So, here it is at last: The final confrontation between Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the “symbol of hope” for both the Wizard and Muggle worlds, and Lord Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, the nefarious leader of the Death Eaters and would-be ruler of all. Good versus Evil. Love versus Hate. The Seeker versus the Dark Lord.

 

J. K. Rowling’s monumental, spellbinding epic, 10 years in the making, is deeply rooted in traditional literature and Hollywood sagas — from the Greek myths to Dickens and Tolkien to “Star Wars.” And true to its roots, it ends not with modernist, “Soprano”-esque equivocation, but with good old-fashioned closure: a big-screen, heart-racing, bone-chilling confrontation and an epilogue that clearly lays out people’s fates. Getting to the finish line is not seamless — the last part of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final book in the series, has some lumpy passages of exposition and a couple of clunky detours — but the overall conclusion and its determination of the main characters’ story lines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the prepublication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect.

With each installment, the “Potter” series has grown increasingly dark, and this volume — a copy of which was purchased at a New York City store yesterday, though the book is embargoed for release until 12:01 a.m. on Saturday — is no exception. While Ms. Rowling’s astonishingly limber voice still moves effortlessly between Ron’s adolescent sarcasm and Harry’s growing solemnity, from youthful exuberance to more philosophical gravity, “Deathly Hallows” is, for the most part, a somber book that marks Harry’s final initiation into the complexities and sadnesses of adulthood.

From his first days at Hogwarts, the young, green-eyed boy bore the burden of his destiny as a leader, coping with the expectations and duties of his role, and in this volume he is clearly more Henry V than Prince Hal, more King Arthur than young Wart: high-spirited war games of Quidditch have given way to real war, and Harry often wishes he were not the de facto leader of the Resistance movement, shouldering terrifying responsibilities, but an ordinary teenage boy — free to romance Ginny Weasley and hang out with his friends.

Harry has already lost his parents, his godfather Sirius and his teacher Professor Dumbledore (all mentors he might have once received instruction from) and in this volume, the losses mount with unnerving speed: at least a half-dozen characters we have come to know die in these pages, and many others are wounded or tortured. Voldemort and his followers have infiltrated Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic, creating havoc and terror in the Wizard and Muggle worlds alike, and the members of various populations — including elves, goblins and centaurs — are choosing sides.

No wonder then that Harry often seems overwhelmed with disillusionment and doubt in the final installment of this seven-volume bildungsroman. He continues to struggle to control his temper, and as he and Ron and Hermione search for the missing Horcruxes (secret magical objects in which Voldemort has stashed parts of his soul, objects that Harry must destroy if he hopes to kill the evil lord), he literally enters a dark wood, in which he must do battle not only with the Death Eaters, but also with the temptations of hubris and despair.

Harry’s weird psychic connection with Voldemort (symbolized by the lightning-bolt forehead scar he bears as a result of the Dark Lord’s attack on him as a baby) seems to have grown stronger too, giving him clues to Voldemort’s actions and whereabouts, even as it lures him ever closer to the dark side. One of the plot’s significant turning points concerns Harry’s decision on whether to continue looking for the Horcruxes — the mission assigned to him by the late Dumbledore — or to pursue the Hallows, three magical objects said to make their possessor the master of Death.

Harry’s journey will propel him forward to a final showdown with his arch enemy, and also send him backward into the past, to the house in Godric’s Hollow where his parents died, to learn about his family history and the equally mysterious history of Dumbledore’s family. At the same time, he will be forced to ponder the equation between fraternity and independence, free will and fate, and to come to terms with his own frailties and those of others. Indeed, ambiguities proliferate throughout “The Deathly Hallows”: we are made to see that kindly Dumbledore, sinister Severus Snape and perhaps even the awful Muggle cousin Dudley Dursley may be more complicated than they initially seem, that all of them, like Harry, have hidden aspects to their personalities, and that choice — more than talent or predisposition — matters most of all.

