‘Fantastic Beasts’ brings magic back to the big screen

Posted on November 18, 2016 by reelentropy

Images courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.

 

Christina Ulsh
@stina_ulsh

Harry Potter fans rejoice! Now you can enjoy the magical world of Harry Potter without sacrificing your favorite book scenes and details by watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This is a rare moment in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World history, where the movie is better than the book.

Based on the idea of a textbook present in the curriculum at Hogwarts — Rowling did end up publishing the text for charity in 2001, but the screenplay is very loosely taken from it — Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a seemingly aloof yet surprisingly adept wizard who studies and cares for magical creatures, arrives in 1920s New York with a suitcase filled with said creatures. At this time in Wizarding America, magical beasts are deemed dangerous, and their breeding is banned. There are tighter regulations on fantastic creatures in the U.S. than in the U.K. as they may expose the wizarding community to No-Majs, the Western word for Muggle or non-magical persons.

In the process of losing, chasing and catching a mischievous niffler, Scamander also catches the attention of ex-Auror Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) and wrangles loan-seeking No-Maj Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) into the mayhem. Goldstein arrests Scamander after he exposes his magical prowess to the No-Maj without wiping his memory. Scamander’s suitcase is eventually opened, releasing a handful of magical and misunderstood beasts on the area. For the beasts’ safety, Scamander sets out to recollect his creatures. After the Magical Congress of the United States, or the MACUSA, catch whiff of what his baggage contains, Scamander, Goldstein and Kowalski face serious consequences.

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‘I’m done with Harry Potter:’ J.K. Rowling’s journey away from and then back to her iconic franchise

Posted on November 16, 2016 by reelentropy

Steven James
@StevenLeeJames

Harry Potter prequel and spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will be the first in a five-movie series.

Fantastic Beasts is based on the 2001 book of the same name by J.K. Rowling about the magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe. Rowling wrote the book, a field guide of 75 beasts, with the pen name Newt Scamander for the U.K. charity Comic Relief. The book is common in wizarding households and required for first-year Hogwarts students. You learn more about why these creatures are important to the magical world, and it’s cool to just have this book in your personal library to occasionally read.

The seven core Harry Potter books were phenomenal. Even with all of the magic, action and epic adventures, the true heart of the story was always love triumphing over evil, no matter how dark things got. Rowling gave us a solid seven-part story that was about the good guys vs. the bad guys, and challenged what tolerance meant to audiences, especially for those who were growing up while the books were being released. From an artistic point of view, there was no need for a prequel or a sequel, whether that be a book, a movie or a play.

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The Open Bar Review – Doctor Strange

Posted on November 15, 2016 by reelentropy

In this week’s Open Bar Review, Paul argues the merits of plane-jane-boring origin stories and hard drugs.

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Arrival is another Villeneuve masterpiece

Posted on November 11, 2016 by reelentropy

As fresh as it feels in a movie, Arrival is based on Ted Chiang’s 2000 Nebula Award winning novella Story of Your Life. For real mind-benders, modern science fiction literature is still a relatively obscure but very deep well to draw from. Images courtesy Paramount Pictures.

Real twist endings, the kind that make you reconsider the entire movie, have been out of style for years now, but new alien contact film Arrival is bringing them back.

Arrival is set after 12 space ships touch down on Earth. To address the one in Montana, the U.S. military recruits one of the world’s top linguists, Louise Banks (Amy Adams), who is still reeling from the loss of her teenage daughter. Along with physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), she is tasked with figuring out why the visitors have come before China opens fire on their pod due to confusion over a word that could be “weapon” or “tool.”

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Election week arthouse binge part 3: American Honey

Posted on November 10, 2016 by reelentropy

Images courtesy A24.

American Honey is a vibrant mashup of a coming-of-age road movie and a smut film, blending shock value with a unique emotional experience.

The film follows Star (Sasha Lane), a late teenager in a bad situation. She happens across a traveling magazine sales pyramid scheme in a K Mart parking lot and becomes enamored with Jake (Shia LaBeouf), who invites her to join them. Star ditches her boyfriend’s children with their mother and runs off to join the circus. American Honey is the meandering, three-hour long story of her adventures traveling across the rural Midwest.

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