it, but they brought to the forefront the notion that horror filmmaking can be as deep and thoughtful as any Oscar winning drama. But Romero's attempts at social commentary have become only more obvious and even more annoying with each subsequent film in his ____ of the Dead saga.
Granted, I liked Diary a lot, and I seem to be the only one. I liked how Romero handled the contemporary need to document public tragedies, how we are living in an age where information is streamlined almost immediately, so what we are seeing is happening now, at this very moment.
Survivial of the Dead seems to be about tribalism, or in a more specific sense, warring factions who are stuck in their beliefs to the point where they will resort to violence to uphold them. The film takes place in a distant Quaker-esque island where one clan wants to kill all the zombies, while another clan acknowledges that these zombies were once their friends and family, thus, their bodies should be kept locked up and "alive" so they can find a cure.
Romero hammers this point into your head within the first five minutes. The rest of the film is a lot of bad acting, bad writing, lame zombie mayhem, and a climax that would have been great if the rest of the movie had been enjoyable. The film stumbles between B-movie cheez, while piling on blatant CGI gore. None of it works.
But perhaps the most offensive part of Survival is the idea that zombies can survive by eating other animals. Guess what happens by the end of the film? I might be overreacting here, but this idea negates my whole undestanding of zombies as metaphors for how we as a society destroy ourselves and each other through consumerism, war, etc..
Long story short, if you're a Romero fan, you'll be disappointed. If you aren't, you wouldn't have even bothered seeing this movie anyway.

Defendor

FROM TIFF:
I only had time to see five films at the Toronto International Film Festival this year. Bummer.
Fortunately, I peaked early with this brilliant masterpiece starring Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings, and Elias Koteas. The fact that this is Peter Stebbing's first feature makes this even more of a great achievement.
Imagine a superhero without Spidey sense, superhuman strength, or billions of dollars to create gadgets and weaponry. He probably wouldn't be very super at all. Meet Arthur Poppington, a self-made vigilante who dresses up in black, sports an old army helmet, duck tapes the letter D to his chest, and calls himself Defendor. His weapons: an old WW2 club, bags of marbles, and jars of angry wasps - yes, you read that right.
But Defendor isn't a comedy. Yes, it's very funny. But it's a serious character study about Arthur, a mentally slow and lonely individual who is trying to make sense of his life. His only friend is a fellow construction worker who's son is alive only because Arthur was at the right place to save him.
The magic of this movie lies solely in the hands of Woody Harrelson. What a masterful performance. Adding layer upon layer to the character of Arthur, Harrelson makes you fall in love with him and cheer him on as he fights crime in the goofiest and clumsiest way he only knows how. Yes, Kat Dennings and Elias Koteas are fantastic support, but the movie wouldn't work without Woody.
The story remained firmly grounded in a sense of realism. It was able to achieve this by showing all the repercussions that Arthur's behaviour caused on criminals and authority figures, sometimes with tragic consequences. Arthur is as naiive a character as they come. He has no idea what he's doing, who he's hurting, or who is manipulating him. But his heart drives him to stopping evil, which makes him almost as innocent as the civilians he's trying to save. Arthur's backstory is told in flashbacks, which help us understand how and why Arthur came to don the suit of Defendor. In one scene, he even tells us, "Defendor is a better man than Arthur." And it's true, not only to Arthur, but to the people who become influenced by his actions.
When the lights came on, the small theatre broke out in a huge round of applause. I could barely contain my enthusiasm. I told my girlfriend we won't see a better film at the festival. And we didn't.

Sorority Row

What Sorority Row should have done was continue to play on its campy premise, the B-movie characters and dialogue, and come up with a better ending. Then it would have been a lot of fun.
Five sorority sisters decide to play a prank on a boy who cheated on one of them named Megan. It's a nasty prank. They make them think Megan overdosed and died from a date rape pill he gave to her, take her out to the woods, and talk about secretly chopping her up and burying her. Unaware she's alive, the boy actually kills Megan in an attempt to chop her up. Everyone, with the exception of Cassidy, out heroine, agrees to bury and never speak of it again. Unfortunately, six months later, they all begin to die one by one by someone who knows what they did. Wow, what a bad premise, but a great one if this is supposed to be a black comedy.
Every character is bland. They're all supposed to be stereotypical horror movie characters - the queen bitch, the Asian, the slut, the nerd, etc. But all the actors do is represent the cliche, as opposed to maybe having more fun with it. Even Carrie Fisher's shotgun wielding dorm maiden isn't as much fun as I was hoping it would be. The revelation of the killer and the reason is just stupid. It's like they weren't even trying.
When i saw the trailer for the film in a packed theatre, the audience laughed at the premise, at the title, and the whole movie. And judging from the way the film was meant to play out, this should have been the campy, fun, hilariously gory B-movie experience the trailer was advertising. But the film is so predictable, bland (there's that word again), and unentertaining that there's really no point to even consider seeing it.

