Harry Potter Christmas Marathon

Every time I watch the Harry Potter movies I receive a special feeling that spreads throughout my loins, and no I’m not talking about being turned on by Emma Watson (in the last movie of course), but instead I talk about the equally important feeling of Christmas!  Because each movie chronicles an entire year at Hogwarts, it’s pretty inevitable that there will be a Christmas sequence within each film, and within each of those sequences we witness the immortal words of “Happy Christmas Harry!” and “Happy Christmas Ron!”  Till this day (literally) every Christmas morning I witness, I feel that one of the boxes I open is going to contain within it an invisibility cloak, which I can then use to spy on the Girl’s loc…. People shopping at the grocery store.  Because I’m watching all the movies in chronological order, I feel it is my duty to rank the films from 8 to 1, with 8 being my least favorite film and 1 being the one I would like to watch while enjoying a fine cup of pumpkin juice. 

8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:

Let it be known that I love all the Harry Potter films, but for some reason the storyline in this one seems like it doesn’t really matter.  Of course I do love the scene where Edward Cullen dies, but even the death of that sparkling vampire can’t redeem the movie from that scene where we witness a wizard/emo/gothic/rock band performing a song about elves.

7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

I know this is the first one in the series, and according to a majority of you nerds it’s the most “Loyal” to the book, but there are parts of this movie that seem severely dry.  It’s the part in the end where Harry kills the stuttering professor by touching his face with his hands “filled with love” (no pun intended) that weirds me out the most.  Seriously?  Voldemort you are a terrible nemesis not to have thought of Harry Potter’s “Lovely Hands” sooner!

6. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

A huge step up from the first movie, Chamber of Secrets is filled with more action and dark violence than the previous film. The 2^nd year at Hogwarts was a doosie that included a large battle with man-eating spiders, a whomphing willow with a bad case of turret’s syndrome and a large snake roughly the size of Rosie O’Donnell. 

5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I can honestly say that I’m pleased with all the movie endings in the Harry Potter series, but if I was to pick the Potter film with the absolute best finale then Prisoner of Azkaban takes the cake.  This was the Potter film that showed to me that from now on the story lines were going to be much darker, with even bigger consequences for the bolt-scarred hero.  The movie concludes with a showdown between Professor Snape, Professor Lupin, Sirius Black, Peter Petigrew and Harry Potter’s Posse, and it is an awesome sequence that reminds me of a more depressing/darker version of the showdown that takes place in the Good the Bad and the Ugly. 

4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Oh this movie, finally the legendary director David Yates begins taking over the series up until the final film, and what a film it was.  Despite the fact that I hated the Umbridge character to the utmost (which apparently according to Potter nerds she was even worse in the book), I thought this movie was witty and an artistic good time.  What I loved most about this is that you really start seeing Potter and his friends struggle with hormones and trying to find love in High School life.  This is also when Hogwarts starts to seem just as ordinary as any other public High School in the nation, with girls wooing over boys and the boys trying to suppress their horny urges that they want to share with the other witches. 

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Oh the beginning of the end!  I feel recently with the ending of every movie series, filmmakers try to prolong the endings by splitting the final movies into two segments, which initially annoys me because I can get pretty impatient, but then I love it because I think to myself “instead of one movie I get two?!  This pleases me!”  Much like the saying “deep breath before the plunge”, Part 1 of the finale is just a whole mess of drama with the wizard and his two friends, and you see their lives completely torn apart before they all have to nut-up before the final showdown with the bald-albino-Dr. Seuss-character.  If all else fails and you end up not liking this chapter in the series, then you can always remember Harry and his female Cohort make out with each other naked!  Nuff said.

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

How can anyone not like this movie? Unless you are one of those die hard Potter fans that are damn near impossible to please, then you will most likely find this to be an action packed/tear jerker of an ending to a fantastic series.  First of all we get to see Neville Longbuttocks become a Bad-A-Mother-Beep, and we finally witness Ron and Hermione suck face passionately after destroying a whore-crotch… I mean Horcrux.  We all hope that when a series comes to an end, that it ends in such a way that we can all go home happy, like an ending that is gift-wrapped with a bow on top presented directly to the viewer, and I can honestly say that Deathly Hallows Part 2 delivers just that.

1. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

This film remains my favorite because it holds a very special place in my heart, and that’s because Ginny Weasley finally decides to put her big-girl pants on and kiss Harry, because he’s obviously not man enough to do it himself.   To me this section of the story is the mark of when the movies started getting good with regards to both storytelling and artistic direction.  While all the other Harry Potter movies may be entertaining and visually impressive, the Half Blood Prince stands alone with its unique artistic narrative that never seizes to impress, and I’m especially talking about the flashback scenes when Harry sticks his head in Dumbledore’s bowl of liquids…  I’m assuming that it’s some kind of Kool aid, and not filtrate.