Monthly Archives: July 2011

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At The Theater 2011 #8: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

For more of my thoughts on the new Harry Potter movie, including who I think are the top 5 actors of the franchise, download episode 2 of my new podcast, The Billy and Bryan Show, available for free on iTunes! While you’re there, download the first episode too!

Unlike when I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, aka Hermione Granger and Red Dress of Awesomeness, I somehow managed to keep my awesome British accent in check while walking around in Harry Potter glasses before seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which surprised my friends who were bracing for a night full of cockney from me.

Sadly, the red dress of awesomeness was no where to be found in Hermione Granger and the Red Dress of Awesomeness Part 2. But we did get this outfit, so who am I to complain?

The new Harry Potter movie was great; the crowd that was in the movie theater with us was not. A big group of us caught it at the Union Square Regal on the Friday night of opening weekend. I found the staff at the Regal to be nice and friendly, but I cannot recommend going there to see a major blockbuster like this on opening weekend. There were about 8 people ahead of us on line on the sidewalk when we were let in, but somehow there was a mass of people already in the theater when we walked in. It seems that Regal had people queuing up on the sidewalk outside, while also having people on line next to the doors of the theater inside, and other people just hanging around inside waiting to pounce once people started being let in. Line management is not their forte. The other major frustration of the night was that the group of people behind us would not shut up throughout the entire movie. It was like they opened up a Regal Court St embassy in the middle of our theater in Union Square! My friend Sarv almost went all Umbridge on the people behind us!

I’m happy to report that I found the movie to be great. I made the conscious decision to not reread the book before seeing the movie, because even by splitting the book into two movies, I knew there would be some changes, plus I wanted to be surprised by what was happening on the screen. Before the movie started, the only things I remembered from the book were that Harry and Voldemort fight and 19 years later, Harry’s kids are heading off heading to Hogwarts.

Kiss him, you fool!

Speaking of the epilogue, I thought they did a good job with it, but man did they make the Hogwarts crew age in unflattering ways. Ron, what happened to you? Have your wife whip you up a fitness charm and get rid of that gut! Also, how are there any bald wizards in The Wizarding World? I’m looking at you, Draco Malfoy. You’d think male pattern baldness would have been eliminated centuries ago! Time travel? Check! Resurrections? Check! A cure for baldness? “Eh…we’re wizards, not miracle workers.” Hermione needs to tweak that polyjuice potion that went awry and turned her into Catgirl and market it to the folliclely challenged.

No more Hermione?!?! Noooo!!!
I’m going to miss heading to the theater with my friends for new Harry Potter movies. But I’m sure there will be more franchises that we’ll get wrapped up in, and more opening weekend outings. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was the movie I was anticipating since the beginning of the year. Now that it’s passed, I’m not sure what new or upcoming release to latch my excitement onto. Captain America? Cowboy and Aliens? Both look great, but I’m not counting down the days until I see them. Actually, I know what movie has just replaced Harry Potter in my Can’t Wait List…
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At The Theater 2011 #7: Attack the Block

Saw the new Harry Potter and are still jonesing for a cast of Brits fighting against the unworldly? Then you need to go see Attack the Block.

It was hard to get behind the protagonists initially in Attack of the Block. They start the movie robbing a woman at knife point and follow that up by acting like the loud, obnoxious teenagers that they are. I won’t lie, for a little while I was rooting for the aliens to dismember them and took a fair amount of glee when the aliens took out the teen who I found the most annoying. The aliens aren’t picky about who they kill though; a likable character is just as likely to buy it as a highly unlikeable one. Well, maybe not just as likely, but still very high.

The aliens are very cool looking in Attack the Block. They’re these eyeless ape-dog hybrids with rows and rows sharp, iridescent teeth and fur that’s darker than the night. They’re vicious, speedy and deadly, which made for a movie full of great thrills.

Nick Frost is hilarious as a constantly stoned pot dealer.

I’m used to Nick Frost movies being really funny, but Attack the Block doesn’t have as much humor as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz did, and if you go to this movie expecting amount of humor from those movies, you might be disappointed. But it works great as a thriller. If you’re a fan of movies like Gremlins or Aliens, I highly recommend it. Catch it while you can in the theater.
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At The Theater 2011 #6: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Originally, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was supposed be 1 of the 52 movies I saw in 2010. There are weekly midnight screenings of it at Chelsea’s Clearview on Fridays and Saturdays. Asking people to dress up in skimpy costumes in December seemed cruel though, so I held out until the summer. Plus, if I learned anything from one of my friends, it’s that you can get people to dress up in costume if it’s your birthday.

