Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) starring Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Helena Bonham Carter. Directed by David Yates

Dark times are brewing, Harrys uncle, Sirius Black, is dead and Lord Voldemort has now come out of his hiding, causing havoc onto the world. Even the muggle world is under attack as the Phoenix Order tries its best to prevent the Dark Lord from prevailing.

The sixth chapter of the Harry Potter series has now come to the big screen. I truly enjoyed all of the books but HP6 is a bit different than the others. Unlike the rest, there is no real clear “event” happening at Hogwarts during the year, instead the book focuses a lot of it’s time on explaining the history of how an orphan called Tom Riddle, became the evil Lord Voldemort.

This put the director and his crew with a difficult task, as there really aren’t that many big events, that usually translates very well to the big screen, in it. It is impossible to fit the whole book into a 2.5h movie and so, the past of Tom Riddle were cut very short.

Instead, they tried to spice things up with sequences of action that wasn’t even in the book, yet oddly opted to leave out one of the bigger action sequences that actually were in the book.

All in all, I can’t help but being a bit disappointed by how it turned out and the movie is very slow and uneventful. It’s still worth going to see, but they can do better than this.

I must add one thing though. The movie is gorgeous. The lighting, theming, camera views everything is just a visual treat. I found myself actually looking at that parts more than the movie after a while, although, even that got a bit boring after a while.

I’ve been torn back and forth with a review, and had it not been for the visual perfection I’d give it a 2. Now it saves a bit of grace and leaves with a 3.

Other reviews: DN, SVD, The Spill

Here DN claims that the Internet piracy has stayed low after IPRED was introduced a few months ago, quoting such “reliable” sources as IFPI and other organizations who wanted the IPRED. Because they have such insight in how much traffic there actually is?

Then we have a this, from Cisco, the world leader of Internet communications, who claims that traffic and file sharing is already up and well beyond what is was before IPRED and that the “long-lasting” effect that was spoken of before, has been nowhere to be seen.

So, who do you believe? Since Cisco hasn’t really got any personal stake at all in this (well, besides that they profit from high-traffic) I choose to believe them. It’s not like IFPI and so on has a good track record.

A almost scary thought is that someone read the Cisco article, thought “oh, this is not good” and felt the need for more propaganda and called a trusty journalist. Call my cynical, but I don’t think it’s too far from the truth.

More on this: DN

Michael Owen going to Manchester United. I had heard the rumours, but shrugged them off as nonsense. Michael, a graduate of Liverpool Academy, wouldn’t go to the arch nemesis, would he? Well, I guess money talks.

Then again, from what I read, he’s not getting that much either. Which puzzles me even further why he’d go to United.

Yes, it’s just a game, but just these are the clubs were just 1 player has had a direct transfer between since the end of World War II. There has been players who played for both clubs, no doubt. Not someone so intimately tied to either club as Michael has been.

Now, I’ve been a fan of Owen, and still think he has a few good years of football left and can he stay fit and in form, he’ll be an addition to any team.

It’s going to be interesting to see what reception he gets from the Kop when United comes to Anfield in October. I doubt it’ll be unanimous cheers.

You were a genius and in my view the most influential artist of all time. They compare your life, career and death to Elvis and it’s easy to see why. Both of you were the icons of your generation and died too soon. Some still refuse to accept Elvis’ death, and some might do the same with yours.

You didn’t live without controversy and we will now never know what was truth and not, but I never really cared too much about the rumours. It was the artist and songwriter I cared about.

I think everyone who loved your music was waiting for you. Hoping, yearning, praying for another spark of genius from you. Few can match your number of hit songs and I think we all wished there were more in you. Many, including me, hoped that the concerts coming in July would be, if not a rebirth, but at least that final spark.

Now your candle has burned out, leaving a whole world in mourning. But the light of your candle will be just as bright on our retinas as they sun today for a very long time to come. For me, it’ll be there for as long as I can use my eyes.

Michael Jackson may be dead, but the King of Pop lives on forever.

–

CNN DN

The Propsal (2009) starring Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Malin Åkerman & Betty White. Directed by Anne Fletcher

I’m not a big fan of romantic comedies. I don’t hate them, but lets just say, I rarely pay to go see them on the big screen. But, when it’s for free – why not?

One thing that sparked my interest was that it starred Ryan Renolds. Maybe not all that famous to most, nor me, but I saw him in another romantic comedy that I really enjoyed – Definitely, Maybe.

So, The Proposal. It stars Sandra Bullock as Margaret Tate, who’s an Editor and pretty much a horrible boss for Ryans character, Andrew.

The problem is, Margaret is Canadian, and getting deported. So, without asking Andrew, she decides they are getting married, so she can stay in USA. A government official is onto this fraud, so to get to know each other, Margaret follows Andrew home for his grannys 90s birthday, in Alaska.

Now, you all see how this is going and I tell you right away that there are no big surprises along the way. But, it’s all done fairly nicely and there are som good laughs in along the way.

There’s a very good supporting cast with familiar faces all over, including an old favorite if mine, Betty White from the Golden Girls. A minor part for Swedish actress Malin Åkerman is also squeezed in.