It is Ms. Rowling’s achievement in this series that she manages to make Harry both a familiar adolescent — coping with the banal frustrations of school and dating — and an epic hero, kin to everyone from the young King Arthur to Spider-Man and Luke Skywalker. This same magpie talent has enabled her to create a narrative that effortlessly mixes up allusions to Homer, Milton, Shakespeare and Kafka, with silly kid jokes about vomit-flavored candies, a narrative that fuses a plethora of genres (from the boarding-school novel to the detective story to the epic quest) into a story that could be Exhibit A in a Joseph Campbell survey of mythic archetypes.

In doing so, J. K. Rowling has created a world as fully detailed as L. Frank Baum’s Oz or J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, a world so minutely imagined in terms of its history and rituals and rules that it qualifies as an alternate universe, which may be one reason the “Potter” books have spawned such a passionate following and such fervent exegesis. With this volume, the reader realizes that small incidents and asides in earlier installments (hidden among a huge number of red herrings) create a breadcrumb trail of clues to the plot, that Ms. Rowling has fitted together the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of this long undertaking with Dickensian ingenuity and ardor. Objects and spells from earlier books — like the invisibility cloak, Polyjuice Potion, Dumbledore’s Pensieve and Sirius’s flying motorcycle — play important roles in this volume, and characters encountered before, like the house-elf Dobby and Mr. Ollivander the wandmaker, resurface, too.

The world of Harry Potter is a place where the mundane and the marvelous, the ordinary and the surreal coexist. It’s a place where cars can fly and owls can deliver the mail, a place where paintings talk and a mirror reflects people’s innermost desires. It’s also a place utterly recognizable to readers, a place where death and the catastrophes of daily life are inevitable, and people’s lives are defined by love and loss and hope — the same way they are in our own mortal world.

Car Wars With Shape-Shifters ‘R’ Us

Am besagten Abend stolperte die Tänzerin fast über den Star. «Du bist George Clooney», sagte sie überrascht und er antwortete lächelnd: «Hey, komm mit und häng mit uns ab», verriet sie der britischen Boulevardzeitung «Daily Mirror». Sie kamen ins Gespräch und trotz anderer tanzender Schönheiten hatte George nur noch Augen für Sarah. «Er war süss, überhaupt nicht aufdringlich respektvoll und fragte nicht mal nach einem Tanz. Zu mir war er nett und lustig – und ich wusste, er mag mich.»

Wie kriegt man George Clooney rum?

Sarah hatte Angst, nichts mehr von dem berühmten Gast zu hören, aber schon bald schrieben sie sich täglich SMS. Im Januar liess Clooney sie mit seinem Privatjet einfliegen und bewies seine Gentleman-Qualitäten: «Als wir das Wochenende geplant haben, sagte ich ihm, er soll ein lieber Junge sein. Er hat gescherzt, man könne dieSchlafzimmertüren von beiden Seiten zusperren», so die allein erziehende Mutter. «Er gab mir nur einen Gute-Nacht-Kuss und wir schliefen in unterschiedlichen Zimmern.»

Am folgenden Tag stand ein Filmabend mit Freunden im Heimkino auf dem Programm. Obwohl «Zeugen» dabei waren, hielt sich Clooney nicht zurück. «Er war sehr anhänglich und hatte den ganzen Abend seinen Arm um mich gelegt», erzählt Talley. Dann endlich war es soweit: «Er kam näher, ganz lieb und langsam. Er schwang den Arm um meine Hüfte und küsste mich. Es war ein gutes, warmes Gefühl.»

Gentleman in Schlafzimmer und Küche

Das erste Mal mit Clooney war das Warten wert, befindet Sarah. «Mit ihm fühlte ich mich wie eine Frau. Er sagte, ich sei wunderschön, küsste mich überall am Nacken und liess mich erschauern. Es war, was ich mir erhofft hatte und besser», deutet die 33-Järhige an. «Er hat einen tollen Körper, tolle Beine und seine Füsse sind für die eines Mannes perfekt. Wir küssten uns und kuschelten bis in die frühen Morgenstunden.»

