Spoiler Alert: Voldemort Cracks the Stone Table and Aslan and Dumbledore are the Same Person

I recently watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (this movie's promotional slogan should have been something like "Just when you think it's over...we'll see you this summer to take your money again.") and i was pleasantly surprised. As I have written before, I have not been the biggest fan of the Harry Potter movies when it comes to doing the books justice and including important details. In this one, a few characters that Harry should know very well since they have been important parts of previous books (Bill Weasley and Mundungus Fletcher) had to introduce themselves to Harry as if they had never met so the audience could figure it out.

One thing that really bothered me is that Harry has yet to wear his invisibility cloak in The Deathly Hallows WHEN HE IS THE MOST WANTED FUGITIVE IN THE WIZARDING WORLD. Are we supposed to think Harry Potter, The Chosen One, The Boy Who Lived, the best quiddich seeker of his generation, the kid who defeated a troll at age eleven, a basalisk at age twelve, a swarm of dementors at age thirteen, won the Tri-Wizard Tournament as the fourth seed at age fourteen, and has thwarted the most powerful dark wizard in fifty years time and time again, is stupid enough to walk through the streets of London in broad daylight when he has THE POWER OF INVISIBILITY literally in his back pocket? Please.

A few other moments of note from the movie:

When Xeno Lovegood began telling the story of the three brothers, a black feather floated around for a little bit and then landed in the water. It looks like computer generated feather technology has not progressed all that much since Forrest Gump came out in 1994.

Also during that story, Ron acts shocked and surprised when he hears the word "Twilight". Apparently Mrs. Weasley always told the story taking place at midnight and the time change caught him off guard, but it was funny that they threw in that subtle jab at their sparkling competition on the mainstream fantasy market (One of my biggest fear as a fan of the HP books is that the next generation who sees the movies but does not bother to read the books will think Twilight was better because some of the Harry Potter movies were so terrible).

DOBBY FINALLY PLAYED A SIGNIFICANT ROLE IN A MOVIE!!!! I have been waiting for this for a while. They neglected to put him in The Goblet of Fire when he essentially saves Harry, Ron, and Hermione from drowning. I was afraid they had forgotten all about him, but they did let him use his free elf powers to save the day (That's another thing I realized: the death eaters get to use spells that kill and torture and manipulate people while the good guys can only stun and disarm their opponents and hope for the power of magical loopholes to save them when they are outnumbered).

The thing I thought was most interesting about the movie was the very last scene when Voldemort goes to Dumbledore's tomb to retrieve the Elder Wand. Looking at the tomb, which I only saw once before since I did not particularly like the Half-Blood Prince movie, all I could think of was the Stone Table from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I always noticed the similarities that Harry Potter has to the Lord of the Rings books and the Narnia books. I read Narnia before I even knew about Harry and now I have to read them again because it has been so long. All of a sudden the arrogance of Voldemort seems eerily similar to that of the White Witch. The same can be said for Aslan and Albus Percival Wulfrick Brian Dumbledore (but with that many names, I could spell out any character). Little does Voldemort know that his action at the Stone Table will be his undoing come July.

"Walking Dead" Lives up to Expectations

When I first saw the promotions for The Walking Dead, a drama that premiered on AMC on Halloween night about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse in the United States, I was excited. Zombie movies are cool. They tend to have similar themes (survival, trust issues, government conspiracy) but they are always entertaining and they all bring different things to the table. I was curious to see how they would expand a story that is usually told in two hours or less into a multi-season television series. I was curious to see if main characters would be protected for the sake of continuity (will season two have a completely new cast of characters like 28 Weeks Later did?) or is nobody safe (in Spartacus: Blood and Sand, a character shield cannot protect you from Roman rule). For now, I am not concerned with stuff like that. I am just enjoying the ride.

The pilot episode begins with deputy sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is shot in the line of duty and goes into a coma. When he wakes up, the state of Georgia (and presumably the rest of the country) is overrun with a virus that kills a person with a fever but causes their dead body to keep walking around and biting and infecting others. This start to the story is a lot like 28 Days Later except in that movie, Cillian Murphy's character is not a police officer trained to use firearms. Rick Grimes is later reunited with his family and a group of other survivors as they try to wait out the epidemic.

My favorite part about this show is their attention to detail. A lot of TV dramas since Lost have tried to get more of a cinematic feel while keeping the weekly cliffhanger effect that TV brings. Much like Mad Men, which airs on the same channel, The Walking Dead is very well written and the acting performances are not what you usually see on TV.

Wherever this zombie saga takes us, I cannot wait to see. It has already been picked up for a second season (consisting of thirteen episodes instead of six), and there is certain to be more twists along the way.