The Final Destination

I don't know how to properly rate this movie. It's a terrible movie, offering a plot no different than the first Final Destination; only this time, it assumes you know how this is going to work, so it doesn't even bother to explain Death's Design properly. The acting is abysmal, and the movie only seems to exist to show us gory, graphic, and sometimes hilarious death scenes.
But oddly enough, I was entertained by its badness. It was in 3D, and I'm pretty sure this movie would have been less enjoyable had I just seen in 2D, since it seemed to have been made to be exhibited using the former technology. The death scenes entertained me because I spent more time trying to figure out if they were even plausible rather than being grossed out by them. I know, thinking about realism in a movie like this is never a good way to go, but I was amused by the kind of thinking that produced a scene where a kid is sucked into the drain hole in a public swimming pool. The filmmakers even brought in a self-referential aspect, by having the climax play out in a movie theatre where people are watching a 3D movie. I couldn't help but smile.
The first Final Destination was a pretty decent horror flick because it played on the notion that every choice you make takes you one step closer to death. Everything is predetermined, and if it's your time to die, no amount of cheating death will save you. The sequels, especially this fourth and final (?) installment kept the teenagers as the main characters, people who think they are invincible, and even though these teens think they can outsmart death, they never do. Death even has a sense of humour about it. Some of these deaths are so ironic they make you laugh. Other deaths play on your ability to predict how Death is going to manipulate the surroundings to kill someone. The films are as much black comedy as they are horror.
What is there to say? You already know how this is going to play out. If you've felt like you've had enough of the series, skip this one. If you hadn't, you'll probably have a mildly fun time.
As for me, I liked the 3D aspect. It didn't wow me, but I've never seen a horror film in 3D, and I enjoyed it enough to want to see another 3D horror film.

Gamer

The concept of a psychotic billionnaire creating an immensely popular show involving inmates killing each other for entertainment is tired. The Running Man, The Condemned, Death Race. And all these movies aren't meant to be critiques of society; they're an excuse to have chaotic, frantic and kinetic action sequences that have lots of explosions and people getting killed. Gamer is no exception, except that it's a sloppier, less interesting version of the previously mentioned films.
Why do we need a shot of Gerard Butler running ten feet divided into six cuts? The brain cannot digest the information conveyed by that image in such a short duration of time. It's a basic film rule: the longer you hold a shot, the more tense it gets. Why don't action fillmmakers understand this? The constant handheld, deliberately flimsy shooting and editing is both obnoxious and annoying.
The story is way too contrived, especially in the film's second half. There are also way too many plot points that don't need to be there. Why introduce a team of rebels if you're just going to kill them off almost as quickly? There are too many characters, all of them fighting for screen time, and the film leaves most of them underdeveloped and ultimately unnecessary. Even at 95 minutes, the film has too much fat on it.
Michael C. Hall was mainly the reason I wanted to see this movie. This is his first feature, but even he was a bit disappointing. It seems like he knew he was in sa shitty movie and just decided to have fun with his character, hamming it up to the point where he literally sings and dances.
Neveldine and Taylor are rolling down a downhill slope. They're definitely a talented bunch; they did make the awesome Crank and the solidly entertaining Crank 2. But they need to control their camera, read over their screenplays in better detail, and try to make a proper movie instead of a video game masquerading as one.

