Reviews by Kyle Ellis

“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”

Now this was good, and I mean good. It’s such a simple idea, but so real and powerful. I mean one bad day is all it takes. One push, one snap, one descent into chaos and it’s over. Once you’ve crossed that threshold then things will never be the same again. And the Joker, being the sly and brilliant villain that he is, wants to share the experience with the world. He wants to show humanity that they are not that far from him. The first man he wants to reduce is the stalwart Commissioner Gordon. But, I think we all know who is intended victim actually is.

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The Joker was once normal. He had a girlfriend; he had a job, but the world shitted on him somewhat chronic. And like many people he was forced to turn to crime; he was forced to break society's rules in order to survive. That’s where it all began. That first step into the darkness led to many other steps down the road of corruption. It wasn’t long before petty crime turned to murder and butchery. The Joker became ruined and lost himself in his nasty deeds. This is a great origin story, one that fully lives up to the character immense personality. Allan More totally nails it.

"THERE IS NO SANITY CLAUSE!

SO WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF LOCKED ONTO AN UNPLEASANT TRAIN OF THOUGHT, HEADING FOR THE PLACES IN YOUR PAST WHERE THE SCREAMING IS UNBEARABLE, REMEMBER THERE'S ALWAYS MADNESS.

MADNESS IS THE EMERGENCY EXIT...

YOU CAN JUST STEP OUTSIDE, AND CLOSE THE DOOR ON ALL THOSE DREADFUL THINGS THAT HAPPENED. YOU CAN LOCK THEM AWAY...

FOREVER.”

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And the ending, it’s all about the ending. The Joker’s personality is infectious. At least, he wants it to be. He’s always tried to bring down the good. He ruined Harvey Dent, and he has always wanted to ruin the bat. And he just may have. The end is suggestive of two things: firstly, Batman strangling the Joker in one final heroic act, there’s some irony in that sentence; secondly, Batman descending to the Jokers level and embracing the insanity of one bad day.

I'll leave you with this picture and see if you can decide:

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Upon occasion I have been asked what my favorite Batman story is. I ask immediately afterwards if they mean favorite story involving Batman or favorite story about Batman. The answers are different. Favorite story involving Batman is The Killing Joke, but that is Joker's story not his. My favorite about Batman is Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.

So much has been written about this comic that honestly at this point reviewing it accomplishes nothing. For the most part people know what it is about and they already know if they love it or hate it (there seems to be no in-between). Rather than reviewing it in a traditional way, let me just break down five things that I love about it.

1. The art. Dear sweet Dave McKean the art!



It's beautiful. It's chaotic. It's symbolic. It's hard to follow. It's the perfect way to describe the book as a whole and I love it!

2. A completely psychological take on Batman. Here the villains are less people than ideas, horrible ideas and doubts in Batman's head. Those looking for Batman punching a villain in the face should look elsewhere. There are a few fights in it, but they are not the point and indeed often come off anti-climactic. It is the dialogue and the thought process one is supposed to go through which are the real battles here.

3. The backstory of Arkham Asylum. That is a horror tale in and of itself, and it contrasts with Batman's struggle so beautifully.

4. Grant Morrison's writing. From the dialogue to the symbolism of the characters, it's a joy to read. If you have a hard time figuring out how everything in it works (as most do including the writer it seems) check out the script included in most newer editions of the book. It's a fascinating read with Morrison's own notes.

5. A fully mature Batman story. Oh, I know that's been done plenty of times, but this one is essentially an R rated horror story in Batman form. It was one of the first to do that and it is still one of the best.

Will my review win people over? Probably not. As I said, the reputation of this book is so well known that you likely already have a few strong opinions on it. That said, if you've never heard of this book, or are considering it, I highly recommended it for anyone looking for a dark and psychological horror story involving superheroes and self doubt. For my money, it's never been done better... just don't go in expecting Batman to be his usual self. This is a very different sort of tale. 5/5 stars.

“I’m going to keep going until I succeed — or die. Don’t think I don’t know how this might end. I’ve known it for years.” — Harry Potter

Most seventeen-year olds don’t view the possibility of an early death as being, well, possible. But then again, most seventeen-year olds haven’t come face-to-face with death almost half a dozen times before their first kiss either.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final installment of the ridiculously popular Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling brilliantly ties up every loose end that she has planted over the last ten years since the very first outing of the series was published in 1997. Truly, Rowling has learned exactly what her fans want and subsequently delivers a book that answers every Potterhead’s questions — and then some.