So, is it worth your money? Well, if you like these kind of movies, you are most likely going to enjoy it. If you don’t, well, it is a bit above the average I think, so why not make the Mrs happy and follow her to it.

Another ignorance lies in that they actually think they can win in the long run over the Pirates. Heck, we can’t stop real life sea pirates still after 300 years of technology evolution. The problem is that the big companies stil haven’t learned what a beautiful opportunity the Internet is. They still see it as a threat, which will make them lose money. As they do today, that’s true, but it doesn’t have to be like that. The success of iTunes is clearly evidence of this.
But we need more and easier access to cull the Pirates, not laws and hunters. The biggest reason that Piracy went away in the old days, was the terms was improved enough for everyone, so that the need for Piracy decreased, not by using Pirate Hunters.

The Kings of Comeback almost did it again. 3-1 down after the first leg the mission was easily defined, but deemed impossible to do: score 3 goals at Stamford Bridge. They did that, scored 4 even, but also conceded 4.

It all started with the worst news – Gerrard won’t play. But, as anyone cheering for Liverpool can tell you; he’s the best player they have, but he’s not everything. I must confess that I was very sceptical to playing Lucas instead. He’s far from my favorite, but he’s improved of the last few weeks, and did very well today.

But, once the ball was in play Liverpool showed the determination that so lacked at Anfield and after 30 minutes Liverpool was 2-0 up. One from a penalty and one from, well, a gift from Cech. However, the last 15 was worrying as Chelsea played better.
In the start of 2nd half it was Reinas turn to repay the kidness from Cech, and gifted Chelsea with a goal. Then a stunning free-kick (I’ll return to freekicks later) Alex equalized. To make it even worse, Lampard made it 3-2 with 15 minutes to go. It was over. Or not?

Two quick goals from Lucas and Kuyt suddenly made it 4-3! The game lived again.

I said I’d get back to freekicks and this has to be said. Offical stats say 29-14 to Chelsea in freekicks. Was Liverpool twice has foul as Chelsea? Without a doubt no. What happened before the 4-4 goals speaks clearly of this. A ball comes up for a easy header for Carragher, yet he’s pushed from behind by Drogba. Liverpool did the same 30 minutes before and it gave a freekick that Alex scored from, yet nothing now. Instead, the ball went out to a throw and they score. Sure, not directly related to the goal, but this was just one so many similar situations, where it was ok for contact from Chelsea, but not from Liverpool.

Still, this can’t be blamed on the ref, but instead really silly mistakes (again!) and overall Chelsea deserved their spot in the semis. Especially in the first game they played far better football than Liverpool.

And truth be said, who would really want to face Barcelona with their current form?

Read full report here (in Swedish) or here (in English).

Today I feel better. Torres first goal was really something magnificent. Maybe not the goal of the year but really something spectacular. Truth be said, Aggers 3-0 wasn’t too shabby either.

I didn’t actually watch Uniteds win at Sunderland, but that just gives me an opportunity make it up as I see fit. Nonetheless, they were once again saved by the kid Macheda. A tip for him; if you get an invite to a cake and balloon party in the Liverpool area – say no.

One more good thing happened – Bolton showed that you can score 3 goals in one game at Stamford Bridge. Just don’t let in 4.

She’s been in jail for 28 years, but in total there’s been 40 years since she was in Sweden. She can hardly call this home anymore and she only wants to come here to finally get out of jail, not because it’s home.

No, the US can keep her. As the daughters of the Police Officer said, when Annika complained that she had only spoken to her mother three times during her years in prison – how often have they talked to their father in the last 28 years?

Don’t get me wrong, I do think you should pay for yourself. But there are limits to what you can do to hunt the thieves. What really shocks me, are reports on that when a lawsuit is won against a pirate, the money doesn’t even go to the musician, but to the organisation. Just proves the case that the biggest criminals are the pirate hunters, not the actual pirates.

In Sweden they’ve managed to lobby an acceptance for the IPRED law. In media there are a lot of debate about this and a lot of confusion and lies. There’s an private  organisation called AntiPiratByrån (Anti Pirate Bureau) that represents the music and movie industry. They were the ones who made the first suit after IPRED kicked in April 1st, just hours after courts opening that day. I thought at the time it sounded odd, how they could have gathered evidence so quickly and now it’s become clear that they’ve apparently used some illegal methods themselves. They’ve gone to a private FTP server and downloaded content. Since there’s no way they could have legally accessed that FTP without either hacking, impersonating or bribing someone with account details, it’s clear they, again, put themselves above the law.

Like the old witch hunt, all cases are very weak in the evidence part and a crusade for a group of people who don’t share your views. Then it was strong women who refused to accept that they were less worth than a man. Now it’s the youth, who wants music to be free.

And lets not forget, if pirating hadn’t been around we wouldn’t have had stuff like TV-shows streamed from Network sites, iTunes, Spotify, MP3-players and so on. Probably not the Internet as popular as it is today either. Worth thinking about.