Und Clooney verhielt sich wie der letzte Gentleman: «Er hat mich nicht wie eine Tänzerin behandelt, er respektierte meine Wünsche.» Morgens stand er früh auf, um die Frühstückseier zu machen, Sarahs Sohn bekam Geschenke.

Als Talley einige Wochen Ausserlandes war und kein Natel benutzen konnte, riss der Kontakt langsam ab. Nach der rund viermonatigen Affäre hat Sarah jetzt einen neuen Liebhaber. Der Vergangenheit trauert die Mutter indes nicht hinterher: «Mein Leben ist anders als das von Georges.

They Always Come Out Ahead; Bet on It

Eine Mathematikstudentin aus Regensburg wird "Germany's Next Topmodel". Die 20-jährige Barbara gewann das Finale der Modelshow von Heidi Klum (33).

In der Endrunde der ProSieben-Reihe setzte sich das "bayrische Rapunzel" mit langen roten Haaren gegen die Mitbewerberinnen Anni (21) aus Schwerin und Hana (21) aus Oftersheim durch.

Hana, die zuvor als Favoritin gegolten hatte und auch schon die meiste Erfahrung als Model besass, schied überraschend als erste aus. "Ich habe ein bisschen geweint", bekannte Bruce Darnell, einer der vier Juroren. Der Siegerin winkt nun unter anderem ein Vertrag bei der weltgrössten Modelagentur.

www.savenetradio.org

By DOREEN CARVAJAL
PARIS, May 13 — Since Pandora.com closed its box of digital musical delights this month to users outside the United States, the complaints have been pouring in from Dubai to Patagonia.

It is “a step back to the dark ages in the music world!” fumed Mario from Mexico City. Declared a user from Spain: “Why can’t they leave us in peace?”

With 6.5 million registered users, Pandora stands at the vanguard of the sprawling, global Internet radio market. But like other Webcasters, it faces an increase in royalty rates in the United States and is struggling with competing royalty collection agencies all over the world.

On May 3, that chaos prompted Tim Westergren, a former musician who founded Pandora in a San Francisco apartment, to pull the plug on the international market, blocking foreign visitors through computer Internet protocol addresses, which identify the country of the user.

“This is a watershed period that we’re going through,” said Mr. Westergren, who had intended to start a British site this week but postponed the project as the company wrestles with the royalties issue.

Internet radio sites are global by nature, streaming musical programs digitally to users all over the world. But there is no one-stop global shopping for royalty collections, which means that Pandora has to negotiate separate agreements with institutions from each territory or directly with music labels.

Global demand, though, respects no boundaries. The American Internet radio audience climbed to 34.5 million in March, and the share of listeners in Europe is even higher at 49.5 million, according to comScore, a marketing research company that tracks Internet traffic.

Those listeners are logging on to sites that can tailor programming to eclectic tastes. Live365.com, for instance, is a 10-year-old network of thousands of members who create their own online stations offering fare as diverse as Konkani music from the west coast of India or hundreds of versions of “Ave Maria.”

The expanding market has overwhelmed the existing royalty structure. But the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in London has just completed an international agreement to develop a more manageable way to stream across competing territories and collect royalties.

“In actual practice, companies had two options if they wanted to remain legal,” said Lauri Rechardt, a legal consultant who helped negotiate the agreement for the federation, which represents 1,400 record companies in 70 countries. Either they limited their service to certain territories for which they had cleared the rights, Mr. Rechardt said, or they faced the physically impossible task of striking deals with hundreds of record labels.

Mr. Rechardt said he expected 40 national royalty collection agencies in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America to sign the agreement within the next few months. On Friday, Gramex, the Finnish collection agency, was the first to sign.