Not only does Deathly Hallows revisit key places and characters from all of the previous six books, but Rowling even manages to make clever references to previous bits of dialogue from her earlier books. Case in point: near the end of the first Potter book, after Hermione fails to see the magical solution to saving the trio from a nasty patch of Devil’s Snare, Harry’s best mate Ron bellows “HAVE YOU GONE MAD? ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?” Now, six years later, Hermione finally gets her revenge on her red-headed friend when Ron believes that all is lost until Hermione yells to him “Are you a wizard, or what?” thus reminding Ron to use his wand to solve their problem. Subtle references such as this are a large part of what makes Rowling’s books so enjoyable to re-read as there are always deeper meanings and additional allusions that are often only discovered via multiple read-throughs.

Harry’s bold statement regarding his own potential death is also a prime example of how much Rowling truly wrote Harry’s last tale for her long-time fans. This line seems to read as a secret “shout-out” to the Potterites who have also known for years that the series might not end happily ever after. The prophecy in the fifth book revealed that “neither shall live while the other survives”, and therefore by the end of book seven either Harry or Voldemort had to die. Rowling cleverly fills her last installment with so many twists, turns and complications, however, that it becomes practically impossible to determine which way this book is going to end.

More than any of the other Potter books, Deathly Hallows is a true quest narrative, with the trio spending the majority of the story hunting for horcruxes and hallows whilst evading capture by Voldemort’s Death Eaters. The multiple close-calls that all three main characters find themselves in throughout the book add to the tension that continues to build until the predictably bloody battle at the end of the tale. The book does, after all, chronicle a brutal war, so be prepared for a lot of killing and, consequently, a lot of tears.

This is not to say that Deathly Hallows doesn’t offer up a great deal of laughs as well. The hilarious twins Fred and George Weasley make several appearances to ensure that the book isn’t all doom and gloom. By far, the funniest part of the story is the secret radio show Potterwatch, anonymously hosted by former Hogwarts Quidditch commentator Lee Jordan with special appearances from Fred, George, and ex-Defence Against the Dark Arts professor Remus Lupin. Rowling perfectly mixes this blend of humour, tragedy and adventure so that her epic-length novel never lags or drags.

To write a 607 page book that millions of die-hard fans around the world are able to devour in less than 24 hours is no mean feat, but Rowling’s farewell to the Boy Who Lived is an incredibly gripping page-turner that will leave all Potter lovers immensely satisfied.

I love this book, of course I do, but the fact remains that this book prominently featured two of my most hated Harry Potter characters. Ginny Weasley and Dobby. There, I said it. I hate them both. In my Harry Potter hate list, Ginny and Dobby probably rank somewhere below Umbridge and Peter Pettigrew. Yeah, you heard me. I hate them that much.

The reason I hate Ginny is---well, never mind. I don't want to start another shipping war here, the last one was terrible enough, so let the reason for my hatred be implicit and unsaid.

Dobby is freaking annoying, yo. All his eagerness and shit - and yeah, I know what happens in the end. Doesn't matter. I still hate Dobby. Dobby is the equivalent of fingernails on chalkboard for me. If he had been my elf, I'd have given him a sock already so he could his whimpering, sniveling ass out of my life. He means well, I know he does, it's just that he's such a frustratingly well-meaning bumbling idiot.
“You know what, Harry? If he doesn’t stop trying to save your life he’s going to kill you.”
Aaaaaaaand one final note.
“Ginny!” said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. “Haven’t I taught you anything. What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain?"
No particular reason I included that, except for the fact that it reminded me of my ex-boyfriend :3

It's a rainy Sunday. It's colder than it should be this time of the year, so I'm drinking a delicious cup of coffee and I'm browsing my Goodreads shelves only to realise that I haven't written a Harry Potter review. Not a single one. So, I decided to start with the first Harry Potter book I ever read, the one that took me to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and made me believe that magic is something tangible.
“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

