Reuters reports that the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, will be released on July 21, 2007. The fifth movie will also be released in July.

It is amazing how successful the Harry Potter series has become. It’s hard to believe that J. K. Rowling would be ending the series for good with this last book. Maybe she will write another series with Harry “all grown up”? Or narrate the stories of another group of students at Hogwarts? I’m sure whatever she writes next will sell many copies. She has a writing style that is simple enough to appeal to kids, and yet there is enough humor and interesting concepts that appeal to adults as well. The books are engaging and easy to read. I would recommend them to anyone who likes fantasy.

The Oscar Nominees for 2006 were announced today. My favorite categories are always Best Picture and Best Music (Score). So, here they are!

Best Picture Nominees:

• Babel
• The Departed
• Letters from Iwo Jima
• Little Miss Sunshine
• The Queen

I have only seen two of the five, The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine. Both were excellent. I’m rooting for The Departed to win though… it was just all around very well done. Great writing, great acting, great directing, and a very interesting story. It received five nominations in total: Best Supporting Actor (Mark Wahlberg), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Picture, and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay).

Best Music (Score) Nominees:

• Babel
• The Good German
• Notes on a Scandal
• Pan’s Labyrinth
• The Queen

I have only seen one of these movies, but as my current favorite soundtrack I’m going for Pan’s Labyrinth. Wonderful movie, and wonderful music to accompany it. The melodies are very haunting and beautiful. Pan’s Labyrinth was nominated for six awards: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Makeup, Best Music (Score), and Best Writing (Original Screenplay). I hope it does very well, and I think it has the potential to do so. Check out my Pan’s Labyrinth Review.

One disappointment is that Children of Men was not nominated for Best Picture. Instead it was only nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay). Children of Men was an incredible movie, and the Cinematography is some of the best I’ve seen. There are some shots which are continuous for at least five minutes at a time. Combined with other techniques, the filming really puts you right there with the characters.

The Oscars will be held on February 27th!

I added a Movie Scripts section to my site, which contains transcripts of complete movie dialog. Check out the following scripts:

• Labyrinth (1986)
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
• The Matrix (1999)
• The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
• The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

I’m still seeing a lot of search requests for characters from the movie Labyrinth (1986) showing up in my stats. So, I’ve gone ahead and added the Labyrinth photos from my previous site into my new Movie Photo Gallery. I will be adding the other movies that I used to feature on my site over the next week or so, including Legend, The Matrix, and Shrek. If you have any requests, let me know and I’ll see what I can do!

My first movie review: Pan’s Labyrinth Review

I had the fortunate opportunity to see Pan’s Labyrinth on Friday at a local theater, in one of only 14 cities playing the film (it will be playing in many more cities on Friday, January 19th). Pan’s Labyrinth is currently showing a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is extremely high. It means that 97% of the reviews gathered from all different sources rated the movie positively. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, and wrote up my own review: Pan’s Labyrinth Review.

I was reading Digg and came across this Scale Model of Helm’s Deep Made Out of Candy (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers). That’s a lot of gummy bears! It looks like it took quite a bit of work, and it’s very impressive.

A blog on the Chicago Tribune announced that a Battlestar Galactica movie (SPOILER ALERT) is in the works, which “may be released between seasons 3 and 4″. If there is a season 4, the movie will probably be released to DVD and aired on Sci-Fi. If not… well let’s not go there. As far as I know, the show is extremely popular, so I think season 4 is almost a given, and the idea of having a movie is incredible. It may not be much more than a two hour episode, but I’ll take as much as I can get.

The rest of the article talks about upcoming storylines. While it may spoil some things, I read the article, and it is more cryptic than anything else. However, if you want to be completely surprised by everything that happens during the rest of season 3, don’t read it. I will say that the interview in the article revealed that the rest of season 3 will take the show in a new direction, just as they did at the end of season 1 and season 2. I can’t wait!

I had recently read that there might be a Stargate SG-1 movie coming out after this final season is over. Well, it looks like there will actually be 2 direct to DVD movies. Yay! An interview with Michael Shanks on IGN has this info and more:

IGN TV: Though there isn’t going to be a next season, there was an announcement that movies would be in the works. Are you set to appear in the movies and is there anything you can tell us about what the movies will center around? I didn’t know if you’d got those scripts yet or not. I know I heard something about filming starting in April and June.