I wanted to dress in costume. I knew people did this from my first exposure to Rocky Horror, an old episode of The Drew Carey Show. I couldn’t decide on a costume though. I put this outing together kind of last minute, so I didn’t have time to get too elaborate. My penchant for wearing costumes that don’t require wearing a shirt had me considering heading to American Apparel for some gold-lame briefs. My next idea was to get silk American flag boxer shorts, a pair of boxing gloves and a fake moustache and go as Apollo Creed from Rocky. I’d walk into the theater, look confused and realize I picked the wrong Rocky. In the end, I decided to go as Brad when I realized I had most of his costume in my apartment already. Ah, the path of least resistance, how I adore thee. The hot June weather would have totally justified going the Brad in his undershorts route, but instead I decided to wear dress pants, a dress shirt and a blue sweater. Because nothing says “Hello, June in New York” like a sweater. I had no tan windbreaker, but figured I looked Brad enough to get by.

Before the movie, we hung out at the Trailer Park Bar, picked for its choice location of being directly across the street from Clearview’s Chelsea in case anyone in our group went with a more risqué costume and didn’t want to walk far in it. We were barely in the bar for a minute before someone asked if we were dressed up for Rocky Horror. We responded that we were. It turned out that the woman asking us this from the New York Cast and asked if we’d take a picture with the other actors in the cast. They were all extremely nice. Their Brad even said he would have lent me a tan windbreaker if he knew I needed one. Cool people all around. We even met a guy from the Pittsburgh cast who was in town to check out the NYC cast.

The energy at the Saturday, June 25 show was amazing. The NY State gay marriage bill was passed less than 24 hours earlier, which definitely had people in a good mood. There was a dance party before the movie started and a contest for Rocky Horror virgins on who could make the best orgasm noise. I went second, and went with a quiet “Oh. Sorry. I swear this never happens.” I was totally robbed of the first place prize by a overweight South American yelling “Ay, papi!.” Now I know how Daughtry felt losing to whomever Daughtry lost to on American Idol.

Saturday, June 25 was in the middle of Pride weekend, so this live show was played by an all-male cast, dubbed The Rocky Homo Picture Show for the night. The cast was awesom!. They had all the parts down. There were more Lord of the Rings references than I expected in the live show, but I guess that’s to be expected when your Rocky is the size of a Hobbit.

The all-male duo Brad and Janet.

If you sit on the aisle, take heed: there’s a decent chance Hobbit Rocky will jump on your lap or you’ll get a close-up view of Frankenfurter’s crotch. Was it because I was on the aisle? In costume? Or both? In any case, I’m not complaining. If you’re going to get freaked out by a transvestite transsexual from sexy Transylvania gyrating in front of you, maybe you picked the wrong midnight movie.

The Greek chorus was jarring at first. It was like listening to Riff Trax if Riff Trax had much more people and a potty mouth. After some time, I managed to tune them out while still picking up on their better one-liners.

Down in front!

Our group of 13 people came ready for the movie with the necessary fan-participation props: newspapers, rice, toast and confetti. We missed the toast cue, but that worked out as I was then able to spend a few minutes throwing toast bits at friends, the South American guy who robbed me in the orgasm contest and a girl across the aisle who fell asleep. How does anybody fall asleep during this show?!

I have nothing but praise for all the actors in this production! It was so much fun!

Go see Rocky Horror at Chelsea’s Clearview. It’s an awesome experience. If, like me, this would be your first time seeing it, this is definitely the way to go. Just bring some friends along to explain the parts that don’t make sense. But really, those parts probably won’t make sense to them either. Tickets are only $9, which gets you a movie and live show. As The Who once sang, I call that a bargain. You can find more details about the weekend midnight shows of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Chelsea’s Clearview at the New York Rocky Horror website.

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San Diego Comic-Con Highlights

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it out to San Diego for Comic-Con this year. Fortunately, I was glued to the internet all weekend as news was coming down the pipe and have these cool movie bits to share with you.

The Avengers movie poster!

This A with the arrow logo isn’t there to excite the average film goer. It’s for the diehards, the fanboys, the guys and girls who immediately know what that A with the arrow is as soon as they see it. I’m one of them and I’m excited. And it says Assemble. I’m even more excited!

Big thanks to Dave Tomko for leading me to this…the full Avengers team poster! (From bleedingcool.com)
Summer 2012 seriously can’t get here soon enough!

DC is adapting The Dark Knight Returns into an animated feature!

