DVD Roundup: Harry Potter‘s Riches, Nic Cage’s Rags

Every week, we shine a light on a few big, worthy or just plain weird DVD releases.

  • Share
  • Read Later
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II

Well, it’s over. At the conclusion of two mammoth, massively popular, decade-long projects — the seven Harry Potter novels that J.K. Rowling published between 1997 and 2007, and the eight Potter films Warner Bros. produced from 2011 to this summer — the final movie installment earned $1.3 billion at the worldwide box office, becoming the all-time top-grossing movie not directed by James Cameron. But the real cow-cashing continues. The DVDs, which unlike each $250-million-budgeted episode cost little to manufacture, are the franchise’s true profit center. Millions of fans will buy this week’s issuing of Deathly Hallows Part 2, if only as a commemorative fetish; and you can bet that some time in 2012 Warner Home Video will be offering an eight-film box set the size of Hogwarts.

(MORE: Richard Corliss says farewell to the Potter movie franchise)

We at TIME have written nearly as many words about Harry as Rowling did—Lev Grossman on the books, I on the movies — so what else is left to say? Perhaps just that the Potter pictures represent a triumph of corporate and communal filmmaking and classical, I mean anachronistic, style: of high narrative ideals, a mood as lush as the sets, an honor roll of the most distinguished actors and not a single wink at the audience. They were to 21st-century movies what Charles Dickens was to 19th-century novels. And at their center were three of the most serious and best-behaved kids in recent movies, and all in the same film: Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Rupert Grint as Ron and Emma Watson as Hermione.

(MORE: Corliss bids adieu one more time)

The Blu-ray edition offers a couple hours of extras, including just 6 mins. of outtakes, a tribute to the Potter women and, best, a 53-min. conversation between Rowling and Radcliffe. The fellow-feeling seems warm, familiar and unforced. If the author and star really hate each other, or if Radcliffe has gone the sad, criminal way of 80s sitcom teens, it’s not evident; he must be a finer actor than we realized. In a news clip, Radcliffe is shown in 2000, when he was chosen for the role. “I’m a tiny tiny bit like Harry,” the 10-year-old says, smiling more in this one press conference than he would do in the 18 hours of the series, “’cause I’d like to have an owl.” In the conversation, Rowling recalls that “We found Rupert and Emma, and they were perfect, and that was a done deal, we still couldn’t find you.” Seeing the boy’s screen tests, she says, “I found it incredibly moving; it was like seeing my son on screen.”

Among Rowling’s inside revelations, which won’t be news to the cognoscenti but are nice to hear all in one place: that Lupin was originally to survive the series, and Ron to die; that the one true love of Dumbledore, the Hogwarts headmaster, was Gellert Grindevald; and that on the day of the last book’s publication (also her birthday): “I cried as I have not cried since my mother died.” The main cast members kept a level head through the teen years, except for Grint. He bought a Hovercraft, a bright orange Range Rover, lamas and peacocks — “the Grint menagerie,” Radcliffe says. “He basically has done with his money what we said we’d all do when we were seven.”

They discuss the fervor of fandom with the poise of ordinary people who became famous so long ago that they can view celebrity with a smile. “When people are obsessional about something, on the outer fringes,” Rowling says, “you will have strange things going on that you maybe don’t want to focus on too much.” Fans of the books wanted nothing changed for the films, no scene excised. “If we were to make a six-hour Harry Potter film,” says Radcliffe, “there would be an audience…” “And,” Rowling adds, “they would still be complaining that there were things that were wrong. And they would want the director’s cut.” Rowling also reflects on the charge that books about wizards and witches promoted Satanism: “There are certain states in America where I don’t think I’d be particularly welcome.”

At the end, like a porperly reserved young Englishman, he tells Rowling, “It’s been a good 10 years so thank you very much.” Then Harry’s begetter and his embodier share a nice English hug.

Trespass

Last week Forbes magazine published its list of Hollywood’s Most Overpaid Actors. The selection had plenty to quarrel and quibble with. I shall limit my cavils to three. One: Forbes excludes animated films from a performer’s résumé, though many studios, especially DreamWorks, promotes the stars as if their faces, not just their voices, are in the film (Reese Witherspoon in Monsters vs. Aliens, Will Ferrell in Megamind) and integrates the actors’ screen personalities into the cartoon characters they played. Two: The list conflates big-budget films that pay a star lavishly (Tom Cruise in Knight & Day) with the same actor’s indie-style pro-bono work (Cruise in Lions for Lambs). Three: The Forbes calculations factor in a movie’s budget as well as the star’s salary, even though an action film of the kind Denzel Washington makes will cost way more than an Adam Sandler comedy, though both make take home the same bundle of loot. Witherspoon, Ferrell, Cruise, Washington and Sandler are all on the 10 most-overpaid list. I’ll bet nearly any studio would jump to finance a Denzel or Adam movie. Denzel and Adam? Synergistic heaven!

