when your mind's made up there's no point trying to change it

Round-up:

Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End
Enjoyed it, certainly much more than the last one, but overall I'm glad that whole thing's over with.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
At last a really good, though not great, movie has been made out of this series. Why did it take five tries to get it right? It helps that it comes from my favorite book of the series, but the filmmakers' achievements shouldn't be ignored. This was the first time in a Harry Potter film that I actually got the sense that magical combat was still combat: frenetic, messy, fast, and dangerous. Also, I don't know why I never picked up on this before, but the movie made clear the parallels between the Ministry of Magic's refusal to acknowledge the approaching storm and the British government's ignorance about the Nazi menace in the 1930s. Which then draws a parallel between the greatest hero in modern British history (Churchill) and the greatest in modern British literature (Dumbledore). Or perhaps I'm getting to wonky, but it's marvelously compelling stuff.

Once
The best thing I've seen in a movie theater in a long time (or at least since the last time I said that, about Children of Men). I like it when movies give me chills. So glad it was an Irish film; it's all too easy to see what Hollywood might have done with the same material (and probably will, *sigh*). Anyway, there's a great soundtrack here too, of course.

Live Free Or Die Hard
It's been a while, so we might be excused for forgetting how much we enjoyed watching John McClane get the shit kicked out of him and keep on ticking and keep on cracking wise to boot. What a fun reminder. So far it's the summer's most satisfying popcorn fare, ridiculously over-the-top but with a premise just plausible enough to actually be frightening. It does make me nostalgic, though, for the time when terrorists just wanted to break into a safe full of bearer bonds in some nondescript office building somewhere or at worst take a nice jet and a bunch of cash to Fiji (I forget what they wanted in Die Hard III, which was filmed from a rejected Lethal Weapon script and just doesn't count as a real John McClane story). The world is either scarier now or at least as scary as it was during the Cold War; either way it's more chaotic and less predictable, and Hollywood, if still predictable, is doing its darnedest to at least reflect the chaos.

Transformers
Not more than meets the eye, but a fun ride for a couple of hours at any rate. A lot of the silly family stuff should have been cut, and (!) the action scenes are for the most part completely incoherent, which is a massive complaint for a movie like this, because without good action scenes what's the point. But still, it's giant robots fighting other giants robots. Oh, and they're from outer space. Hee. Michael Bay should really stick to this kind of stuff and not try to make real movies like Pearl Harbor.

Editors, An End Has A Start
Well, nobody can really accuse them of sounding like Interpol anymore. It's a grand album, and by "grand", I mean "grandiose", like they've been listening to a little Coldplay and a lot of Doves. The result is a good one, even if singer Tom Smith is straying slightly into murky territories of self-importance (the vocals are mixed a notch high, too, nowhere near the level of Zooropa but still noticeable), but it just doesn't have the charge of the first record. I'll listen to it a lot, no doubt, but it won't be vying for album of the year in my book like the first one did. Here's the title track.

Interpol, Our Love To Admire
In my experience, Interpol records take some figuring out before they dig themselves in under my skin. I haven't quite figured this one out yet, but I'm vaguely optimistic about it so far.

Stars, In The Bedroom Before The War
It's a sweet-natured record and a pleasant enough listen, as should be expected. But it doesn't have the Heart-like euphoria of a band discovering its true essence. I don't see it gaining much traction in my playlist.

The New Pornographers, Challengers
Yes I know, I've already said this. But the record hasn't gotten old yet, so I repeat myself: album of the summer, plain and simple.