But the agreement leaves rate-setting to each individual country, and for the moment the United States is poised to set what could be, in effect, a global benchmark. The proposed increases could raise the cost of sound recordings for Internet stations 300 percent to 1,200 percent, and have set off a furious political struggle.

Currently, Webcasters pay a percentage of revenue in performance royalties for music streamed to the United States to an industry-backed association called SoundExchange, which collects and distributes the money. But the Copyright Royalty Board has set new rates effective July 15 that change the structure so that Webcasters are charged each time a user listens to a song.

The pending rate increases have sparked an intense lobbying campaign in Congress by small Webcasters and large ones like AOL Radio and Clear Channel.

Those efforts prompted Senators Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, to introduce legislation last Thursday to reverse a Copyright Royalty Board decision setting the new rates.

John L. Simson, executive director of SoundExchange in Washington, said that the Webcasters had managed to portray themselves as a grassroots collection of gritty, independent Webcasters, but the ones who would benefit most were large companies with deep pockets like AOL Radio and Clear Channel.

“Do you say that if this service plays this music I get paid very handsomely, but if this service pays my music I don’t?” Mr. Simson said of the divide in resources between big Internet radio companies and smaller independents. “I think it’s a very delicate issue. And I think in any new area like the Internet there will be some businesses that survive and some that don’t.”

Along with a lobbying campaign in Congress, Webcasters are also pursuing a public relations offensive online through the SaveNetRadio coalition, which is urging listeners to contact their legislators to support the Internet Radio Equality Act.

Last.fm, a popular Webcaster in London that is also a social networking site, will be affected by the rate increases, but is not terribly worried because of direct deals that it has negotiated with major labels, according to Christian Ward, a spokesman for Last.fm.

“The industry trusts us,” Mr.Ward said, “which means that there are always ways around the issues. It will be difficult, but we’ll find our way around the problem.”

A Grumpy Green Giant Who Would Not Be King

Order and Chaos in a Single Heartbeat

Los Angeles

LATE in the fall of 2006 Charlie White, a 34-year-old photographer and fantasist whose allegorical images are created, like films, with elaborate sets and casts, changed houses, was let go by his gallery of 11 years and had open-heart surgery to replace the pig’s valve that had been keeping him alive since his last open heart surgery at age 5. “It was a horrible year,” Mr. White said recently.

It was a clear, eucalyptus-scented Saturday morning in April, and those disruptive events seemed to have left no traces in his highly ordered, extremely tidy new house, which is stuck to the side of a silty, steep hill in the vertiginous and vaguely bohemian Silver Lake neighborhood. (Mr. White did offer to show this reporter his scar, an invitation she hastily declined.)

Mr. White and Stephanie Ford, an editor and fiction writer who has been Mr. White’s girlfriend for 10 years, moved into the immaculate little 1930s bungalow in late October, along with their two dachshunds, Ivan and Ardley. Muppets and humanoids run amok in his photographs, but it is hard to imagine the very precise and preternaturally energetic Mr. White in the midst of any sort of muddle or mess. There were no rafts of paper — indeed, there was not much of anything — on the horizontal surfaces here.

He’ll tell you (confidently) that he’s an anxious guy, and therefore a neat freak. Houses and photography sets seem to work better, he said, if “I exert a system of precision.” Ms. Ford, 33, said she is by nature a piler and stacker but has learned to follow what she described good-naturedly as “the Charlie Code.”

The kitchen seemed unsullied by human touch, until Mr. White opened the white vintage cabinets, where drinking glasses were a small, tight army of irregulars, no two glasses the same, no pairs or sets allowed. The spice cabinet, whose contents Mr. White likes to realign on a regular basis, was surgically neat.

“It is tidy,” Mr. White said. “It could be tidier.”

