harry potter and the half-blood prince Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In the summer of 2008, we got to see what the wonderful Luna Lovegood looked like in her spectrespecs. The image made me wonder if we'd be lucky enough to find spectrespec-shaped 3D glasses in the theaters when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince hit, but alas, no such luck. However, now the WB store is offering Luna Lovegood Spectra Specs. (I guess spelling them with the proper "re" was too confusing. It's Philosopher's Stone/Sorcerer's Stone all over again!)

Anyway... The specs are quite like the ones in the film, but as an added bonus, they're also "UV 400 100% protection against ultra-violet rays." I'm not sure what pink and blue hues with psychedelic patterns do to one's eyeballs, but the store is definitely right in that these would make a killer addition to a Luna Lovegood costume. It's a really added bonus that these suckers are only $11.96.

It makes me wish these movies came out years earlier, so my young, long-haired, tow-headed self could have gone wild with Luna costume magic. As it stands, I don't think my adult self can resist picking up a pair. Anyone with me?

[via The Leaky Cauldron]

Sometimes you need neither big-name actors nor a ginormous budget -- just a cool high concept and some nifty advertising that knows how to get the pitch across. The sci-fi-action-allegory District 9 knocked G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra off its short-lived perch with a $37 million weekend. Word-of-mouth appears to be strong, so this one has a chance to make something of itself in a market that will grow less crowded over the next few weeks. G.I. Joe fell just under 60%, which was as expected; it's roughly at $100 million after two weeks.

The weekend's other high-profile newcomer was The Time Traveler's Wife, which grossed $19 million, beating out the last time-traveling romance to hit theaters, the Keanu Reeves/Sandra Bullock weepie The Lake House. (That one opened to $13 million but held up well thereafter). Then there were a few relative dumps: Jeremy Piven's The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard landed in 6th place with $5.4 million; Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo wound up in 9th place with $3.5 million (about par for the course for a US Miyazaki release); and the pretty damn good Bandslam turned into one of the year's biggest flops, grossing $2.3 million on over $2000 screens. Figures that the rare attempt to appeal to the Disney Channel demographic without force-feeding it Disney Channel garbage does absolutely no business.

Among non-G.I. Joe holdovers, Julie & Julia did reasonably well, which makes sense given the extent to which it's targeting older audiences not likely to run out to the theater on opening weekend. And Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, creeping toward $300 million domestic, is now assured second place in the franchise.

The full top 13 (!) after the jump.

Attempting to market Funny People as a typical Adam Sandler comedy was quixotic, and as another laugh riot from the Apatow factory only marginally less so. Still, the combination of Sandler and Apatow (and, probably, Rogen) was enough to get the off-kilter, two-and-a-half-hour dramedy off to a $23 million start -- not one for the record books, but hey, not too far off the opening numbers for Apatow's Knocked Up and Sandler's Bedtime Stories. There are shades of M. Night Shyamalan in Judd Apatow, in the way that he appears to be moving from blockbuster crowdpleasers to more personal, slightly odd films that not everyone "gets."

Aliens in the Attic, hidden from critics and not really sold as any sort of event, unsurprisingly ended up with a middling $7.8 million -- a minor opening for a minor flick. The independently-distributed horror film The Collector, from some of the folks behind the Saw franchise, debuted in 11th place and $3.6 million; not great either, but probably above expectations, and perhaps an indication of how many ticket buyers are willing to see a horror movie, any horror movie, on a given weekend. (500) Days of Summer continues to do very well in limited release, with the highest per-screen average in the top 20. Next week, when the film expands to over 1000 screens, will be the real test.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince found its footing a bit in its third weekend after last week's big tumble; it won't wind up atop the franchise, but may make a run for second place. And I was glad to see Orphan hold up at least semi-respectably after a weak start. That's one summer movie that deserves better than it got.

The weekend's top 12 after the jump.

