Cheap Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets DVD

About Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Forced to spend his summer holidays with his muggle relations, Harry Potter gets a real shock when he gets a surprise visitor: Dobby the house-elf, who warns Harry Potter against returning to Hogwarts, for terrible things are going to happen. Harry decides to ignore Dobby's warning and continues with his pre-arranged schedule. But at Hogwarts, strange and terrible things are indeed happening: Harry is suddenly hearing mysterious voices from inside the walls, muggle-born students are being attacked, and a message scrawled on the wall in blood puts everyone on his/her guard - "The Chamber Of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies Of The Heir, Beware".

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Kenneth Branagh seemed a very strange choice for the hilarious Gilderoy Lockhart. I always imagined a character like Terry Thomas when reading the books. I never thought I'd say this about Kenneth Branagh, but he actually seems to under-play the part (rather than wallop it with a sledgehammer like he usually does).

One thing that did bug me... the sound-track. The Philosophers Stone was great. Another classic John Williams score. Problem is, rather than write a new score that kept the main spirit of the original (which John Williams did brilliantly in the Star Wars trilogy), they seemed to have lifted entire bits of music used in the first film, particularly the dramatic parts that you associate with a certain scene from Philosophers Stone, and transplanted it into Chamber Of Secrets! Couldn't help thinking... cheap... cheap... cheap

Three of us went to see this film at a preview screening last night, and chatting afterwards we all felt basically the same way. Good film, good fun, but lacking the "spark" that made the first film so magical. Maybe because part of the fun of Philosopher's Stone was being introduced to this strange, quirky new world and its characters. In Chamber Of Secrets, we are now familiar with this so the story takes centre stage, and at the end of the day... it aint that strong.

Cheap Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets DVD

Cheap Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone DVD

About Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is the first film in the Harry Potter series based on the novels by J.K. Rowling. It is the tale of Harry Potter, an ordinary 11-year-old boy serving as a sort of slave for his aunt and uncle who learns that he is actually a wizard and has been invited to attend the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is snatched away from his mundane existence by Hagrid, the grounds keeper for Hogwarts, and quickly thrown into a world completely foreign to both him and the viewer. Famous for an incident that happened at his birth, Harry makes friends easily at his new school. He soon finds, however, that the wizarding world is far more dangerous for him than he would have imagined, and he quickly learns that not all wizards are ones to be trusted.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

That's it! I give up! I surrender! White flag! My friends want to see the new Harry Potter that is about to be released this summer, The Order of Phoenix, but they looked at my like I just lost my head when I told them I never saw the Harry Potter films. They just said I've seen every movie yet I never saw Harry Potter? Well, I never saw the point since I don't read the books or wasn't interested in the films, it looked like typical kid's stuff to me. But my friends said they would not take me to see the movie until I've seen the films, it's now that I realize I got myself into trouble since these movies are all 2+ hours each. I just finished the first one a couple days ago.

Harry Potter lives with an extremely cruel family, but there is something different about him, he can talk to snakes and make things appear and disappear. Well, he receives a letter, he's a wizard! Not just any wizard, he is the only wizard ever to survive the wrath of Voldemort, the most wicked wizard. Harry goes to a magical school, Hogwarts, where he learns the truth of his heroic parents and meets two other wizards, Ron and Hermione who soon become his best friends and they discover the power of the sorcerer's stone and what might happen if it's put into the wrong hands.

Harry Potter I have to admit is off to a good start with me, it had wonderful and magical effects that anyone could enjoy. The actors were just so perfectly cast, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, John Cleese, we have some of England's most brilliant actors. It's a well made film, now I still haven't read the books, so I can't base this film on a comparison. Even if I did, this is the movie and the movie itself is a magical and enchanting experience. Well, I'm onto The Chamber of Secrets, wish me luck.

