SF and Fantasy Movie Reviews Starting With H
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) 
Genres: F Adv
Not as good as the first Potter movie. On the plus side it features the Putin goblin.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Genres: F Adv
This stupid thing gave me a headache and made me miss my bellydance class.
Guest review: Rowling can't write wizards. Writing wizards is tricky, because in pretty much any magic system the optimal way to achieve your goals magically is generally going to be the same few spells over and over, but that's boring for the audience, so the writer has to figure out some reason the wizard can't use any of the five spells he's already used that would solve the problem but has to come up with a new one. Or, she could just forego that and have him decide not to use existing spells for no apparent reason -- that's Rowling's approach. Also, she wants her wizards to seem heroic and all-powerful, so she can't let any normal non-wizards do anything, nor can she let the wizards use non-magical ways of accomplishing things. Voldemort's cronies all use some forbidden death spell instead of a more accurate, less forbidden, higher rate of fire, gun. God help them if Hogwarts' ever goes against e.g. the police, (ok in Britain the police don't actually have guns, bad example) or any army.
I think her problems would be ameliorated if she played D&D a bit. D20 has excellent rules for making interesting situations for wizards. And a final, related complaint: her dragon took a fall. It could easily have killed Harry at any point and never quite did, only attempting lethal attacks when it knew it couldn't land them. I hate it when the DM does that!
A says: "DM" means "dungeon master," i.e. the one running a D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) game.
Harry Potter is such a putz. Someone tells him: "You have to compete in this competition of death and probably die." He snivels, then sits around unhappily. Someone else tells him: "Here's what the secret of the competition's gonna be, and here's how you should win." OK, he does that then, instead of dying. His adventures are a series of tugs on the strings attached to Harry by folks with half a brain while Harry himself grimaces, happily or more often unhappily, whichever is more appropriate. He isn't so retarded he can't figure out which way to grimace, at least.
Guest reviewer continues: Harry Potter is like the Church of the Sub-Genius -- the point is that you might think to look at you that you're a totally worthless loser who works in McDonald's and dropped out of school and just watches TV when you're not cooking fries, but actually you are uniquely great and powerful and through no action of your own deserve to rule all humanity, and if you just passively be yourself the Church will help you become a God!
What's Latin for "cook fries"? Harry should learn that spell.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Genres: F Adv
I am too flattened by this dreary BS to feel like writing a review. Despite the cool hippogriff.
Guest review: After the second movie I decided not to see any more of these, but cleverly the studio got a new director and the press hailed this movie as much better than the others. The problem is evidently not the direction. Although you'd think it was, because the acting is terrible and Alla thinks it's not because these kids can't act, but because they are being directed to act like that.
Anyway, I read the first book and it struck me that the thing Rowling brought to fantasy was writing it at a 3rd grade reading level. There certainly aren't any ideas there that haven't been used in a jillion other earlier fantasy novels. This series is apparently popular among older people than 3rd grade, which suggests to me the average adult is getting dumber.
The problem is Rowling. Apparently I didn't make this clear in the previous two paragraphs. Rowling sits on the director and makes the dumb tactics and the boring fantasy elements and the wretched acting; it all comes from Rowling.
In a fantasy novel, there must be something to keep the reader's interest. Either a soap opera, or good ideas, or an interesting set of rules for how the world works. None of these are here. Since it's a serial and you know the cast is going to remain basically the same in the next episode, nothing significant can happen as far as character development, so no soap opera. As stated above, there are no good ideas; and the world of Harry Potter is just crazy -- either not much thought went into it, or Rowling isn't very smart, but either way since it doesn't make any sense to start with I am not interested in where she goes with it. It's not fair to just criticize her lack of good ideas; consider The Black Company, by Glen Cook -- it doesn't have any new ideas, but it has excellent soap operage and a pretty good world, so it's very nice. Also good style; maybe style is a fourth valuable component of a fantasy novel that Rowling lacks. End of guest review.
I read the first book too and thought it was an acceptable kids' book. These books appear to have graduated to be the Thomas Kinkaid of the literature world, and I can see how that is annoying. But it's not necessarily bad, if you consider the alternatives: would the Potter fans read Solzhenitsyn if Harry Potter weren't available? And my gym coach told me about one of the retarded kids he teaches, how she was trying to explain to him how wonderful the Harry Potter movies are. I can't bring myself to hate them after that.
