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Show Friday, Aug. 28, 2009 A&EDiversions Page 9 Movie: Best and worst summer movies -continued from page 3 Sam Worthington manages to struggle through and create the film’s only emotional link, but he’s not enough to make the end of humanity enjoyable. It’s a tall order. Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince Well, folks, it’s a Harry Potter movie. If you don’t like Harry Potter, this latest iteration will not change your mind. If you do like Harry Potter, as I do, you may be baffled by the messy pacing and arbitrary plot rearrangement. As always, production values are high, and the acting is uniformly solid, with a handful of great performances – expectedly, Alan Rickman steals the show as Snape. Potter is far too static and though I was entertained, I did find myself wondering why the filmmakers have eschewed the definitive magic of the wizarding world in favor of bleak drama. Drag Me To Hell For pure entertainment value, this is my pick for the movie of the summer. Sam Raimi, for all of his eccentricities, is a very talented fellow. With “Drag Me To Hell,” he’s returned to his slapstick-horror roots, a la the Evil Dead Trilogy. Let me first get this out of the way: this is an entirely and deliberately silly movie. It is glorious schlock at its best, and in all the bloody, scary hubbub, it’s easy to miss the immense skill of the filmmaker. It’s full of perfect orchestrated moments: a masterpiece of tension control, decoys and huge payoffs. The film embraces the humor and horror in equal measure and neither detracts from one another. Here’s an example: The main character is brutally attacked by a crazed gypsy in a parking garage; It is horrifying and raw, but the suspense instantly dissolves when the gypsy sloppily gums at the face her victim after losing her dentures. This balance leads to one of most thoroughly entertaining films of the year. Watch it with openminded, animated people for best results – screams and laughter aplenty. -be.ro@aggiemail.usu.edu Homes evacuated in seaside Calif. towns near fires LOS ANGELES (AP) — Wildfires erupted up and down California Thursday as a late summer siege of heat and low humidity levels made conditions ripe for conflagrations. Structures could be seen burning in the wealthy communities on the Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles, while suburbs on the foothills to the north of the city were threatened by a slumbering fire that suddenly roared to life in the evening hours. Dozens of homes were evacuated in Rancho Palos Verdes, Los Angeles County fire Inspector Steve Zermeno said. TV news footage showed structures on fire and at least one entirely engulfed in flames. Fire officials could not confirm if any structures or homes had been damaged or destroyed. In Monterey County, in the central coastal region of the state, 100 homes were evacuated about four miles from the community of Soledad. The fire had consumed more than 2,000 acres of steep grasslands, or more than 3 square miles, since it was reported Thursday afternoon, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Capt. James Dellamonica said.The blaze was zero percent contained. The other major battles in Southern California were in the San Gabriel Firefighters keep watch as mountain scrub and trees burn in a 750- acre wildfire in the rugged San Gabriel Mountains above the northeastern Los Angeles suburb of Azusa, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 26. AP photo Mountains as firefighters struggled to keep The largest of two fires, which spread flames from topping ridges and surging lung-burning haze over much of metropoliinto a wider area of the sprawling Angeles tan Los Angeles, was 45 percent contained National Forest northeast of downtown after burning across 1,850 acres, or nearly 3 Los Angeles, where the temperature hit 99 square miles, said Capt. Jim Wilkins of the degrees before noon. U.S. Forest Service. |
