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The Harry Potter movie was so bad, I’m going to save everyone the trouble of watching it and tell you what happened (yes, I hate it that much).

Dumbledore: Screw academics! This year, Hogwarts is hosting a tournament so dangerous, students in the past have died competing for the Triwizard Cup.

Everyone at Hogwarts: Okay.

*some shit happens*

Harry: Hello. I am Harry Potter. The plot revolves around me and I seem to be the only character moving it forward. And yet, I’m so stupid, all the other characters have to tell me what to do in order to get the story going.

*Harry, Ron, and Hermione end up squabbling because of some stupid teenage thing or other*

*some more shit happens*

*Harry and Cedric end up at graveyard, where Voldemort rises back into power*

Wormtail: *cuts Harry’s arm* Haha! Our ingenious plan of setting up an incredibly complicated tournament in order to get a mere drop of your blood to revive the Dark Lord was a compelte success!

Cedric: *dies*

Voldemort: Prepare to die, Potter! But before you do, let me free you from that gravestone, give you back your wand, tell you about my plans to take over the wizarding community, and take you on a tour of my secret lair.

*Harry and Voldemort fight*

*Harry seems to be losing*

*But because Harry’s mommy loves him so much, she comes back from the dead to tell him what to do since he’s too stupid to figure it out himself*

*Harry ends up at Hogwarts*

Mad-Eye Moody (who is really Crouch’s son, but you’re not supposed to know because the whole movie was being very subtle about it): I had the chance to kill the famous Harry Potter! But I just ruined it because I said something I shouldn’t have said–a mistake that all careless, formula villains do.

*Harry, Ron, and Hermione are friends again as if nothing happened*

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter

Because of the reviews I’ve heard from other people, I braced myself for a very disturbing hour and a half when I decided to watch my Suicide Club torrent. I guess reading all that HP Lovecraft has desensitized me somewhat because I found the visuals of the movie–at the most–quite nauseating, but that’s probably only because I can’t stand the sight of blood, guts, and appendages. In any case, it’s not a movie that will keep me up for nights, but it did leave me with a lot of questions–which is basically what every Japanese film does to me. I got the social commentary part on how the hectic careers of parents result in their kids learning from pop culture icons and following fads instead of being properly guided by values and rules. But what kind of annoyed me was how the movie failed to reveal the true secret behind the Suicide Club, how they were able to amass so many followers, and how they got them to kill themselves.

Then again, maybe I’m not supposed to understand the mysteries behind Suicide Club because I’m not Japanese, or at least, not learned enough in Japanese culture and their way of thinking. I mean, I only found out through my friend, Rina (who spent a year in Japan), that Spirited Away was really about girls who end up in brothels whether they like it or not. Before that, I thought it was just..you know. A cute Japanese movie. If you look at it this way, I suppose this explains why all the Japanese movies I’ve seen never really made complete sense to me.

Can I just say that yesterday was the worst first day of school ever? Save for the Cultural Retellings class, I am dreading every class I signed up for this semester.

I’d elaborate more on this but really, what’s the point? Bitching about it won’t change the fact that I got stuck with this year’s ditziest Asian History class because the History department screwed me over. Yay me.

I finally got the flu for the first time this year.

It’s a little embarassing to admit, but I do want to watch the Harry Potter movie. I told Pat, who is the only total anti-Harry Potter person I know, and he agreed to accompany me under the condition that I pay for his movie ticket. Fair enough, I suppose. We’re probably watching in an inexpensive theater, then.

Technorati Tags: Suicide Club, HP Lovecraft, Japanese film

The funny thing about Resident Evil 4 is that it reminded me of all the other survival horror video games I’ve played (Silent Hill in particular) except the Resident Evil series. I suppose it’s because the setting of the game is in rural Europe instead of an urban area, and your character does not fight zombies per se but zombie-like villagers infected with a certain virus. In Resident Evil 4, you play Leon Kennedy on a mission to rescue the US President’s daughter, who has been kidnapped by a religious cult. The story of the game basically revolves around that: rescue the girl and get the hell out of that country together in one piece.

I found Resident Evil 4 one of the most challenging video games I’ve ever played. If you’re expecting a lot of mindless, zombie shooty action, go find another game because RE4 doesn’t have any of that. You actually have to take the effort to aim at the targets with a laser if you want to kill them, which I personally found annoying because I end up wasting crucial seconds from trying to aim properly. There’s also a lot of dodging action, which took me a while to get used to because they just come out of nowhere and I have really slow reaction time. As for the weapons, you no longer find them lying around in various areas. In Resident Evil 4 there is a merchant who sells you everything from weapons to first aid sprays–everything, that is, except for bullets.

As I played the game, I couldn’t decide if I loved or hated Resident Evil 4. Every time I entered a new area, I felt my heart sink because that meant there would be a crowd of villagers, zealots, and soldiers waiting to overwhelm and kill me. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t tear myself away from the game. I finished Resident Evil 4 just a few hours ago and I must say that the difficulty I had getting past some areas and killing off some bosses made defeating the game all the more worthwhile. But wait–it doesn’t end there. The best part about Resident Evil 4 is that defeating the game doesn’t mean that the fun is over; after fighting the final boss, a bunch of other extra games appear, whose plots add to the main story. 4/5

Technorati Tags: Resident Evil 4