“I like a system,” he said again, and then went on to explain about the mail. Ms. Ford is the designated mail picker-upper and handler because, he said, “Stephanie has a good relationship with mail.”

“It makes me anxious,” he continued. “What if something bad comes in the mail?”

The arrival of bad things — or the answering of the question “what if?” in the most fantastic and sometimes the most horrifying manner — is the story told by Mr. White’s photographs, the most recent of them collected in “Monsters,” to be published next month by powerHouse Books. One image, titled “Jody,” is a gleaming portrait of a young girl lighted with the flat glare of a pornographic film. Her skin is waxy-shiny, and there’s a small and very straight cut on her right cheek. The narrative the image suggests is a ghastly one, but the picture is simply gorgeous, classically composed and richly textured.

To the extent that Mr. White is well known, it is for a collection of images from 2001 called “Understanding Joshua.” For that series, Mr. White made a 5-foot-2 foam and latex creature that was part homunculus, part extraterrestrial, and placed him in a medley of humiliating scenarios, like sitting on a toilet and looking defeated, a woman’s shapely legs just barely visible in a shower beside him. Naked and tiny, his flaccid skin hanging in folds, Joshua is a stand-in, Mr. White said, “for male self-loathing.”

Mr. White was just 23, newly graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York and shooting a story for a pornographic magazine — about a sexy mutant he called Femalien — when he met the New York gallerist Andrea Rosen, whose stable included artists of the mid-’90s moment like the painter John Currin. Ms. Rosen made a show around the magazine, and Mr. White’s career began.

“Jeff Wall is the grandfather of all of this sort of work,” Ms. Rosen said the other day, referring to the Canadian artist who started the practice of casting and directing fine art images with his haunting cinematic photographs. “What makes Charlie different and unique is that he physically makes these pieces, building them actually rather than digitally. Charlie’s work makes real that which is unthinkable. He lives in a very complex fictional world.”

Ms. Rosen was referring to Mr. White’s mental landscape, but it is California, Mr. White’s adopted state, that provides the complex fictions for much if not all of his continuing horror stories: boy bands, the Manson girls, pink stuffed animals on the bed of a preteen. It is the plastic sheen of California and its main export, pop-culture imagery, that Mr. White chews on over and over again. “I am like the bulletin board of a preteen girl,” he said. “Or I am that girl.”

Mr. White moved to California just before his first show at Andrea Rosen, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. (He is now an assistant professor at the Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California and will become director of that school’s Master of Fine Arts program in the fall.) Ms. Ford is his first and only roommate; she had arrived at the Art Center to make paintings, only to discover quickly that she preferred to write books. “We stayed roommates,” Mr. White said, looking fondly at Ms. Ford, who was at that moment pinned to a spot on their deck, both dogs having wormed their way onto her lap. “It worked out.”

When Ms. Ford left town a few years ago for a master’s program in fiction, Mr. White “freaked out,” he said. He got rid of the television set and the refrigerator, became a vegan and lost 60 pounds. He ate only one meal, lunch, at one particular vegan restaurant every day for months.

“I needed a set of rules,” he said, explaining that he latched onto a vegan diet solely for health reasons. “I was in really bad shape. I had to create a system that made sense.” He also made “an insane body of work,” a lot of it about high California cheese (a shiny imagined boy band, for example, and an Up With People-style cast brawling on a mock television show called “Friendemy”).

Ms. Ford and Mr. White chose this house — which is all salubrious view (it looks east and north, taking in a swath from the hills of Pasadena to the iconic Hollywood sign) — in a hurry, because it seemed like a good spot for spending eight weeks in bed, as Mr. White did after his surgery in December. His orderly nature asserted itself in comical ways once he was back home, post-op. In his fifth week, when he was out of bed and sitting in the living room, slowly it dawned on him that one of the dining table chairs was out of place by an inch or two. The effort of adjusting it cost him: thoroughly drained, he crept back to bed for the rest of the day and night.