Sometimes -- more often than I'd care to admit -- I'm wrong about just how the weekend's box office will play out. But I'm rarely gobsmacked like I am this week. I expected G-Force to be part of the Disney live action also rans -- at best, I thought it would put up Race to Witch Mountain-type numbers; maybe $24 million. And I thought that it would handily be beaten by the well-liked Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, coming off a franchise record opening.

That is not how the estimates have it. As of Sunday, the guinea pig spy movie is ahead of Half-Blood Prince by just over $2 million: $32.2 to Potter's $30. Potter tumbled over 60% from its opening -- actually not the biggest drop-off in series history, which honor belongs, strangely, to Prisoner of Azkaban. Though I wouldn't shed any tears for the folks at Warner Bros., what with the film's worldwide gross breaking $600 million, the drop is a bit of a disappointment for the well-reviewed sixth film. G-Force, I guess, is a triumph for talking CGI animals and 3D.

A lot of things can bug movie fans, whether it's bad acting, cliches, or poor continuity, but there's one that annoys me beyond all others -- The Heroes Effect. Basically, the movie or television show hints and titillates at upcoming, impending conflict, battle, and awesome action. You anticipate it, wait for it, and then just as it's about to appear ... WHOOSH! It's gone. It's happened off-screen, or behind that door that just closed.

Heroes is darned good at it, making you yearn for the action, and only barely following through -- even in the finales. But when this same trend hits the big screen as well, the irks increase. This experience has been paid for; the expectations are higher. And in the case of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, it comes after a number of hours of dealing a packed, antsy theater of prepubescents. <spoiler alert>

Eric's already mentioned one of the big changes between the book and the film -- just how Harry watches the Snape/Dumbledore confrontation unfold. But what about the fight downstairs? Hogwarts wasn't picking their noses when this all went down. And most importantly -- Rowling had finally let Professor McGonagall get her fight on as she Ginny, Tonks, Lupin, Neville, etc battled the Death Eaters. Surely that's better than Bellatrix tromping around? Surely room could've been made for it. Take out a snog or two. There still would've been plenty to giggle about. The gem of the final books is seeing everyone get their due, whether that be revenge or the chance to finally see them fight and come into their own.

There's no reason for The Heroes Effect. If action is hinted, if cool things are happening -- show them! If the book's got a great scene of fighting that has McGonagall as a robe-clad Ripley, show it! If you can't ... why bother?

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is only the second Harry Potter film to open on a Wednesday, after 2007's Order of the Phoenix. By the Sunday of its opening weekend, Order of the Phoenix was looking at a pretty impressive $140 million, on its way to being the year's 5th highest grosser, and a solid #2 in the franchise. By the Sunday of its opening weekend, Half-Blood Prince has $160 million in its coffers, as well as a slew of rapturous reviews and positive fan responses. (Well, mostly. There will always be whining from Rowling purists who don't know what an adaptation is.)

That raises a real possibility that Half-Blood Prince could dethrone current domestic franchise king Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which holds the top spot with $317 million. At the very least, it looks like it might be the only movie other than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to break the $300 million mark in 2009. (Transformers itself is already at $363 million -- #13 of all time! Christ!* -- and is looking unbeatable.)

Brüno took the tumble that its front-loaded opening weekend suggested (it made more than half its first weekend gross on the Friday of its release), dropping over 70% to fourth place. It will end up with around half of Borat's $129 million final number. The other summer comedies in circulation, The Hangover and The Proposal continue to hold up very well, with the former boosting from #6 to #5 in its seventh week of release.

(500) Days of Summer, opening on 27 screens in advance of a steady expansion in the coming weeks, got off to a promising 12th place start with a per-screen average over $30K.

The full top 12 after the jump.

The release of a new Harry Potter film always means a deluge of complaints about how it failed to exactly duplicate every single word of J.K. Rowling's sacred text, and Half-Blood Prince is no different. (Adam Quigley from Always Watching tweeted this amusing screenshot of the IMDb message boards Wednesday morning that sums it up pretty well.) Not having read the book since it came out four years ago, I didn't remember it in great enough detail to notice any major changes in the movie -- until the climactic scene in the tower, when something did stand out. And it stands out as an improvement over the book.

