Magic Spells and Gamma Rays
It's gonna be a monster of a weekend. A 15-foot-tall green giant versus a 15-year-old boy wizard? Not even champion movie producer Samuel Z. Arkoff could have dreamed that up.
It's gonna be a monster of a weekend. A 15-foot-tall green giant versus a 15-year-old boy wizard? Not even champion movie producer Samuel Z. Arkoff could have dreamed that up.
But this weekend, those will be the two top topics of conversation: The Hulk and Harry Potter.
"The Hulk," director Ang Lee's film version of the popular Marvel comic, opens Friday. The eagerly awaited film reportedly cost more than $120 million, much of which went into creating the computer-generated title beast. Studio heads are holding their collective breath, wondering how audiences will greet the monster -- and Lee's likely less-than-pulpy take on his story.
There's probably no such breath-holding at Harry Potter's publishers. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," book five in the incredibly successful J.K. Rowling series, hits bookstores at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Amazon.com has already recorded more than 1 million orders; Scholastic, the book's American publisher, is issuing an unprecedented 8.5 million copies in its first printing.
Both events are expected to draw long lines of patrons. So, either way, get ready to wait, and take a look at Eye on Entertainment.
Eye-opener
It's been three years. Three years for us, that is. For Harry Potter, it's only been a few months since the events following the Triwizard Tournament put him face to face with his nemesis, the evil Lord Voldem --
I'm not even going to type the name of He Who Must Not Be Named. Let's just say, the battle between good and evil in the Harry Potter books keeps getting more complex -- and dramatic.
Now comes "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Harry is now 15 and entering his fifth year at Hogwarts. There's a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (of course), new tests for Harry and his friends (of course), and new trouble for everybody (natch). According to an editorial description on Amazon.com, "Harry Potter confronts the unreliability of the very government of the magical world, and the impotence of the authorities at Hogwarts."
I don't know about you, but I can hardly wait. And could Harry be preparing to run for president in 2008?
On screen
• In "The Hulk," arrogant scientist Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) is the victim of a genetic experiment gone wrong. Now, when he gets angry, he turns into the a giant greed id, the Hulk -- and watch out. More than a few people have wondered how director Lee ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "The Ice Storm," among others) would approach the comic-book-based material. Early reviews indicate this is a darker, bolder, and more multi-layered movie than the standard comic book film -- or summer film, for that matter. With Nick Nolte as Banner's abusive father and Jennifer Connelly as his girlfriend, Betty Ross.
• What better to go up against "The Hulk" than a frothy romantic comedy, "Alex & Emma"? Rob Reiner directs Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson as a writer and his stenographer attempting to put together a book in 30 days. A parallel story places the actors in the book itself.
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EarthsMightiestAdmin
6/19/2003
CNN