The house is clearly an anodyne for all that ails Mr. White, who in any case seems hardly to be ailing at all these days, though he hasn’t yet returned to his pre-op sleep schedule of just four hours a night. He was born without a pulmonary valve, a condition known as pulmonary atresia, and other abnormalities; December’s operation was his fourth open-heart surgery.

Next month he will begin shooting a short film, a day in the life of a California preteen. He is in a group show in Shanghai and is being represented by new galleries in London, Stockholm and Germany.

When Ms. Rosen cut her stable of artists by 40 percent in the fall, Mr. White was in that percentage. He is still flummoxed, he said, by what he felt was a hasty move at an inappropriate moment.

Ms. Rosen will say only that her decision was a personal and professional necessity. She was happier discussing Mr. White’s work.

“I think Charlie’s personal health trajectory has always put him in a position where he felt he was a fantastical creation,” she said. “For a long time I think he felt his life was limited, that it was a kind of fiction. Now that his health has changed I think he realizes he’s going to live in the world for a very long time.

“Anyway, he is very controlling about certain things. It’s always complicated to have a very specific idea in mind that gets manifested.”

Others who work this way, she suggested, have leaden results. “There’s no mystery, and so who cares? But with Charlie, in the filming the mystery begins again. And the images are not only mysterious to us, but they are mysterious to him as well.”

Superhero Sandbagged

Endless summer

Apr 26th 2007 | LOS ANGELES
From The Economist print edition

Sony Pictures

How the business of making blockbusters has changed

FOR connoisseurs of derivative film-making, the next few months will be a joy. Between early May and mid-August Hollywood will unveil sequels to “Spider-Man”, “Shrek”, “Harry Potter”, “Rush Hour”, “The Bourne Identity”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “Fantastic Four”, “Ocean's Eleven”, “Die Hard” and “Bruce Almighty”. Admittedly, not all of this summer's big-budget films are based on other films. “The Simpsons” and “Transformers” are based on television programmes.

It is safe to predict that none of these films will be artistically adventurous. Reviewers will dislike them, as they have disliked crowd-pleasing films since 1914, when a critic bemoaned “the terrible sense of rush and hurry and flying about” in contemporary cinema. But none of this concerns the people who produce such films. They know that blockbusters draw punters to cinemas and DVD racks more reliably than any other kind of film.

Since 1975, when “Jaws” chewed up the competition, Hollywood has increasingly relied on summer and Christmas blockbusters to tide it through leaner months. The summer season, which used to begin in June, has crept forward to early May. Production and marketing budgets have mushroomed. “Spider-Man 3” is said to have cost more than $300m, or half as much again as “Titanic”, the price of which terrified Fox executives in 1997. If few are so alarmed these days, it is because the economics of blockbusters have changed.

To see how, compare the performance of two films, both released in late May. “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, which appeared in 1989, and “X-Men: the Last Stand”, released last year, appealed to the same broad audience of children, teenagers and indulgent parents. Each was the third instalment of a three-part series. They were both successful, earning almost exactly the same in real terms during their first two months in American cinemas.

But their lives at the box office were dramatically different (see chart). “Last Crusade” had a healthy opening weekend and a slow decline. “X-Men”, by contrast, came and went in a flash. It earned $123m in just four days, more than in the remaining four months of its run.

Both films are typical of their time. The first modern blockbusters, such as “Jaws” and “Star Wars”, were released on a few screens and grew slowly (ticket sales for “Star Wars” peaked in the 11th week). Over the years the hillock of box-office revenues became a downward slope, then a cliff face. Given this year's crowded schedule, the drop-offs will be vertiginous.

One reason is growing capacity. The number of cinema screens in America rose from 29,700 in 1996 to 39,700 last year. Because the supply of seats is greater than the potential weekend audience for almost any film, marketing campaigns aim to lure customers en masse before the next big film appears. These days blockbusters form an orderly queue, rarely competing on the same weekend.

