Chris & Maria's Blog

It’s been a LONG long wait for this, but yesterday we finally got to see the first official teaser trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and it’s wonderful! It was somewhat chaotic in our household last night getting everything done and up on Leaky for all the fans to see, but totally worth it!

See the trailer here!

See the HD screencaps here!

I’m thrilled with the trailer. I was expecting the usual lightning fast rush through different images, explosions, flashes of light, characters shouting spells dramatically etc etc. But instead we got just a little bit of that, and also a little summary of one of the subplots – with some superb acting by Sir Michael Gambon (I like him as Dumbledore no matter what anyone says so there) and young Hero Fiennes, who both capture the creepiness of this moment in the plot perfectly. Overall it’s subdued, interesting and thought-provoking, making you want to see more. Teasing exactly how a teaser trailer should tease!

The Dark Knight

The question has been raised in a comment as to why I have not written a review of The Dark Knight.  Well, that’s a good question.  It could be because everyone that 1) has seen the movie and 2) has a blog seems to have posted a review.  So what will the voice of one Batman fanboy have to add to the tumultuous chorus of positive reviews?

The film is amazing.  Perhaps the best super hero film ever made.  I’ve heard some people say the best film ever made, but I don’t think I can go that far.  It’s fantastic and Ledger truly gave the best performance of his life in my opinion.

In other news, not a lot has been going on.  We’re still waiting for Maria’s paperwork to come back, but we knew that would be a process.

I’ve taken on a few consulting gigs in order to boost the savings for the down payment on a house.  As always, I’ve got half a dozen or so irons in the fire.  The difference is that where most of them never seem to get hot before, they are all getting hot now.  Hot enough to keep me busy, at least!

Our Disney World trip has been booked and we will be going to visit the giant rat mouse this October!  I’m really excited about this trip.  Maria has never been, I’ve never known anyone who liked Disney movies more than her (I swear she knows every Disney song by heart).  More than anything else, I’m excited to see her reaction to everything there.  I also hope to be able to go to Universal Studios while we’re there, and get a peek at the Harry Potter construction that’s going on!

Lost Boys II: The Tribe

From time to time, I see a film and I just can’t help but comment on it.  And commenting to friends just isn’t enough.  I have to make my comments public.

I just sat through Lost Boys II.  This will probably not come as a surprise to anyone, but this has to be the worst film I’ve seen in years.  I knew this would probably be the case before I watched it, but I held out desperate hope that at least some of the appeal would be there.  It tried desperately to recapture the magic that was Lost Boys, but it fell very short.

First, the plot is very nearly identical to the first film, except instead of two brothers it’s a brother and his sister.  If you ask me, though, they were more like a brother and sister from Kentucky as they seemed just a little too close.  Not only did they rework the plot of the first film, they also reused some of the same shots and lines.  There was also a sad and desperate attempt by Feldman’s agent to help boost Feldman’s career by spending 30 seconds talking about Goonies…”It’s the greatest movie ever!”  I kid you not.  And Feldman….he sounded like he’s had a three pack a day habit for the last 20 years.  I’ve met him and his voice isn’t that gruff.  What was that all about?  Wait.  Was that acting?  Oh.  Sorry, no.  It wasn’t.

Save yourself from the experience and keep this off your Netflix list.

Yikes!  Sorry for the delay in updates.  I know you check daily, and you cry yourself to sleep when each day passes without something new here.  I’ll strive to do better.

We did the second trip to Nashville for Maria’s biometrics.  We went down the night before and stayed at the luxurious Thrifty Inn.  It’s owned by the same company that has the car rentals.  When searching online, it had great reviews (4.5 out of 5).  In reality, it was just barely okay.  It was clean and fairly quiet, which is what kept us from finding another hotel.  I don’t think we’ll be returning there, however.

The appointment took all of 30 minutes.  After that, we met up with Lizzie for breakfast at the Pancake Pantry.  Wow! It was soooooo good!  We have one in Gatlinburg, but unless you want to get up at 6am to be there by 7am, you’ll have an hour or two wait to get in.  The one in Nashville was pretty busy, but we got there at just the right time.  By the time we left, the line was out the door.  Lizzie’s mom joined us for breakfast too, and we had a really great time chatting with them both.  Leaky Cauldron people seem to always be cool and friendly.  I’ve yet to meet any of them that didn’t fit that profile.

I almost don’t want to post about it, since I fear it may not come true, but we’re going to try to be in Chicago at the same time as Terminus.  Keep your fingers crossed!!