Movie Reviews from Sophie... Who Knows Nothing About Movies

Harry Potter  by itself is an iconic book movie series, but today I will be talking about the first movie in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone . Different from my other movie reviews, I will be talking more about how this movie compares to the book. Warning: Spoilers Ahead! The Philosopher's Stone  starts off with Harry living in his abusive household and learning about him being a wizard. He and the Hogwarts Groundskeeper, Hagrid, go to Diagon Alley, the wizarding shopping street, to buy his supplies for school and anything else he might need to be a wizard. When he gets to Hogwarts, he gets sorted into Gryffindor, one of the four houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Throughout the rest of the movie, he and his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, notice some strange things and eventually find out about the Philosopher's Stone, which they believe one of the professors is trying to steal. In the end, it is Voldemort who...

Spirited Away  is a Studio Ghibli film made by Hayao Miyazaki. It is about a girl named Chihiro and her family when they move to a new town and stumble upon a Bath House for spirits. It is more of a coming-of-age movie, with Chihiro working to free both herself and her parents from the clutches of the leader of the Bath House, Yubaba. Warning! Spoilers Ahead.  Spirited Away  is one of my favorite childhood movies. It begins with Chihiro and her parents driving to their new town, with Chihiro complaining about moving away from her friends. Her father takes a wrong turn along the way and seem to come across an abandoned amusement park and they wander onto it. Chihiro finds it incredibly creepy and sketchy and doesn't want to go look at it, but her parents leave her behind so she, not wanting to be alone, follows. The "amusement park" has food being made, but there is no one around. Her parents decide to eat the food and leave money if no one shows up. Chihiro doesn'...

Mamma Mia!  is a musical about a girl living on a Greek island who invites her three possible fathers to her wedding in hopes that she will find out who it is. It's hilarious, fun, and filled with Abba songs that are so easy to sing (and dance) along to. Warning: Spoilers Ahead! This is one of my all-time favorite movies and I just had to review it because every time I watch it again I see something new that I might have missed before. Mamma Mia!  starts off with Sophie (Hey! That's my name!) sending three letters to Bill Anderson, Harry Bright, and Sam Carmichael. We learn later that one of them is her father (though no one actually knows which one it is), when she and her two best friends, Ali and Lisa, while singing the song "Honey, Honey." The movie goes on, showing us character's Donna Sheridan and her best friends, Rosie and Tanya, as we get to learn them through songs "Money, Money. Money" and "Dancing Queen." It goes through an ...

The Witch  is a horror movie- my least favorite genre. I tend to stay away from horror movies, but this one caught my eye. It is about a family living in New England in the 17th century after they've been kicked out of their Puritan plantation. After their newborn, Samuel, disappears while under the watch of the eldest daughter, Thomasin, they begin to suspect that witchcraft is involved. Warning: Spoilers ahead. Mention of graphic scenes. We, as viewers, see that Sam was  taken by a witch. And (this is graphic) he was basically turned into a mush which the witch then "bathed" in. It was so gross and disturbing to watch, and I debated just not watching it but I stuck it out. Thankfully there were no more scenes like this.  Throughout the movie, bad things keep happening that cause Thomasin's family to believe that she is the witch. Her younger brother, Caleb, also goes missing and gets taken by the actual witch, and because Thomasin was again the only person the...

To All the Boys I've Loved Before  is a heart-warming, romantic comedy that is based off the book, written by Jenny Han. It is the first of three, and it shows Lara Jean Covey, a junior in high school, as she finds herself in a bit of a situation. Warning! Spoilers Ahead. Obviously. Lara Jean tells us in the beginning that she has five very special, very secret, love letters, written to the five people she's liked in her life. They're only for her, that is until her younger sister, Kitty, sends them out in hopes that Lara Jean will find someone to love her. One of the boys is her older sister's ex-boyfriend, one of them is dating her ex-best friend, and the other one that we meet is gay. Through a mess of events that has me, and probably everyone else watching this movie, feeling some severe second-hand embarrassment, Lara Jean is now fake dating Peter Kavinsky, her ex-best friend's now ex-boyfriend, in order to make her jealous and want to get back with Peter. ...