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By Cole Smithey
‘Harry Potter and the
Order of the Phoenix’
Movie Trailer
Just as Daniel Radcliffe has
matured as an actor, the fifth
Harry Potter franchise installment
has graduated in scope toward
a movie capable of entertaining
adults and children alike. After
so much critical hullabaloo about
“darkening up” the films, British
director David Yates (“The Girl
In The Café”) takes the
reins of J.K. Rowling’s politically
pertinent storyline rendered by
screenwriter Michael Goldenberg
(“Contact”) that errs on the side
of drama over comedy. Harry’s
days of coming-of-age are officially
over when he becomes the ambivalent
leader of a revolution at Hogwarts
after an opportunist Professor
Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton
– “Vera Drake”) is appointed to
usurp power. Yates tosses in dashes
of snappy thematic touches from
films like “1984,” “Brazil” and
even “The Exorcist,” to create
a subtext-rich, visual palate
for a narrative that compartmentalizes
sentimentality into a handheld
crystal ball.
The action kicks off with a
gothic tone as caliginous storm
clouds interrupt a playground
confrontation between Harry and
his ridiculing cousin Dudley.
The inclement weather forebodes
the arrival of two Dementors (death
angels, if you will) that chase
Harry and Dudley into a tunnel
where they commence sucking the
life force from the two boys.
Harry skillfully dispatches the
vile creatures with his trusty
wand, but soon pays a toll when
a talking envelope arrives from
the Ministry of Magic announcing
his expulsion from Hogwarts’ school
for practicing magic in the presence
of a Muggle. Alastor Moody (Brendan
Gleeson) arrives to spirit Harry
away by broom to the dingy secret
headquarters for the Order of
the Phoenix where Sirius Black
(Gary Oldman) blesses his Godson’s
intention to continue fighting
Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes)
with a knowing wink. But first,
Harry must endure and defeat an
inquisition within the blackened
corridors of the Ministry of Magic
where Hogwarts headmaster Albus
Dumbledore defends Harry’s disbelieved
story about Voldemort’s recent
return.
Harry doesn’t realize that his
personal persecution is about
to extend to his classmates under
the fake smile of Hogwarts’ new
professor of the Dark Arts, Ms.
Umbridge. In a running gag consistent
with the evaporation of America’s
articles of its constitution,
Ms. Umbridge begins posting an
increasing list of limitations
on the students while firing trusted
staff members such as the daffy
Sybil Trelawney (Emma Thompson).
After replacing the student’s
practical textbook on magic with
an elementary manual, Ms. Umbridge
shows off her torturing talents
by privately making Harry write
“I must not tell lies” with blood
ink that comes from the flesh
of his left hand. The openly political
coup that Imelda Staunton’s divisive
character commits establishes
the Ministry’s control of the
school by stealing liberty right
out from under the nose of its
well-intentioned staff, including
Dumbledore.
It’s in this turn of events
that Harry convenes freedom-fighting
magic classes for his appropriately
named “Dumbledore’s Army.” Ultimately
the magic lessons primarily serve
to prepare Harry for an inevitable
battle against Voldemort and his
freaky assistants Lucius Malfoy
(Jason Isaacs) and Bellatrix Lestrange
(Helena Bonham Carter). The clandestine
displays of wizardry allow for
some enjoyable montages of wand
waving that pave the way for Harry
to share an extended kiss with
heartbreaker Cho Chang (Katie
Leung).
You get the sense that “Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”
is the culmination of efforts
from a group of highly talented
and rapidly aging actors who have
more at stake this time around.
Every performance from such notables
as Michael Gambon, Gary Oldman,
Alan Rickman and from the ever-surprising
Imelda Staunton, carries an added
dimension of personal significance.
With David Yates already in pre-production
on the next Potter movie (“Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”)
it seems that the franchise may
finally have arrived at its balance.