Another reason is the growing importance of the small screen. American cinema-goers account for no more than a quarter of a film's total revenues. Foreign audiences supply another quarter, with the remaining half coming from television, product licensing and—the biggest single contributor by far—sales of DVDs. Last year a silver disc appeared, on average, just four months and eight days after the same film opened in cinemas, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners—five weeks sooner than in 2002.

Oddly, this has made the opening weekend's box-office sales more important. As Jim Gianopulos, the co-chairman of Fox, puts it, the theatrical release of a film now represents the launch of a product that will be consumed in a variety of forms. The first few days' tally is not just a reliable predictor of later DVD and television sales; it is, in effect, an advertisement for them. Lest anybody fail to notice, studios place advertisements in newspapers and trade magazines pointing out how well their films are doing.

The clearest sign that big-budget sequels are dependable is that the studios risk their own money on them. Hedge funds are encouraged to invest in most films, but not big franchises such as “Harry Potter” or “Pirates of the Caribbean”. And blockbusters have other advantages. Cinemas are so desperate for them that they can often be persuaded to show less promising fare as well. Trailers that run before big movies reach huge audiences. A hit also gives studios licence to swagger.

A few clouds have begun to drift over the summer skies, however. One problem is that DVD sales, which boosted profits for a decade, are slowing. Between 1997 and 2002 sales of DVDs in America grew by 50% or more each year, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. But they were flat in America last year and revenues fell in Britain and Germany. New formats such as Blu-ray, HD-DVD and online downloads have not enticed many buyers.

Another headache is that the studios' partners are driving harder bargains. Having worked out that DVDs are profitable, stars are demanding—although not always getting—a larger share of “back-end” sales. Cinemas, which used to be paid using complex formulae that entitled them to a greater share of box-office receipts the longer a film stayed open (an arrangement that suited the studios just fine, given the short lives of many films), are now more likely to receive a fixed share of the total sum. Consolidation in recent years has made them tougher.

The biggest problem, though, is the growing sums being wagered each weekend. Blockbusters have always been global products, but the threat of piracy and the rapid spread of opinion on the internet, which can quickly inform cinema-goers around the world if a film is a turkey, means they are now likely to be released almost simultaneously everywhere. “Spider-Man 3”, for example, will open in China, France, Germany and Japan on May 1st, then migrate to America and Britain three days later. Stars, who can be in only one place at once, cannot provide much publicity, and marketing campaigns have to get it right first time. The potential for catastrophic error has never been greater. If this summer's big gambles fail, expect a lot of hand-wringing and a retreat—though probably only a temporary one—from the blockbuster model.

[20 Minuten] Dort zeigte sie sich an der Seite des Komikers Andy Samberg (28), der sie in einen Science-Fiction Mutanten aus Arnold Schwarzeneggers Film «Total Recall» verkleidete. Eingehüllt in eine eklige Gummimaske tauchte Scarlett aus dem Bauch von Komikerin Maya Rudolph (26) auf und ruderte mit ihren kurzen Alien-Armen herum. Doch das ist noch nicht alles: Mit einem innigen Alien-Zungenkuss, den sie mit Samberg austauschte, beanspruchte sie endgültig die Lachmuskeln aller Gäste. Das Publikum kriegte sich kaum mehr ein.

Da Ali G Show - Borat Edition

Wer Borat verpasst hat, sollte sich wenigstens diese sechs Folgen der «Ali G Show» ansehen. Sie sind das Beste, was Kult-Komiker Sacha Baron Cohen zu bieten hat.