The Haunted Lantern (1997 Japan)
Genres: F Rom Hor
A nicely cast and acted ghost tragedy in the traditional style. A bit slow, but there's no avoiding that, with the traditional style. And with Japanese ghost stories you'd better hope they're in the traditional style or it's total BS. The story here at least makes perfect sense. Maybe it's strange that a well-born young lady of the Edo period is allowed to travel cross-country alone, but we'll let that pass.
This movie suggests that the Japanese didn't French-kiss in the Edo period. Of course they do now, having picked up all the nice Western customs. It is sort of jarring though that first they're just pecking and then wanting to go straight to all the way. At least they don't make jarringly sour pusses while at it like in the ukiyo-e prints. No, they don't show anything, not like in the ukiyo-e prints. Well, they show a cute boob.
The Haunting of the Haunted Hill House on Haunted Hill (1999) NR
Genres: Hor
Watched: 30 min total
Guest review: Not even startling-scary. There were a lot of expensive actors and effects in one of these movies for how crappy it was. Allegedly a remake of an earlier movie called The Haunting of the House on Haunted Hill; in the original the victims were offered $10k each to participate in a sleep-deprivation experiment but in the remake they had to up it to $1 million, or maybe it was $900, I was a bit confused on that point.
Hellboy (2004)
Genres: SF
Guest review: Maybe the way movies where the protagonists implement glaringly bad strategies happen is this: the screenwriter has the protagonists using reasonable strategies given what they know at any given stage, and in the end of the movie they figure out the good strategy. Along the way there are subtle hints as to what the good strategies are and the heroes pick up on them. When the test audience sees this movie they are totally baffled because they don't get the subtle hints. So the moviemakers go back and insert really obvious clues as to what the good strategies are but the heroes' tactics don't change; they don't pick up on any of the new clues and use the bad, and by now really stupid, strategies throughout. That's just a theory. It's probably wrong. Probably what really happened is the scriptwriter/director is a moron. Whatever good ideas are in the movie are from the comic book, whatever is stupid is from him. The comic book this movie's based on is popular and comic book readers are a finicky bunch, pickier than I am about stupid strategy, so I'm sure the stupid stuff didn't come from there.
Hercules in New York (1970)
Genres: F
Remarkably tedious, though it features Schwarzenegger.
Hero Beyond the Boundary of Time (1993 Hong Kong)
Genres: SF Com
Watched: 30 min
A horse-powered time machine is a good thing. That's about the best that can be said about this movie. That is not to say that the rest is crap. There are more vectors than just good or bad -- thank goodness, our world is diverse. This is really more Chinese than bad. What I see is random and unfunny, but who knows what it is in Chinese goodness.
The High Crusade (1994 UK)
Genres: SF Adv Com
Watched: 30 min
More adventury books by SF and F masters should be made into movies. This one, by Poul Anderson, is a fine choice. The question of why more of these good books aren't being made into movies must be related to how poorly they are treated if they are chosen as bases for movies. The source material is shown no respect, and gets reworked to resemble something someone thinks is currently marketable. Look, it's like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but in space! Except, the hacks who churned out this dumb script were no Monty Python.
Highlander (1986) NR
Genres: Act F
Watched: 30 min
There were several of these made and I don't have them straight. I didn't see any one of them straight through, I don't think. They're dumb.
Himalaya (1999 UK)
Genres: Adv F
Very nice. It has everything -- as a folk epic should. Drama, plenty of adventure, really pretty exotic people and scenery. My sister thought it was boring! She's nuts. Boring? There are yaks in most of the scenes. Yaks are so cool.
History of the World: Part I (1981)
Genres: Com F
Overall I wasn't impressed but there are moments . . . The Inquisition musical number is really something. Clap clap clap!!! Most of the rest could be left out. Also sadly Brooks never made the more Parts as he promised -- I was so looking forward to seeing the numbers Hitler on Ice and Jews in Space . . .