I was 16 years old, and I had just started my english classes in order to pass my Proficiency examinations. My teacher told me that the best way to delve into a foreign language and familiarize with it is to read books written in it, so she gave me the third instalment of Harry Potter. (Little did she know that she unleashed a beast who now reads almost exclusively in english). Before I tell you about my experience, I need to make a confession. It was my choice to stay away from J.K. Rowling's books until that moment. I wanted to swim against the current, and I thought that Harry Potter was too "mainstream" for my taste. And the foolish little me was proud of this decision. But when my teacher gave me this old, used copy, something inside me cracked. I knew the basics about the story, about the orphan kid who goes to a school for wizards and fights the ugly, evil dude who doesn't have a nose. But page by page, I came to understand with awe that the wizard who finds trouble even when he doesn't want to offers more than that; he opened a portal to a world where I longed to be fervently. I stayed up late at night, with a faint light just enough to make out the sentences, and I cheered for Gryffindor's Quidditch team, I flied with Firebolt and I kept wondering what my patronus would be (according to Pottermore it's a brown mastiff, which is oddly fitting). I casted spells (but never Avada Kedavra, you shouldn't play with this shit) and tasted butterbeer in Hogsmeade, and just like that, my life had changed irrevocably. I was a Potterhead. And I was proud of that. (my mum wasn't though, especially when I asked for a wand).
“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

There is a reason why J.K. Rowling is the fairy god-mother to millions of children (and adults) worldwide. Friendship, love, hope, they're present in her books even in the most desperate times, when Evil seems undefeatable, when no escape is visible. She encourages and empowers, shows that everything is possible, that strength and courage can be found within, when you have someone to hold your hand. Harry was a kid who was deprived of love yet he was capable of loving, it took him years but he finally found a place to belong, to feel safe and cared. Ron, with his witty lines and his constant presence, Hermione, my personal favorite, with her intelligence and compassion, they managed to enchant my prejudiced heart, and even now, years later, I'm still under their spell. I think I will always be.
“Don't let the muggles get you down.”

I'm still waiting for my Hogwarts letter, and secretly hope that Dobby is the one to blame. I still caress with affection the spines of my Harry Potter books (meanwhile I bought them all and finished the entire series in a week and a half) and laugh at Harry Potter jokes. And I know, and it's imprinted in my soul, that I'll never be a muggle again.

Don't mind me, just crying my eyes out.

This was WAY better than I remember it being, and I remember it being pretty darn good. J.K. Rowling is a writing goddess and I can't believe how much foresight and planning went into this series. She already hints at the horcruxes and many other things in this book that don't show up until much later. Definitely one of my favorites in the series (but I say that about all of them)!

Seriously, don't read this review if you haven't read the books.

The biggest compliment I can think to give an 870 page book is that I wish it had been longer. I wish this had been longer.

This book has always been my favorite in the series. Up until it, Harry’s story had been filled with light. Sure, there were some tough parts earlier on, and while it's true that some darkness crept into the ending of the previous installment, for the most part, that was a pretty happy book compared to this. Ron got over his jealousy, the school eventually got behind Harry as a Champion, and good still triumphed over evil. Our hero surmounted impossible odds in the Triwizard Tournament and then managed to escape Voldemort, yet again, and warn the wizarding world of his return.

And then BAM!

The beginning of this book hits you in the face. Where you expect Harry to be in the know, he’s in the dark, where you expect The Daily Prophet to be filled with stories about the ministry pursuing Voldemort, there’s only silence, where you expect excitement about returning to Hogwarts there is only frustration and angst. And you know what? You get it, you frigging get it, man.

Because you were with Harry when he faced Voldemort and his Death Eaters alone, you stood beside him as the shades of his parents appeared from the tip of his enemy’s wand and helped save his life. And when he made it back to safety, you were just as dumbfounded as he was when the minister of magic refused to believe him, refused to believe Dumbledore.

So how dare they? How dare they let him rot, alone, in a house full of people who hate and ridicule him, while the murderer of his parents begins to rebuild his army? How dare they feed him snippets like “We can’t tell you anything about what we’ve been doing, and we’ve been doing A LOT. But don’t worry, we’ll see you soon, we just can’t tell you when”? As if he hasn’t been through enough. If anyone has the right to know what’s going on, it’s Harry. Doesn’t anyone KNOW him like we do? Or do they just think that they know what’s best for him better than he does?

And that’s part of the genius of this installment. This book grows up. Where the previous four could be labeled as children’s stories, this one cannot. There are so many hard lessons and difficult themes in this, ones that a child’s mind cannot fully grasp. Gone are the heroes, gone are the happy endings. This book teaches you that adults aren’t the perfect protectors you thought they were. Sirius isn’t infallible. James Potter isn’t infallible. Albus frigging Dumbledore isn’t infallible. None of them are. None of them are even fully good. And come to find out, those you thought were fully evil might not be either. This book introduces you to shades of grey, and each revelation seems to hit you harder than the last.

