Day: September 26, 2006

One look at this shot from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros., 7.13.07) and it’s obvious that Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have reached full biological maturity. They’re contractually obliged, of course, to portray “Harry” and “Hermione” in the movie, but given the formulaic rigidity and corporate salivation behind this franchise, any and all implications of what being in your mid-teens inevitably involves will almost certainly be ignored/repressed. Which means that the fanciful archness of the franchise is about to intensify a bit more.

Radcliffe and Watson in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Radcliffe, 17, is due to play the lead role in Equus (which requires full-frontal nudity) on the London stage next spring, and Watson, 16, posed last year for a couple of fashion mags and has almost certainly been galavanting about as girls her age always do. But if the Pheonix dialogue and/or plot in contains so much as a whiff of what’s stirring within these two in real life, I think we’ll all plotz en masse .
The Potter series is selling a lot of tickets and making a lot of people rich, but it’s a completely dead charade. The vitality has been leaking out for some time now. Alfonso Cuaron‘s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (’04) is the last one that half-mattered, and even with that one I was getting very tired of watching the same old shite. Mike Newell’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was another laborious slog, only more so. Now the series is down to hiring the likes of David Yates to direct.
On top of which Radcliffe has turned out to be Mickey Rooney, as this group portrait indicates.

“‘[My parents] didn’t like the class system, and the royal family is the pinnacle of the class system. I was brought up very anti-monarchist. I was a bit cheeky, a little uppity [in my younger days] about why the queen won’t smile. Does it hurt her to smile? Isn’t that what she’s there for?’ ” — Helen Mirren talking about her much-admired performance in Stephen Frears‘ The Queen (Miramax, 9.30) with Newsweek‘s Barbara Kantrowitz.

“I’ve finally seen Tom Tykwer‘s Perfume in a plex in my home town of Augsburg, Germany , and I’m even more convinced that it will go the route of The Name of the Rose, which was a blockbuster in Europe ($120 million) while earning a miniscule $7 million in the U.S.,” says a former exhibitor who runs a site about box-office in Germany and elsewhere.

“Just keep in mind that Perfume has so far grossed $31.8 million in five European markets in just 11 days.
“Even though it feels a bit lengthy in parts, the movie never feels like its actual length of 150 minutes , give or take.
“If Dreamamount decides to push an Academy campaign, the camera work, art design, costumes and the score are definitely Oscar-nomination material. And Dustin Hoffman is wonderful as Guiseppe Baldini, and the unknown Ben Whishaw a pleasant surprise. (Only Alan Rickman suffers due to his role not being meaty enough.)
“But I wonder if the flagrant nudity and very sensual tone [in the film] and an unforgettable opening scene that led to a local woman fainting in a nearby theatre — a scene depicting Whishaw’s birth in a filthy Parisian fish market full of fish innards and other disgusting stuff (you can almost smell the bad air) — will result in resistance among U.S. moviegoers.
“Not to mention the strange ending, which is based more or less on the novel. I’m just wondering if the mainstream American audience will rather feel confused than satisfied
“I’m also wondering if the U.S. one-sheet is in synch with American tastes. It (rightfully) hints at nudity and I do not recall that many U.S. one-sheets do this, probably for good reason. For Americans the movie is artsy with nudity for sure, for European tastes it√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s a mixture of artsy and mainstream — the nudity doesn√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢t matter at all.”