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Cheap Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban DVD

About Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter is having a tough time with his relatives (yet again). He runs away after using magic to inflate Uncle Vernon's sister Marge who was being offensive towards Harry's parents. Initially scared for using magic outside the school, he is pleasantly surprised that he won't be penalized after all. However, he soon learns that a dangerous criminal and Voldemort's trusted aide Sirius Black has escaped from the Azkaban prison and wants to kill Harry to avenge the Dark Lord. To worsen the conditions for Harry, vile shape-shifters called Dementors are appointed to guard the school gates and inexplicably happen to have the most horrible effect on him. Little does Harry know that by the end of this year, many holes in his past (whatever he knows of it) will be filled up and he will have a clearer vision of what the future has in store.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Gary Oldman was good as Sirius Black, but we didn't seen enough of him. His confrontation with Rickman was emotion filled and was one of the best parts of the movie. I wish it had gone on longer.

Timothy Spall plays a disgusting and revolting Peter Pettigrew. He looked the part and played it well.

Remus Lupin was played by David Thewlis. I was not sure what to think at first; I was hoping Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from Buffy) was going to get the part. But Thewlis was excellent, he made Lupin a character you liked and cared about, a feeling you didn't get from the book. But Thewlis makes you feel that for the character. He got a fair amount of screen time, but I wanted more. Fantastic acting. I can't wait to see him come back in the next few films.

All in all, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is an good movie, as long as you don't compare it to the book or other HP movie. The plot holes really damage the film. The acting and the feel of the movie are great, but still don't quite make up the difference.

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Cheap Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire DVD

About Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts is about to start and he is enjoying the summer vacation with his friends. They get the tickets to The Quidditch World Cup Final but after the match is over, people dressed like Lord Voldemort's 'Death Eaters' set a fire to all the visitors' tents, coupled with the appearance of Voldemort's symbol, the 'Dark Mark' in the sky, which causes a frenzy across the magical community. That same year, Hogwarts is hosting 'The Triwizard Tournament', a magical tournament between three well-known schools of magic : Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The contestants have to be above the age of 17, and are chosen by a magical object called Goblet of Fire. On the night of selection, however, the Goblet spews out four names instead of the usual three, with Harry unwittingly being selected as the Fourth Champion. Since the magic cannot be reversed, Harry is forced to go with it and brave three exceedingly difficult tasks.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I just saw the movie for the first time and i was very surprised on how good the movie relates to the book. this was my favorite book as it was transitioning into a more serious and in-dept story. No offense to the other books before as they were great too, but this is the story were its not so childish and the characters are becoming more mature and serious about their futures. the movie does a great job on its special effects, acting, and all together the direction movie went. The movie kept me on the edge of my seat with all the action, suspense(the dragon scene were especially good), and drama.If your a fan of the books, then I highly suggest that you go see it.

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Cheap Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DVD

About Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
After a lonely summer on Privet Drive, Harry returns to a Hogwarts full of ill-fortune. Few of students and parents believe him or Dumbledore that Voldemort is really back. The ministry had decided to step in by appointing a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher that proves to be the nastiest person Harry has ever encountered. Harry also can't help stealing glances with the beautiful Cho Chang. To top it off are dreams that Harry can't explain, and a mystery behind something Voldemort is searching for. With these many things Harry begins one of his toughest years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Fantasy literature has since the beginning of time been about mediating and making sense of the real world; Harry Potter is part of this tradition.

Indeed, one of the movie's first big special effects embodies this idea. As the movie opens, Harry is the subject of a smear campaign that Valdemore has cooked up because darkness works tirelessly to triumph over the light; when his friends come to rescue him from the suburban horror show known as his adoptive family, they take him to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, a place that doesn't exist until a row of Georgian homes stretches out to reveal it. It's there, but the neighbors are unaware of it. They have no idea their building grew a house that the wizards and witches of the world can solve an internal problem. Such is life; how seldom do we know the inner workings, the coping mechanisms, the interior life of the people around us? In The Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter again does battle with evil to bring home the theme that when you fight, you fight well with and for your friends and to the death if necessary. Truth and goodness--call if love, if you want--are worth the trouble. The Gothic idiom of Harry Potter brilliantly takes the challenges Harry faces out of the present on one level even though these are very clearly 21st century characters facing contemporary challenges. Alongside the power of goodness over evil theme is the theme of the power of the imagination to find solutions to problems that are the same in every generation: politics, power games, jealousy, stupidity, growing up.