Normally, I hate angst. This is mostly because I find the vast majority of what I see these days to be a sorry excuse to lengthen a story or a shoddy attempt to distract a reader from glaring issues. Trying to cover up weak characterization? Add some angst! Want to hide those holes in your plot? Add some angst!

The only type of angst I can stand is believable angst. Rowling delivers on this. And that’s one of the many reasons that I love this book. There are a lot of other reasons, Fred and George’s badassery, Ginny Weasley finding her voice and becoming a character in her own right, the undiluted rage that coursed through my body every time I read a scene that included Delores Umbridge, the incredible courage and honesty of Hermione Granger, the loyalty of Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom coming into his own, the failed Occlumency lessons (I WILL ALWAYS HATE SNAPE) and the way the entire school ended up doing exactly what the sorting hat suggested at the beginning of the year and banded together as one against the ministry’s interference.

I even loved the ending. YES, I SAID IT! And do you know why? Because life isn’t sunshine and roses and you don’t always get to say goodbye to those you love. You don’t get the sense that Sirius’s death was a righteous one. You don’t get resolution. He didn’t make some grand sacrifice to save the lives of many others. He died taunting the bad guys, smiling at them, egging them on as though he was still that ego-inflated teenager you glimpsed through the pensieve. And then you find out that it was all for nothing. That there were so many ways that it could have been avoided. How do you deal with that? The best you can, I guess.

So while I don’t necessarily "enjoy" this book as much as I do the others, it remains my favorite in the series for the reasons I listed above.

My original review was a comparison of sorts between Harry Potter and Twilight. However, this is stupid as the two are incomparable. Honestly, its not even worth discussing. Its not just that Twilight doesn't come close, it is the fact that Harry Potter transcends other similar works. Its peerless. To quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction: It "ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport."

There was a day when I thought I needed to defend Harry Potter, in the midst of the now dead Twilight craze, and you can see that below in what was my original review. It is a testament to the power of this series, that while various other franchises (Twilight, Hunger Games) have surged into popularity and then faded, Harry Potter remains unwaveringly strong after nineteen years. It is clear readers hold just as much admiration for these books as they always have. Time has not dimmed that.
I will, one day, write an essay about what these books mean to me. Eternal, this is the one that started it all.

Original review (circa 2010)
A note in regard to the on-going Potter vs Twilight debate:
Go ahed, tell me Twilight is better.
Tell me that James is scarier than Voldemort,
That the Cullens are a better family than the Weasly's
That Edward is cooler than Harry,
and Bella is smarter than Hermione.
Tell me that Stephenie Meyer is more talented than J.K. Rowling.

Go ahead,
I dare you.

Those who think the topic of Harry Potter or Twilight is worth debating and arguing over,
are utterly stupid.

Quite frankly-this book is amazing.

I'm not sure why, but this one took me completely by surprise. I was expecting this installment to be mainly filler to get us to the Deathly Hallows, but so much happened here that I must have forgotten from the movie. The Half-Blood prince was considerably darker than the previous 5 books, and I just adore how this series has progressed and grown just like most of its readers have. Obviously I knew what the big reveal was prior to finishing the book due to my viewing the films before, but it didn't take away from the experience the novel had to offer. I have this nervous lump in my throat knowing that the next book is the final one, but am simultaneously excited to finally read what the films surely have left out surrounding the conclusion of the series.

I really liked this. Loosely based on the books by Meg Cabot, Princess Diaries is a charming, if somewhat uneven film, though it does boast a spirited and lovely-looking Anne Hathaway in the title role. Though the film does belong to Julie Andrews as her grandmother, the wonderful actress who brought us classics such as Mary Poppins and Sound of Music. Hector Elizondo is also fun as Joe. The film has some lovely locations and costumes, and the two actresses are well supported by some very talented co-stars, such as the lady who played the bitchy Lana. The film also has a feel-good nature about it, that just adds to the film's appeal. However, the film isn't without its flaws. The story had an oft-tendency to become predictable, and the script while very funny on the most part, had some clichés here and there. There were some scenes that were a little, and that word I am putting a lot of emphasis on, slow and could have been developed a little more. On the whole, and I genuinely mean this, a charming, likable, if not entirely successful film. 7.5/10 Bethany Cox.