This has the potential of being HUGE…and the potential for being a huge letdown. But man, could you ask for better source material than Frank Miller’s classic from the 1980s. This is to me,  and I’m sure other fans as well, THE Batman story. DC has improved a lot lately with their animated offerings and their latest Batman one, Under the Red Hood, is their best in show. Hopefully they pull out all the stops for The Dark Knight Returns. Needless to say, when this is released, I will definitely be reviewing it. Is it too early to add it to my queue?

The surprise at The Amazing Spider-Man movie panel!

This was the show stealer at San Diego. If you haven’t watched this clip, WATCH IT NOW! It’s definitely my favorite clip from the con.

I can’t wait for next summer’s movies!

Between The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight Rises, I am ridiculously psyched for next summer’s movies! Joss on Avengers! More Bale/Nolan Batman! And two of my favorite new actors, Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield starring in Spider-Man! Can it be Summer 2012 now, please?

I do plan on being at New York Comic Con in October, where I’ll bring you first hand accounts of movie announcements and previews, of which I’m sure there will be plenty!

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog…

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At The Theater 2011 #5: The Conspirator

Just before the lights went down in a theater that had only three people in it, a couple decided that the seats they needed to have were the ones right in front of us. It was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 all over again, except more ridiculous. We waited a minute, got up and sat directly in front of them. I feared this would lead to a leapfrogging in response by the other couple. If they did leapfrog us, we could have leapfrogged them back until we were in the first two rows of the theater, but really we would have just gone back to our original seats, now with them an acceptable three rows away. But they just sat there. It felt awesome. I highly recommend pulling this move if ever confronted with the same situation.

I enjoyed The Conspirator. It is definitely better than its score of 56 on Rotten Tomatoes would lead you to believe. It was like watching To Kill a Mockingbird set in the Civil War. James McAvoy plays a retired Union soldier turned lawyer who ends up defending Mary Surratt, the lone woman charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

The Conspirator has a very strong cast. Big stars all around. James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, Tom Wilkinson, Evan Rachel Wood, Justin Long, Colm Meany and Alexis Bledel are all in the movie. The standout performer though might be Justin Long’s moustache, which completely stole every scene it was in. I don’t know if it was real or if it was pasted on, but if it was real, more power to you Mr. Long. That was some crazy moustache.

Speaking of moustaches, I noticed that James McAvoy, like me, can’t grow hair in the center of his upper lip. “Yes, I’m not a freak!”flashed through my mind, “a Hollywood sex symbol has the same thing!” I not longer feel like a freak for my bifurcated moustache!

Now if I just had his hair too…

We saw The Conspirator at Brooklyn Heights Cinemas, now under new ownership. There’s some new décor and in June they ran a promotion where all seats were $8 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Hopefully they keep at least one of these discount days going in the future. The popcorn is still delicious and is still my number one in the city.

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Talking Posters: Warner Bros Releases the First Teaser Poster for The Dark Knight Rises, The NSFW Poster for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Bus Poster

Unless you’ve been intentionally ignoring the internet today, or are an AT&T wireless customer (zing!), you’ve no doubt seen that Warner Brothers has released the first official teaser poster for the third Nolan-Bale Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

I love this poster. I really like how the Bat Symbol is formed by the crumbling Gotham skyline. What does this image mean? Is Gotham going to be an even more decrepit place than it was in the last two movies? But wait, the Bat Symbol is a beautiful, blue sky. Does this mean that the Gotham of old has to be torn down, both figuratively and literally, for Batman’s goal of a brighter, safer Gotham to be realized?

I see this Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 poster every day on the side of a bus during my daily commute, and every time I look at it, it just looks weird to be. What’s up with Voldemort’s face? Why does it look like he’s belting out an aria? Judging by Harry’s reaction, Voldemort is tone deaf.

THE NEXT POSTER IS DEFINITELY NSFW. IF YOU’RE AT THE OFFICE OR AROUND LITTLE KIDS, MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T SCROLL DOWN.

In case you were wondering whether or not the American version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo would have nudity in it, wonder no more, as even the poster for the movie has nudity in it. Your eyes don’t deceive you; that’s a nipple.


I’m putting the chances of you encountering this poster at a theater in the US at somewhere around zero. I’ve been to Europe a few times and never saw a movie poster with nudity there, but my experiences with seeing European movie posters was limited to public plazas and mass transit stations. I’ve never been inside a European movie theater. Is nudity in posters a common thing there? Does anyone know in which countries this poster is running?