Knowing

I really, really, really wanted to like Knowing. There are so many interesting ideas that the film wants you to think about, and the disaster set pieces are incredibly staged and photographed. Nicholas Cage isn't too bad either.
The problem is that the film juggles too many ideas and changes tone so quickly, you're not sure if you're watching a disaster epic, an alien movie, a horror movie, or a family drama. Alex Proyas has always been a director who aims to create intelligent action films, but in Knowing, he's working on maximum overdrive.
Instead of providing some great food for thought as to whether the universe operates at random or predetermination, Knowing leaves you not sure what to think. The final act of the picture is especially weird.
There are also gaping holes in the story and plot points that exist specifically so that the viewer can understand what is going on. But these plot points have no reason to exist within the story. I can't really go into detail without revealing major spoilers, but if someone can explain what the point of those stones are, and why if someone knows when the world is going to end that they need to warn us about every fatal disaster that occurs leading up to that point, please, I'm all ears.
Alas, Knowing is an admirable failure, a failure because it wants to tackle more ideas than in can handle instead of embracing a few themes and exploring the complexity of said themes. Alex Proyas has made films that are more like the latter: The Crow, I Robot (to an extent), and the masterpiece Dark City. Knowing could have joined that list, but sadly, it's an ambitious mess :(

Orphan

There's something wrong with Esther indeed. I still don't know if I really liked the film's twist ending, which, to the film's credit, is completely unguessable. It's a creepy conclusion, but I had a hard time buying it. Nonetheless, Orphan is a good old fashioned horror that is tense, creepy, and filled with edge-of-your-seat suspense. Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard score big with their performances, but Isabelle Fuhrman steals the show. She makes Damien look like a fucking angel.
Jaume Collet-Serra also directed House of Wax. That was a much better film than it should have been. With Orphan, he shows even more command of the story. The film relies primarily on the device that the main character knows what is happening, but nobody around her believes anything she says. Kind of frustrating for her, and for the audience. Are these people blind?
In Orphan, however, the main character has a history, which makes her, at least to the other characters, unreliable. It's easy to see how no one believes her, and the fact that the screenwriters have taken the time to think that out adds a lot to the horror of the situation. Esther herself is brilliant at manipulating the situation and bringing out all the bad blood that lies underneath this seemingly perfect family. I love movies like this because they keep you guessing. This is by no means a predictable thriller, and in an age where movies take no chances, Orphan is something of a rarity.

District 9

Leave it to Peter Jackson to produce a movie that is not only visually amazing, but also thought-provoking and original.
The less you know about this movie going in, the better. The trailers have done a remarkable job at hiding the story, and I'm not about to give it away here. Let's just say the film is told in a mockumentary style that explains the characters, the situation, and oversees the relationship the MNU has with the aliens, which, suffice to say, is less than friendly. The second half is an action picture.
The film is essentially about how the government, under the guise of an organization called MNU, exploits these creatures, forcing them to live in slum-like conditions, experimenting on them, practically performing genocide, all for the purpose of understanding how their technology can be used to further advance military weaponry. Replace the aliens with any nation of people, and you have pretty much a documentary about many of the poor nations around the world. That's great sci-fi, and Neill Blomkamp as well as Peter Jackson have been wise to leave the metaphor as vague as possible. You can delve deep into the story's ideas, or you can lay back and enjoy it as a summer blockbuster.
This is the summer blockbuster I've been waiting for. Yes, I loved Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, but District 9 is the kind of film that doesn't have an already built in fanbase. It's completely original, and it relies completely on the three key ingredients to a masterpiece: great storytelling, great acting, and great filmmaking.
It also goes to show that summer films CAN have action and effects that SERVE a story, as opposed to actually BEING the story. With movies like District 9, The Dark Knight, and Star Trek, there's no excuse for crap like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Fast and Furious, or GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Transformers bombards you with images, but there is no relationship between the viewer and what's going on onscreen. Your eyes and ears hurt, but you digest nothing. But that's the great thing about District 9. The effects and the action give you the exhilarating thrill ride you want out of a summer movie, but the effects and the action are second to telling an engaging story that gets you emotionally involved in the film. And that's awesome, because District 9, like The Dark Knight and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, will be remembered for years to come, whereas Transformers will fade into obscurity regardless of how much money it pulled in.

