Hogwarts Herald

The Soundtrack of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” with the movie music created by Nicholas Hooper, is now available for download on iTunes.

***WARNING - may contain spoilers***

So, it’s officially out! The fifth movie in the Harry Potter series, “Order of the Phoenix,” officially opens today - The first public screening started at 12 midnight -

It was an extremely difficult task to slice down the text of Book 5 - a book with so much (girth) plot and character development - to fit into a 2 hour film and still move along the story enough to pick up with the next installment. As I’ve read in other reviews, this is definitely a film for fans of the books; the creators took quite a few leaps of faith assuming that their audience is already aware of the back story as they hopped from plot point to plot point.

As I am a big fan of the novels, I did enjoy the movie and the experience of watching the first run of a movie.

The movie beginning was a bit long and “artsy” for the pace of the remainder of the movie - the opening scene shows Harry at a playground being tormented by cousin Dudley but Harry’s anger is quickly overshadowed by the arrival of dementors. The story is set in motion as Harry is forced to use magic in front of muggles to ward off the attack.

The Order of the Phoenix arrives at Privit Drive to rescue Harry and escort him to the Black House in London. I was disappointed in the use of the Black House - I had really enjoyed the scenes in the book that centered there -

Mr. Weasley accompanies Harry to an inquisition at the Ministry of Magic - where Harry is accused of the underage use of magic in front of muggles without cause. Luckily, Harry is cleared of the charges - but he quickly finds out that no one really believes (or wants to believe) that the Dark Lord has returned. The Ministry was well represented - showing the magical world of bureaucracy, even if at it’s worst.

Harry is able to return to Hogwarts, but it is no longer the accepting refuge that he had previously enjoyed. Between his classmates distrust and the Ministry’s attempts to stifle the students’ freedoms (personified in new Professor of the Dark Arts, Delores Umbridge), Harry feels more alone than ever, except, perhaps for his newfound compatriot, Luna Lovegood (a, seemingly, off center Ravenclaw). The movie depicted Professor Umbridge quite well, although Imedla Staunton really never resembles a toad - she’s believable as a blind follower of her superiors/ideals, but she didn’t really have the underlying ugliness that Umbridge had in the book. Luna, on the other hand, was great - her character was my favorite part of the movie.

When it become apparent that the students are going to have to act on their own if they want to continue their practical training of magic - they turn to Harry - as he is the one among them with real experience defending against really dark arts. Dumbledore’s Army is created. These scenes were great - showing the kids learning and practicing the spells, as Umbridge and her minions attempt to thwart their efforts. In the wake, we’re introduced (quite suddenly) to Hagrid’s Giant brother, Dumbledore is dismissed, George and Fred get expelled and Harry and Cho snog.

Through Harry’s new found “gift” of “seeing” the students determine that “you know who” is on the move and attacking the Order (most specifically, Sirus Black) - they journey to the Ministry to save Black and fight the death eaters. The scenes here are entertaining, but a bit scattered; again, a knowledge of the book(s) is invaluable - Sirius is killed by his cousin, Askaban escapee, Bellatrix Lestrange - Harry’s anger is again, quelled by an more dangerous presence - Lord Voldamort. Harry and Dumbledore vanquish the dark lord - but not before he is, finally, seen by the Minister of Magic and others.

There is a lot of humor and excitement in this 5th Harry Potter film. I thoroughly enjoyed it - it wasn’t 100% true to the book - but it told the story well -

Can’t wait for next week to see how it all ends!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, OOTP, Harry Potter Movies, Movie Review

Until the premiere of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” - It’s very exciting!

Time to jump on the…

Yet another piece of scenery for our Harry Potter Party!

until the release of the fifth Harry Potter movie, Order of the Phoenix - This time (that is, Wednesday morning) in 14 days many will have already seen the film and will be busily critiquing and analyzing.

I have not yet seen whether or not a movie theatre near me will be hosting a midnight showing of OotP on the 11th, but I’m researching it. In the event that there is no “late late” showing, I’ll be in the audience for a matinee that afternoon so we can get straight into the discussing!

***Update - my local theatre does have a midnight showing - midnight, on a week day? I’m going to have to take a nap!***

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter movies

Warner Brothers has announced that the US release of Order of the Phoenix will be July 11th rather than the originally-scheduled July 13th date. Not as creepy as Friday the 13th - but two days earlier is pretty cool.

Today’s Chicago Tribune looks at “All things Harry Potter” in their “Potter Watch” column.

What can you find in the column?

** News of Daniel Radcliffe’s new London play, Equus.
** A countdown to the 5th movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
** A countdown to the 7th and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

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Two new images from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix have recently surfaced on HarryLatino.com and DanLatino.com.