(MORE: Glen Levy on the 10 Most Overpaid Actors list)

Two names on the Beverly Hills bank-robber roll call, though, are indisputable: Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman. Cage, a marquee magnet as recently as 2007 with Ghost Rider and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (combined worldwide revenue: $686 million), parlayed his booty into a shopping spree of mansions. Since then, he’s been fighting off tax liens on his many properties by starring in two or three movies a year, but lately neither the good ones (Kick-Ass) or the stinkers (Season of the Witch) have found many patrons. Kidman hasn’t enjoyed an international hit since the 2008 Australia (which earned more than $200 million worldwide but less than $50 million in the U.S.); her only two films to gross $100 million Stateside were Happy Feet (voice only) and Just Go With It (a Sandler comedy in which she was billed third). One of her pricier flops, The Golden Compass, was a crucial element in the shuttering of its studio: NewLine was folded into Time Warner’s Warner Bros. division.

So the pairing of these ex-stars is box-office poison on the order of propofol plus lighter fluid. The movie is Trespass, which, as Forbes notes, “earned only $16,000 (not a typo) its opening weekend.” And that’s not the astonishing number. Trespass grossed an infinitesimal $24,094 in its entire run — of one week, in 10 theaters. Why was this domestic hostage thriller even released, when it fairly screams direct-to-DVD? Either to become eligible for Academy Award consideration, or to qualify for food stamps. Now Trespass is being issued in the medium it deserves, and home viewers have the privilege of catching up with what 2,000 customers paid to see on the big screen.

(MORE: Read Richard Corliss on the End of the Movie Star Era)

The character Cage plays, Kyle Miller, begins the film as if he were the star in his palmy days: driving in his Porsche through a gated community toward the fancy new house designed by his wife Sarah (Nicole Kidman), whose sleek, chic lines perfectly suit the decor. On his smart-phone he fast-talks a client to close a million-dollar deal, a job he describes as “supplying diamonds for oil men’s mistresses.” The rocks, apparently, are in his wall safe, as large and shiny as Scrooge McDuck’s. But his marriage is dingy, and to escape the domestic tension their daughter Avery (Liana Liberato) sneaks out to go to a party.

Then the bad guys — a thug quartet comprising the leader Elias (Ben Mendelsohn), his girlfriend Petal (Jordana Spiro), his dishy younger brother Jonah (Cam Gigandet) and a hulking muscle man named Ty (Dash Mihok) — break in, take the couple hostage and demand what’s in the safe. Using his career skills, Kyle tries negotiating with Elias, which takes colossal cojones, seeing as guns are usually pointed at him and his wife. Turns out the Millers and the intruders are both dysfunctional families, with their own share of suppurating secrets, and the evening disintegrates into fatal chaos. As Cam cogently observes, “Could this be any more f—ed up?”

Same goes for the film, directed with little style and at screaming volume by 72-year-old Joel Schumacher (St. Elmo’s Fire, The Client and that lamentable franchise-crusher, Batman & Robin). Mendelsohn, the Australian actor who won a slew of awards playing virtually the same role in the much better Animal Kingdom, lends a frazzled authority to Elias, who like Kyle is having some crisis-management issues. The script, credited to Karl Gajdusek (though the “writer” interviewed in the DVD’s lone 5-min. extra is Eli Richbourg), runs variations on the Desperate Hours home-invasion genre, suggesting a neurotic kinship of villains and victims. It also hints broadly that Kyle will triumph using the duplicity that made his a business success; it’s why the 1% stays on top.

What’s vagrantly fascinating about Trespass (I’ll post a SPOILER ALERT, acknowledging the slim possibility that someone reading this might actually see the movie) is its fortuitous connection to both Bernie Madoff and Nicolas Cage. Kyle confesses that he’s wildly overleveraged, that he’s gone bust paying for this house, and that his only chance to avoid bankruptcy is making that big diamond sale. Of course, that’s a lie too; Kyle has a million in cash hidden in his garage. So the film is both a parable of Cage’s real-estate profligacy and a fantasy that all those white elephant properties might somehow produce ivory.


  1. Previous
  2. 1
  3. 2