Stay

Stay is a film that almost requires at least two viewings. The first will take you on a ride where you will have no idea what's going on until the last fifteen or so minutes. The second viewing will allow you to see how the film's style explains what the last fifteen minutes will reveal. It's quite frustrating, but also fascinating.
What Stay is essentially about is how the mind pieces together life. We always form one simplified impression of a particular person, and usually that impression stays with us. Many of the characters appear to the main character in the same way he last remembers them. This film also allows its main character to come to terms with certain aspects of his life that have left him in a state of remorse, of constant grief. In a sense, Stay is a twisted redemption story. For who, I cannot say, for I would need to reveal spoilers. The less you know of this movie, the better. Hell, you won't even know what this movie is about until the last fifteen minutes.
Some people will be turned off by this mystery-thriller. It calls to mind the work of David Lynch, mainly his masterpiece Mulholland Dr (coincidentally, the film that made Naomi Watts a star). Stay is a far lesser film than Mulholland Dr, mainly because its payoff is underwhelming. Any movie that hides its secrets for as long as Stay does can't live up to its promise. But nonetheless, Stay is fascinating to watch. It's a competent exercise in style over substance. Strangely enough, in this case, the style IS the substance.

Audition (Ôdishon)

I've always seen Takashi Miike as an interesting but very inconsistent filmmaker. Those inconsistencies are non-existent with this horror masterpiece. Even more amazing is that Miike, a director known for his excessively violent and gory films, shows amazing restraint. While this film contains disgusting, gut-wrenching, seriously disturbing sequences, they are few and far between. Much of this movie plays like a family drama interspliced with scenes of horror.
Ryo Ishibashi plays Aoyama, a film producer who loses his wife, and, with some persistence from his son, sets out to remarry. He holds a fake audition to interview possible "contestants" and falls in love with Asami, who, as you may guess, is a psychopath.
Audition isn't just expertly crafted, it is a serious comment on male and female roles in Japanese society. While Aoyama is a pretty decent guy, he doesn't view women as being anything more than respectful servants. He apparently has had sex with one of his co-workers, and has left her to wonder if that night meant anything to him. Aoyama seems to reflect how conservative Japanese males seem to view women. This is evident in a scene where one of his son's girlfriends unknowingly eats Aoyama's dinner, and upon such a discovery, vows to cook him another meal. Would Aoyama feel obligated to do the same if he unknowingly ate HER meal?
However, Aoyama does not deserve the fate that Asami has in store for him. She has had an extremely troubled past, filled with abuse and neglect. Men have used her simply for their own selfish reasons, and then have thrown her aside like a piece of rotten meat. She has chosen to lash out at all males, who she believes are all the same.
What follows is a brilliant and incredibly tense film that hurdles into a showdown of suspense that rivals the best of Hitchcock, and gore that outdoes the worst of Argento. Audition is a gem, a horror masterpiece that must be experienced, unless you're squeamish.

Rogue (Rogue Crocodile)

Rogue is an amazing piece of horror cinema up until the final showdown with the massive 25-foot croc. Pity.
But Greg McLean still deserves a lot of commendation for making a horror film that relies on pure old fashioned suspense as opposed to gore and a huge body count. The premise is totally believable and scary.
The setting is as great a setting as you will find in a movie. Just like his previous film Wolf Creek, McLean sets the action against the Australian outback. He shows the environment as its own character, one that poses its own kind of threat to the characters. These locations are downright incredible to look at.
Also praiseworthy is the A-quality acting that comes out of all the actors. They create real characters that you sympathize with. I totally bought how everyone reacted to the situation.
Rogue is definitely a horror film worth watching, and I really want to give it four stars. But the ending just didn't do it for me. The CGI is flimsy, and the final encounter between Michael Vartan and the croc feels too much like Arnold vs the Predator. I won't say what happens, but it requires too much suspension of disbelief. It would have worked for me if the film was going for the cheesy B-movie creature feature feel, but it wasn't. Maybe if Arnold WAS in this movie instead of Michael Vartan....I don't believe he's fought a crocodile yet.

Silver Bullet

Silver Bullet reaks with cheese, and not the enjoybaly stinky cheese. This is the rancid kind that leaves a sour odour in the room even after it's been disposed of.
Based on Stephen King's great novella, Cycle of the Werewolf, Silver Bullet takes place not over the course of a year, but seemingly a few days, where every night seems to be a full moon. The werewolf effects are really bad, even for a 1980s movie. But then again, when has a werewolf movie ever had good effects.
The movie also opens and closes like a family drama. Wtf? Is this supposed to be a coming of age story where siblings learn to cope with one another, or a movie about a werwolf terrorizing the small town of Tarker Mills?
The concept isn't bad, but instead of playing the film for the straight up horror flick that it is, the movie decides to ham everything up. It doesn't want to work to invoke fear in its audience. But then again, how scary can a puppet werewolf be?