The first depicts a bloody Harry with a gash on his right temple, and the second shows Harry and Luna holding hands in what appears to be either a Hogwarts hallway or perhaps a hallway at the Ministry of Magic.

Just 5 more months until Order of the Phoenix is released!

UniversHarryPotter.com, a French Harry Potter site, has new image up of Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) from the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (Also find the image here) As you can see, it’s just a straight-forward publicity-type image…and one thing instantly jumps out at me:

Although Daniel, Emma and Rupert still fit the image of teenage wizards, Tom’s looking a little…mature.

Maybe it’s just his scowling expression, but he looks like he could pass for 26 more easily than he can pass for 16. Either way, he still works for the part (and I don’t think I could handle any of the actors changing at this point) as he isn’t supposed to have the boyish charm of Daniel or Rupert. He needs an edge. He needs to be that guy we all knew in high school who looked a couple years older than everyone else and used that to his advantage to try to bully the Harry’s and Ron’s of the school.

USA Today takes a look at “seven of 2007’s most-anticipated family-friendly sequels and films spun from stage and TV” including Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Here’s what they have to say about OOTP…not to mention showing us this new picture of Daniel Radcliffe.

“The cast is growing older, film by film, and the audience is growing with them,” says David Yates, director of No. 5. “That’s what is beautiful with Harry Potter. Our story is the most emotionally complex one so far.” That includes Harry’s first kiss, shared with fellow wizard-in-training Cho Chang (Katie Leung). Yates assures that the film “has all of the whiz-bang whistles and bells as well. We have centaurs, half-men and half-horse. A backwoods giant baby and Hagrid’s half-brother, Grawp. And some beautiful, hypnotic thestrals that are only seen when someone has died.”

Daniel Radcliffe comes in at #22 and Emma Watson’s #16 on IMDb’s STARmeter Top 25 for 2006, a ranking of “actual search behavior of over 42 million users of IMDb.com.”

This is a pretty good showing for the two Potter stars as neither appeared in a movie in 2006. No doubt they’ll get a little boost in 2007 from the release of Order of the Phoenix.

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Happy Holidays, everyone!

From time to time I’ll be creating a Hogwarts Herald Podcast…sharing some of the most recent Harry Potter news and views. This first podcast (found at the end of this post) was created last week—before the big Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows announcement—so that big news will be covered in the next podcast.

This week’s Hogwarts Herald Podcast focuses on Daniel Radcliffe in Australia discussing:

* What we can expect from the upcoming movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
* Filming the (soon to be) famous kissing scene between Harry and Cho.
* And lastly, what’s on all of our minds: Will Harry live or die at the end of Book 7?

Enjoy!

 Hogwarts Herald Podcast 1 [3:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (162)

The Lycos 50 has recently given us their list of “The Ones to Watch in 2007″—their projected top online search terms for the coming year—and Harry Potter gets mentioned twice: once for the 2007 release of Order of the Phoenix; and once for Book 7…which will hopefully be released in 2007 (fingers crossed). In their words:

“The following terms had strong showings in 2006. Based on growing search queries, The Lycos 50 predicts these are the ones to watch in 2007: from the political stage, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and the topics of illegal immigration, global warming, bird flu and stem cell research…singer/actress Beyonce…rappers Nas and Jim Jones, and hip-hop artist Akon …the 2007 movies already generating buzz online are all sequels and one based on a famous primetime animated series including, ‘Spider Man 3,’ ‘Shrek the Third,’ ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Land’s End,’ ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,’ ‘Saw 4,’ and ‘The Simpsons Movie’…the TV shows ‘Heroes’ and ‘Ugly Betty,’…from the literary world, the eagerly anticipated release of Harry Potter 7…and from the technology side, geotagging, Wii and GPS Tracking on cell phones.”

2007 should be a huge year for Harry Potter. Let’s just hope Harry will survive the year.

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If you’re tired of watching crappy-quality Order of the Phoenix trailers over at youtube, you’re in luck…big time. Apple.com has put up some High Definition trailers (of various sizes) on their site, and they look ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!

They can be a little slow to load…especially the largest size (which didn’t even completely fit on my large monitor)…but it honestly doesn’t take too much longer to load than a typical youtube video. And it’s most certainly worth a few second wait.

Take a look at the image quality of a couple of screen-captures (shrunk to fit this box)…above and below…and then get over to Apple.com and watch for yourself.

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For those of you Harry Potter fans who are hungrier than hungry for anything new in Potterworld, here’s a just-released image of Daniel Radcliffe and OOTP Director David Yates on the set of Order of the Phoenix.

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Newsweek has a brief but interesting article about David Yates, the Director of Order of the Phoenix. Here are a few of the more interesting snippets from the article…with my thoughts on the snippets in italics:

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