Friday Night Flick – July 11th, 2007

Published by Jeff Leins on: July 11th, 2007

Another mid-week release and another mid-week “Friday Night Flick” to bring you the releases coming to a theater near you.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (7/11) – Another adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s book series and another school year for Harry Potter. I guess I have to give them credit for keeping a series interesting this long, even though the characters for the most part have been developed and the initial magic is gone. The fifth in the series thus far, the movie is supposedly more dark as Harry forms “Dumbledore’s Army” to fight the evil forces of Voldemort (Yeah I said it).

Since the last one, the news hasn’t really been about this movie, but about what everyone was doing other than Harry Potter.

Daniel Radcliffe has been performing in Equus, a West End play where he appears naked on stage with a horse or something. I don’t know, I tend to “steer” clear of naked seventeen-year-old theater news.

Emma Watson has been trying to shed her good-girl Hermione image by drinking underage. And that’s about it. Her acting career so far has consisted of Harry Potter 1-5 and will continue through to 7, despite her publicly considering leaving the franchise only to hold out for more money. And, of course, the strange “is she legal yet?” countdown continues for creepy men who will lose interest faster than you can say Olsen and twins.

Rupert Grint (Ron) still needs people to put (Ron) after his name. He starred in a movie last year called Driving Lessons, which no one saw.

And most recently the news has come from interviews with the cast, which is mostly a lot of “tee hee, it’s your first on-screen kiss.”

Director David Yates plans to stick around for Harry Potter 6, which starts filming in September.

Captivity – The latest in a recent barrage of horror films dubbed as “torture porn,” Captivity is about a fashion model (Elisha Cuthbert) and some random dude that are abducted and tortured by a sadistic psycho. It even comes from the same mold as the others, resembling the plot of Saw and the disturbing scenes of its sequels and the Hostel pair.

The main publicity surrounding this movie has been its head-to-head battle with the MPAA over four-paned billboards (see below) that made their way onto the streets of New York and Los Angeles. Public outrage over the “disgusting” images caused After Dark Films to pull the advertisements they say were put up “by accident.” The neighborhood watch strikes again.

The bad press has brought a lot more buzz to an otherwise throwaway horror film, but has had a direct effect on its release date. Because of the rating period suspension the movie received from the MPAA, the date had to be pushed back. It was originally slated for a mid-May release, then pushed to late June. Even the trailers all show “June 22″ as the big day, but a deal between the two studios put 1408 out earlier and Captivity on the coveted horror date, Friday the 13th.

Click on the picture to see a larger version

Interview (NY/LA) – This will most likely be a sleeper quality film (like Once) in a string of huge releases this summer. Steve Buscemi directs and stars in an homage to the 2003 original by Theo van Gogh, and is oddly paired with Sienna Miller. Basically in a showcase of two respectable actors, the two share most of the screen time in a story about a reporter sentenced to interviewing a popular soap actress.

Talk to Me (limited) – The Academy has been known to give Oscars to filmmakers for collective works of brilliance, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Don Cheadle earns a nomination for his amazing work in an otherwise decent Reign Over Me and this critically acclaimed film. Talk to Me is inspired by the true story of Ralph “Petey” Greene, a talk show host and political activist in the 1960s.