Film Reviews

Sonata Arctica — Live In Finland

Posted on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 at 1:35 pm.

Originally written for Exclaim!

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Fans of Finnish power metal icons Sonata Arctica will have to wait well into 2012 for a full-length follow-up to 2009′s The Days of Grays. Not wishing to let their loyal fan base languish, Sonata Arctica released Live in Finland, a massive four-disc (two-CD, two-DVD) collection. The fist CD is a truncated version of set they played in Ulu, Finland earlier this year, while the first DVD is a video recording of the same set, including all 19 songs, featuring much …

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Directed by David Yates.

Posted on Saturday, December 17th, 2011 at 5:04 pm.

Originally written for Exclaim!

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As a profound fan of the Harry Potter series, I have a difficult relationship with the films. On one hand, I crave them, as they satisfy the hunger for fiction that only truly great series inspire. But, on the other, while there are moments that are completely perfect, others couldn’t be more flawed. Deathly Hallows: Part. 2 is, like all the Potter movies, simultaneously intensely satisfying and deeply problematic.

As the second half of what is essentially a single film, Deathly Hallows: Part. 2 opens in medias res, with …

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