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Genres: SF Com Adv
I heard this movie covered on public radio a few days ago, the host interviewing the director. Adams' background and world-view were discussed, the director spoke about their friendship, about Adams' wish to have his book realized as a movie. The radio show was mentioned, but at no point did either man mention the
Hocus Pocus (1984 Hong Kong)
Genres: F Com Hor
This movie seems to have the sensibility of traditional dinner entertainment -- colorful acrobatic stuff that won't break up the flow of conversation because there's no plot. It's about a Chinese opera troupe, and they perform various nice tricks both as part of their performances and on each other. Some plot does show up at the end, kind of as an afterthought.
One of the joys of Chinese movies is watching Chinese cooking! Slaying the snapping turtle is great -- at first you think they cheat you of the head-cleaving shot, but just you wait. I could really sympathize with them slaying that big mean wiggling turtle -- it's sooo good! Turtle meat is sweet and tender, actually sweet, if you haven't tried it you won't believe how sweet -- sweeter than lobster. Turtle soup is much admired in the South, but Southerners add a slew of vegetables and spices so it's thick and pungent, whereas what I've had in Chinese restaurants is a simple broth showcasing the turtle. I say turtle because that's what you get, chunks of the critter, sawed through the shell in several pieces so you can identify carapace, plastron, feet, etc. as you pick the flesh out. You won't find this at an Americanized Chinese place of course. A good sign is if there's multiple aquariums with food-sized fish and other scrabbling sea creatures and the waiters are inattentive. At one place like this, they'd hand us the short menu for Americans with the "safe" food, so I had to snag the big Chinese menu myself (it had the dish names printed in English too, mostly).
Hollow Man (2000)
Genres: SF
Watched: 10 min
I didn't even watch the first ten minutes but some from the middle where there were special effects and action, and I was still bored and annoyed. So you make an invisibility device and you make stuff invisible. What would the plot be? Oh, then you lose the invisible stuff. There was already a Dilbert about that. And if your invisible thing is a guy, then naturally he abuses the invisibility. He goes around annoying everyone, which is just a neverending font of plot stuff. And also he's crazy! Because crazy! is easiest to write for. These people should all go away.
Except Kevin Bacon. The ferment of transfiguration isn't instantaneous, and the device apparently doesn't work properly if the subject is dressed. For a brilliant scientist, he works out a lot.
Holy Smoke (1999 Australia)
Genres: Com Dra F
Harvey Keitel is hired to de-brainwash a curvaceous teen-aged blonde from some Eastern mystic crap she picks up on a trip to India. The movie skims along the surface of the underlying spiritual and deprogramming issues with amusing enough antics, both among hicks ill-prepared for Eastern spiritual crap, and the afflicted girl fighting the ever-more-desperate deprogrammer. It's relatively enjoyable, but did nothing to advance my understanding of either Eastern mystic crap or the deprogramming cure against it. Of course I know nothing about Eastern mystic crap so maybe this portrayal is correct, that there is nothing to it. I think the mysticism has to do with that, with nothingness. As to the deprogramming, I also have no idea how that works and I still don't know. I can't believe it works in the way depicted here. But the movie does have some nice nudity, which is what you get if you go into all this mystic crap. Maybe my enjoyment of the movie bespeaks my bad prurient taste.
Holy Weapon (1993 Hong Kong)
Genres: Act Adv Com F Hor
Hilarious Chinese martial arts fantasy. It may take a few watchings to understand what's going on, especially if the subtitles regularly creep off the bottom edge of the screen, but it's worth it every time. I love this.
The Hulk (2003) NR
Genres: Act SF
The plot is ridiculous and boring. The CGI sucks. Eric Bana is cute. The monster poodle is adorable.
Hypercube: Cube 2 (2002) NR
Genres: SF
Watched: 15 min
They came up with a method of saving on sets surpassing even that of soap operas, where they have no exterior shots and all they have to do is rearrange furniture to make different interiors: here everything happens in one room without furniture, and they claim there is an infinite maze of these rooms. Well not they, but the people who came up with the first cube movie. I don't know what these people added to the recipe. As far as I can tell both have a bunch of annoying stupid jerks trapped in an annoying stupid puzzle that doesn't kill them soon enough.
Please note that all material on this page is Copyright © 2005 by D. Aline Lurie.
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