Although marred by some inept
editing by Mark Day, “The Order
of the Phoenix” is the first of
the series to resound as a multifaceted
narrative that understands its
own intentions. CV
‘Transformers’
Movie Trailer
Stories of Michael Bay’s shouting
fits during the filming of “Transformers”
have spread around Hollywood,
and the blockbuster director’s
outsized sense of everything finds
its level on-screen with massive
machine ultra-violence that’s
bloodless if not deafeningly loud.
Amid a plethora of shameless product
placements for American car companies,
and a certain toy manufacturer,
lies a bare-bones story about
high school junior Sam Witwicky
(Shia LaBeouf) on a mission to
get his first car and start dating
hot chics, namely one Mikaela
Banes (Megan Fox). Sam realizes
his Steven Spielberg-approved
“upper-middle-class” dream and
much more when he purchases a
rusty ’70s Camaro that conceals
a transforming alien robot called
Bumblebee. As fate would have
it, Sam is hot on the alien robot
go-to list as the great-grandson
of an Arctic explorer who retrieved
a frozen gigantic evil robot called
Megatron (leader of the Decepticons)
along with a cube of “raw power”
called an “Allspark” that the
bots badly want. Endless noisy
chase sequences and city-leveling
titan clashes attend the CGI masturbation
between good and bad colossal
robots, as if there were a difference.
“Transformers” is designed as
an insider movie made to order
for fans of the ’80s- era cartoon,
toys, videogames and comic books
about Autobots and Decepticons,
two opposing gangs of gnarly metal-morphing
robots that expand exponentially
from cars, planes and tractor
trailers into massive metal gladiators.
Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter
Cullen) is the good-guy leader
of the Autobots, who speaks in
a condescending God voice intoning
theme-line ultimatums and platitudes
that might impress 10-year-olds,
but could send cringes through
adults concerned about the potential
brainwashing effect on their children.
Rhetorical sloganeering stems
from a pro-war bent that’s supported
by the film’s parallel subplot,
set in Qatar where U.S. military
forces fight a losing battle against
Decepticons concealed as helicopters
or as giant reticulated metal
scorpions capable of adapting
the weapons being used against
them. The familiar sports maxim
“no pain, no gain” is changed
into an often repeated “no sacrifice,
no victory” adage that carries
a higher grade of zealotry. When
an armed fighter tells Sam, “You’re
a soldier now,” it’s agonizingly
clear that the filmmakers are
intent on gearing child audiences
toward combat, although it’s unclear
who or what they might be fighting.
As in “The Last Mimzy,” an entire
family is hauled off to the pokey
by a Homeland Security-styled
team. In this case, it’s Sam’s
mom and dad that are aimlessly
arrested by John Turturro as the
goofball Agent Simmons. The film’s
poster tagline, “Protect / Destroy”
resonates with America’s oxymoronic
national and foreign policy. And
the story devolves into an urban
battle climax where civilian causalities
invisibly pile up beneath tons
of rubble. For our trouble, we
are anesthetized to the violence
with plenty of bombastic music
and a fusillade of crashing sounds
albeit sans the screams of any
wounded victims.
There are plenty of racist and
sexist jabs interspersed throughout
with dialogue about “bros before
hos,” and Sam’s car freshener
spelling out “Bee-otch.” On Air
Force One, a Bush-like President
asks a female assistant to “wrangle
him up some ding dongs.” Jon Voight
slums as a Secretary of Defense
John Keller who wants us to know
that the robots are “way too smart
for the Iranians.”
Even as a big spectacle popcorn
movie, “Transformers” comes across
as dumb-as-a-stump for all of
its idiotic robot characterizations
that make Jar Jar Binks (“Star
Wars: Episode I - The Phantom
Menace”) sound like a genius by
comparison. It’s a sickening force-feeding
commercial frenzy to sell cars,
toys and war in the same breath
that it pawns itself off as “cinema.”
This is not cinema. This is acid
kool-aid for children. Don’t drink
it. CV
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