Always in Harry Potter is the clear distinction between the good guys and the bad ones right alongside the good kids and the annoying kids, who could very well become evil people if they so choose. They are tragic because they don't understand the long-range consequences of their petty cruelties--but then, as we learn in this movie, even the good kids are capable of petty cruelties that break souls. Always there is Snape, the middling Hogwarts employee who is not clearly good but not clearly bad but capable of both (until fate forces his hand in Book 6).

J.K. Rowling doesn't let anybody off of the hook of responsibility for their choices. But she does present the internal struggle for goodness and justice for the mess that it can be. Just as the Gothic world of Hogwarts helps Harry and his friends mediate the real world, so Rowling helps her readers see the world for what it is. This is a world that can give me nightmares, though not my daughter and my nephews. Perhaps because all they really need is an honest story.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Cheap Secretariat DVD

About Secretariat
Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge. Against all odds, Chenery -- with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin -- manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in twenty-five years.

Secretariat

In this film's world, self-sufficient, strong-minded women like Penny ensures that conforming to "lady-like" standards of behavior take precedence, liberal activism's a naive puppy period your kids experience until they discover the harsh realities of estate taxes, and all faultless Americans are unified in their worship of a miraculous object of vague optimistic abstractions like hope and fighting for this and that. The movie's portrayal of its late '60s, '70s era is a gilded utopia of all things, notwithstanding the truth that the year Secretariat evidently won was the year the Vietnam War ended and the Watergate hearings commenced. A movie so desperate for sources of drama in complete denial of the magnitude of drama in which it takes place?! You almost couldn't pick an era in 20th century America more overwhelmed by divide and broad-spectrum pandemonium. Busing desegregation, the Pentagon Papers, the Chicago Seven, the Weather Underground, Kent State, Stonewall. Regardless of finding ourselves in an infuriated, perilously divided culture, the film wants us to have faith that the real America has been here the whole time, and we can take it back. If we just believe in…a nonexistent past?

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Cheap Tangled DVD

About Tangled
After receiving the healing powers from a magical flower, the baby Princess Rapunzel is kidnapped from the palace in the middle of the night by Mother Gothel. Mother Gothel knows that the flower's magical powers are now growing within the golden hair of Rapunzel, and to stay young, she must lock Rapunzel in her hidden tower. Rapunzel is now a teenager and her hair has grown to a length of 70-feet. The beautiful Rapunzel has been in the tower her entire life, and she is curious of the outside world. One day, the bandit Flynn Ryder scales the tower and is taken captive by Rapunzel. Rapunzel strikes a deal with the charming thief to act as her guide to travel to the place where the floating lights come from that she has seen every year on her birthday. Rapunzel is about to have the most exciting and magnificent journey of her life.

Tangled

All in all, even though a middle aged dude like myself is no where near the target audience, I enjoyed it immensely.

Some criticisms; the villainess seemed marginally cliché. She had the liberated 70s woman gone bad thing going on for her, but it almost seems like we may have seen this character before. Not sure, really. The horse was extremely likable, but his rider could have played more of a role. In fact the supporting cast almost seemed as if they were denied screen time so we could revel in Rapuntzel's golden locks. For all that, and even though the action did dive into classic Warner Brother's cartoon territory, "Tangled" does make a very respectable showing.

That, and it was good to hear the voice of Richard Kiel play a big galoot who turns out to be a good guy. :)

My final note is that there was a very good message for young girls at the end, and in fact anyone with some sense will have caught on to it. It's a message that won't last too long, but hopefully will serve as a reminder to those who paid attention. Remember, hair isn't everything. Regardless of color *wink*

Take the family, but, if you're the father, then please, PLEASE, do not spend countless minutes like the idiot in front of me paying for his four member family with several credit cards while the ticket taker next to him managed to whiz through four or five parties of several members each for the 7:20 showing at the Redwood City theatre on Theatre Row.

Yeah, if you're reading this, you know who you are. Stop being a putz!

Everyone else, go see and enjoy the film :)

Cheap Tangled DVD