Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

First and foremost the tell tale sign of any movie that is good is a movie that you want to fork out another full priced admission for, and this is definitely one of them!

I believe the most important thing to be aware of before going to see this movie is that it has definitely earned it's PG-13 rating. In the pre-screening I saw last night some cautions need to be understood, more than the MPAA rating descriptor offers.

There are Snake attack's (yes, there's more than 1) from Voldemort's pet snake that could be pretty scary for those younger than 13.

Also, I saw people as young as probably 5-7 years old in attendance and those youngsters got to see more of Emma Watson/Hermione Granger than the parents probably bargained for.
For those not familiar with the book, there is an entity from Voldemort that is taunting Ron that shows him his greatest fears, which include Harry and Hermione claiming they are for each other and Ron is essentially useless. Voldemort tops it off with Ron watching this entity show Harry and Hermione from the navel up and topless, passionately kissing. With clever placement of some mist the audience is very short of being exposed to (profile view) full-on upper female nudity.

The second act of the movie consisted of a lot of waiting for the next thing to happen which, additionally, could leave the younger viewers scared at first then bored.

Despite the more mature content for younger viewers, I really enjoyed this movie, a lot! This has elements in it that I believe all Harry Potter fans have been waiting for. We get rounds of Poly Juice Potion, jinxes, broom riding, Dementors, Death Eater ambushes and "drive-by's" and wand play. My favorite part was a "shoot out" in a diner between Ron, Harry & Hermione and a couple of Death Eaters/hitmen. We also get to see Harry give Delores Umbrigde what he should have gave her 2 movies ago.

And finally, for those of you emotionally attached to the characters, take tissues, my wife was really wanting them. I even found myself pretty sad at the loss of 1 particular character, sorry, no spoilers here.

Alien (3/4 stars)

Some time in the future Earth has sent out a group of people as ore miners. Reposnding to a distress call they decide to investigate and introduce the world to the acclaimed "scariest movie ever made."


"ClearPlay Experience"

I have previously watched bits and peices of Alien but have never sat down and watched it from start to finish, in 1 setting.

I turned off all the filters off for Violence, Blood and Distrubing Imagry, because - like I said - I'd seen the most famous parts of the movie already. I was not only surprised by the superb job ClearPlay did in accurately taking out the profanity and skipping the "Ripley" character getting down to her underwear, but the violence - at the time was shocking - would now be a PG-13, when stacked up against others, like Saw. The chest burst is a lot less graphic than I remember, probably because I remember the "magic" of the moment being shocking, because of what happens and not because of gory visuals.

Actually the violent content in this movie is suggestive and doesn't show any chest cavities spewing forth the alien. When this scene does come to fruition the burst is so quick I almost didn't know what happened and we see a small alien in the foreground of a bloody arm and chest, but no human insides are seen.

Additionally, the alien attacking people shows about half a second of the alien attacking. You cannot even tell where on the person the alien attacks.

Finally the weapons... there was only a flame thrower, that was only used... probably twice.


Overall I say ClearPlay did a wonderful job.


Alien has a common sense rating of PG-13, but filtered at maximum levels would Alien only be appropriate for 13+, due to scary images and blood.