Shanks: I just finished negotiations - I think most of the cast has finished for appearances in movies - as far as I know, you guys by reading stuff on the Internet know as much as I do, because all we knew were we were going to do two movies, and Rob and Brad were going to pull away from the Atlantis franchise and focus on doing these movies - Rob was going to write one and Brad was going to write one. Rob was going to direct one and I think Martin Wood was going to direct the other.

We know the first shoot date of the first movie is April 15th and the second is around June 1st. As much as I know about the story, the first one Rob is writing and directing has to do with wrapping up the Ori storyline, which is the storyline that has taken prominence for the last two years of the show. I don’t know if he is going to wrap it up completely or bring it to some conclusion for the sake of the fans and the franchise, to bring that epic struggle to a close…I don’t know how he is going to do it in two hours but it will be pretty interesting to watch.

And Brad is writing one, as far as I know, is a bit more standalone that will involve some kind of time travel and has something to do with our main mustache twiddling villain Baal doing something in the past that alters…he basically finds a way to lift the stargate from Earth so the Stargate Program never happens, and I imagine the characters will have to go through some process to reset the clock and fix everything over the course of two hours. Quite frankly that is as much as I know. I haven’t even talked to the guys about it. They told us these pitches in September, so I haven’t talked to anyone since then so that could’ve changed overnight, I have no idea. Everybody is very excited to close the book on the show and maybe it will introduce the possibility of continuing the franchise in the DVD format or taking it to another level and boosting it up to a feature film or it just might be on closing the book on it or another spinoff - who knows. There is a lot of potential for the franchise and it would be a shame just for it to end, but it has been a wonderful run.

The interview also discusses a “Women of Sci-Fi” calendar released by Slacktwaddle, a company started by Michael Shanks and Christopher Judge. A “Men of Sci-Fi” calendar is in the works, and will most likely include both Michael Shanks and Christopher Judge.

By now you’ve probably heard of the new fantasy movie coming out today about a Dragon rider… it’s called Eragon. I recently finished reading the book, and I enjoyed it. It is classified as “young adult”, so it is a quick read, meant for younger people. The author, Christopher Paolini, started writing it when he was 15 (his parents helped him publish it a few years later). There have been quite a few criticisms of the book, especially those calling the writing derivative and immature and accusing the author of ripping off Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. They even go so far as to make fun of the title, which is also the name of the main character, stating that it is just one letter different than the word ‘dragon’. To be honest, I agree with the criticisms to a certain extent. I won’t spoil the plot, but instead I’ll just say that it seems very much like Star Wars in a Lord of the Rings setting. Some of the dialog seemed a bit contrived, and I’m not usually critical of books if they have a good plot. However, despite its flaws, I still enjoyed reading it. While the plot wasn’t very original, it wasn’t dull either. There was always something happening to keep my interest and develop the story. I will definitely get the second book (when it’s in paperback).

I was looking forward to seeing the Eragon movie after reading the book, but the movie is getting horrible reviews. I have read that the movie is quite a bit different than the book, which is a shame. I hate it when movie directors and writers stray too far from the original. The Lord of the Rings movies were very well done… they differed from the books only when necessary, while still holding true to the spirit of the books. The Harry Potter movies have also been reasonable transformations from the book. I will probably still see the Eragon movie because I like seeing books that I enjoy portrayed on film.

I just read some news about the Stargate franchise. A third Stargate TV series is in development. Also, although Stargate SG-1 is in its last season, there are two SG-1 movies planned for release in fall of 2007 (probably direct to DVD). Read more on Gateworld.net.

The SG-1 series really took the Stargate world to a new level, with creative writing, likable characters, and great bad guys. I’m disappointed that the SG-1 series is ending, but since Richard Dean Anderson left, it really hasn’t been the same. That’s not to say that I don’t like Mitchell (Ben Browder) and Vala (Claudia Black). They add a new dynamic to the team that turned out better than I thought. However, I would love to see the return of Jack O’Neill in the SG-1 movies. I’m looking forward to seeing how those turn out.

Stargate Atlantis has been better than I thought it would be, primarily due to the likable characters McKay and Sheppard. It will continue on to season four next year. The opening music is also very beautiful, and I’m a sucker for any good soundtrack music. I don’t know if another Stargate series will be successful or not… it definitely needs some good characters, and good writing.