Spoilers for the book and the movie follow!

As readers well remember, that scene has Draco Malfoy confronting Dumbledore with the intention of killing him, as ordered by Voldemort. In the book, Harry is under the invisibility cloak at this point, so no one knows he's there, and Dumbledore has stupefied him so he can't act. Then the Death Eaters and Snape come along, and Snape finishes the job that Draco can't muster the courage to perform. Harry is powerless to do anything until Dumbledore is dead, which cancels the stupefying spell.

The movie plays out essentially the same way but with one key difference. Instead of being stupefied and invisible, Harry is hiding silently below the floor where the action is happening. Why? Because Dumbledore told him to, having already extracted from Harry a promise that he would obey whatever directions Dumbledore gave him.

Read the rest at SciFi Squad

Bruno topped the box office this past weekend, ending the Transformers two-week reign while pushing the giant robots all the way down to third place. America was not feeling the love for Beth Cooper which debuted in seventh. Here's the top five:

1. Bruno: $30.6 million
2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: $27.6 million
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: $24.2 million
4. Public Enemies: $13.7 million
5. The Proposal: $10.6 million

Just one new release this week and it's rolling out on Wednesday.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
What's It All About: The adaptation of the sixth and penultimate novel in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The threat of Voldemort's return and raging teenage hormones make for an interesting year at Hogwarts.
Why It Might Do Well: Apparently the first trick they teach the kids at Hogwarts is how to conjure up currency as the series has proven to be a license to print money. A 95% rating at Rottentomatoes.com suggests the trend will probably continue.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Rowling's books got quite a bit longer as the series progressed. The film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix felt like a Cliff's Notes version of the novel, hitting the highlights but not quite jelling in my humble opinion. Might the Half-Blood Prince do the same?
Number of Theaters: 4,250
Prediction: $96 million

My, how times can change. In 2005, the Pope (then Cardinal) condemned J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, noting the "subtle seductions" that could hurt children. In 2008, the Vatican's official newspaper published another blow at the series, one that said Potter is "the wrong kind of hero."

But now in 2009, we've got Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Guardian reports that it's gotten the Vatican seal of approval via that same paper. What's changed? Well, the latest article states that teenage romance is shown with the "correct balance," and praises the film for the clear message that good must overcome evil, "and that sometimes this requires costs and sacrifice." Color me confused -- I never realized that the line between good and evil was so blurred before!

The fact that the entire movie pretty much revolves around the kids' hormones makes the news quite amusing. I wonder how many kids will run off to empty rooms and dark corners to snog all year long, and when caught, just say that the Church said it was okay! Furthermore, for a group that hated the witchcraft and wizardry in the series, I find it interesting that the Vatican isn't bothered by the spells performed in this installment -- much more dangerous, and sometimes cruel, in this latest film. Wonders never cease!

And in other Potter news, it was just announced that Half-Blood Prince opened with $20 million, giving it the largest midnight gross of all time. Read more at SciFi Squad

It's a tricky situation -- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a strong entry in the series about the boy wizard, but won't work as a stand-alone film. No background is provided, so audience members must have seen the previous movies or read the J.K. Rowling books or they'll be lost. Fortunately, the movie doesn't assume you've read the sixth book -- there are no gaps in the story that require the novel to fill.

In case you haven't read the book, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to Hogwarts in Half-Blood Prince for his sixth year of study, while Death Eaters terrorize both the magical community and the ordinary Muggle world. Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) trusts Harry with increasingly important tasks in the fight against Voldemort ... and Harry is also learning a lot from an old Potions textbook that contains clever notes from someone self-styled the "Half-Blood Prince." Harry's best friend Ron (Rupert Grint) is taking lessons in Quidditch, self-confidence, and romance -- and why is Hermione (Emma Watson) displeased? Draco lurks in hallways and towers looking pale and conflicted.