Brüno (Bruno)

I don't think ten seconds went by without me laughing hysterically at the antics of Sacha Baron Cohen in the persona of his third character. Bruno evoked so many moments of hilarity and shock that I almost had to step out of the theatre for laughing too loud.
While Borat was certainly less staged than Bruno, I felt the latter to be the funnier film. Here, Cohen even further tests the limits of his joke. I love how this guy doesn't give a shit who he offends. He's probably managed to piss more than a few people off with this film.
Most of the jokes centre around exposing people's homophobic prejudices. To achieve this, there are several innuendos inciting gay behaviours, scenes where Bruno strips to his underwear, as well as multiple penis shots. It takes a lot of guts to do what Cohen does in this film, especially the last scene where I wonder how he was able to make it out of there alive! I like comedians who are able to take such great risks at the expense of a joke. And Cohen is a great satirist. He knows what makes people tick, and is even able to get some derogatory remarks out of politician Ron Paul.
The film also attacks the notion of celebrity status. Bruno wants to become famous, so he looks at everything celebrities have done that might have had a hand in making them famous, and attempts to follow in their footsteps. It left me to wonder how many celebrities are in it just for the fame: probably more than I'd like to believe.
Bruno is well made, and is very, very funny. It is extremely offensive and pushes the envelope more so than Borat did. That is reason enough to see this movie. And for Harrison Ford's cameo, which is THE funniest scene I've seen all year!

Cube

Cube is the best sci-fi horror film since Alien. Yes, it's that good. It's a masterpiece of originality, low budget filmmaking, and tapping into the darkest realm of the human spirit. Like the best horror films, the external horror of the cube reflects how fucked up we are as a species.
Six strangers wake up in this strange cube filled with smaller cube rooms. Some of the rooms are lined with traps, meaning if you enter them, you will suffer a brutally disgusting death. (And I bet if this film were made today, the movie would only be about the deaths, exploiting each trap to make you, the audience, squirm. Alas, Cube is too smart a film for that.) The six need to work together to figure a way out. Of course, as a character says early in the film, they have to save themselves from themselves. Because in the end, the group's greatest threat isn't the cube, but one of their own.
Movies this original are few and far between. It was an absolute pleasure to sit through Cube. I was completely absorbed by its ideas, by the characters, by the great performances, and ultimately, by the cube itself. Who would build such a thing? And for what purpose? One can only imagine how many things mankind has created that have the ability to ruin the world.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter enters his sixth year at Hogwarts, and things are darker than ever this time around. The Death Eaters are attacking wizards and witches left and right. Harry finds a book that was the property of the half blood prince and becomes obsessed with its teachings. He is also taken under Dumbledore's wing to learn more about Voldemort's past and what might lays in store for all wizards/witches in the days to come.
Along the way, he, Ron, and Hermione take on new romantic interests. This subplot adds a lot of much needed and very entertaining humour to an otherwise very gloomy film.
But all in all, this is the best blockbuster of the summer. It shows how a film can have amazing effects while telling a great and involving story at the same time. One of the great things about the Harry Potter series is that the stories aren't just about the plot, or how the wizard world will defeat Lord Voldemort. It is also about adolescence; growing up and learning to cope with the occurences in the everyday world. Not to mention all the great wonderful characters that have been the bread and butter of JK Rowling's brilliant fantasy.
Quidditch also makes a grand return. The scenes are as exciting as they were the first time we were introduced to the sport. David Yates, helming the director's chair for the second consecutive Potter film, is the perfect man to finish this saga. He retains exactly what he needs to from the book while changing enough to make this film as tight, concise, and coherent as it is. Things are falling into place, and the stage is set for an awesome finale.

The Hole

The Hole is a great blend of horror and psychological thriller. It's disturbing, not only in the amount of physical violence that the characters inflict on each other, but in the film's analysis of one girl's willingness to do whatever it takes to win over the object of her affection. Thora Birch and Desmond Harrington star alongside a young Keira Knightley.
Nick Hamm, who will go on to direct the forgettable Godsend, delivers a clever, tense, and terrifyingly realistic look at high school obsession underlying a whodunit that will have you guessing right up till the very end!