Derzeit ist Sacha Baron Cohen als «Borat» in aller Munde. Bekannt geworden ist der britische Komiker jedoch mit seiner Figur Ali G, einem Möchtegern-Homeboy, der in der Welt herumreist und Aufklärungsarbeit für sein TV-Publikum betreibt. In seiner Sendung bringt Ali G denn auch Einspieler von Borat oder der dritten Figur im Bunde, dem österreichischen Modedesigner Bruno. Egal, welche Rolle Cohen spielt: Das Konzept ist immer dasselbe. Mal interviewt er Prominente wie Donald Trump oder James Baker, mal einen Waffenhändler in den USA, mal einen Schwulenhasser, mal Tierschützer bei einer Demonstration.

Dabei provoziert er seine «Opfer» mit teils naiven, teils vulgären Fragen. Zweifellos zielt der Humor oft unter die Gürtellinie, zweifellos ist er Geschmackssache. Doch mit seiner Fragetechnik bringt Cohen seine Befragten dazu, kaschierte Vorurteile preiszugeben und sich somit selbst zu entlarven. Die beste Realsatire, die man sich vorstellen kann.

«Da Ali G Show - Borat Edition», heisst die DVD. Wer nun meint, es seien besonders viele Borat-Einspieler auf der DVD zu sehen, der irrt: Lediglich die Beiträge aus den sechs Ali-G-Folgen werden gezeigt. So gesehen ist der Titel irreführend. Trotzdem: Die fast 180 Minuten Spielzeit sind ein Hochgenuss.

Original-Titel:	Da Ali G Show
Veröffentlichung:	08.03.2007
DVD-Spieldauer:	191 min
Produktion:	Grossbritannien (2000). Komödie
FSK:	ab 12 Jahren
CH-Vertrieb:	Warner Home Entertainment
Extras / Ausstattung:	- Promo Clips Baseball - Promo Clips Henley Regatta
Audio:	Dolby Digital 5.1: Deutsch, Englisch
Untertitel:	Deutsch, Englisch
Bildformat:	2,35 : 1
Verpackung:	Amaray
Menge:	1 disc

	Bild:
	Ton:
	Extras:
	Film:

«Ocean's Thirteen» - Die Chancen stehen 13 zu 1. (Ab 07.06.07 im Kino)

Im ersten Teil ging es um Casino-Betrug, im zweiten um Verrat und nun, im wahrscheinlich letzten Ocean's-Streifen, um Ehre und Freundschaft.

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Al Pacino: Steven Soderbergh hat den finalen Teil der Ocean's-Trilogie in Las Vegas und Los Angeles abgedreht. Al Pacino als Willy Banks mimt den bösen Hotelketten- und Casinobesitzer, der einen Freund von Danny Ocean (George Clooney) betrügt. Danny schwört Rache und mit seiner Crew und einem konkurrenzierenden Hotelbesitzer (Andy Garcia) planen sie, Banks bei der Eröffnungsnacht seines neuen Casinos in den Bankrott zu treiben.

Who’s Talking About Retirement?

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The procedure that Larry King underwent in mid-March to flush a blocked major artery — which put him at heightened risk of a stroke — also caused a few flutters among his bosses at CNN.

That’s partly because Mr. King, 73, once a four-pack-a-day smoker who had a heart attack and underwent cardiac bypass surgery two decades ago, continues to be the most highly rated host on CNN’s schedule, drawing nearly a million viewers a night. Little wonder, then, that one of the first calls Mr. King received after the clogged artery was detected during an ultrasound exam was from Jon Klein, the president of CNN’s domestic operations.

“I just wanted to make sure he was doing O.K., and that it was as minor as he said it was,” Mr. Klein recalled. Mr. King vowed that he would miss only a day of work, and would return the Monday after his surgery to interview Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat. He kept his word, though he never told his boss what the anesthesiologist remarked when he first glimpsed the build-up of plaque inside the carotid artery in question. “This,” the doctor said, as Mr. King tells it, “is a lucky guy.”

In interviews here both before a recent show (over blueberries and a purportedly “heart healthy” corn muffin at Nate ’n Al’s delicatessen) and afterward (veal schnitzel at Spago), Mr. King said that he felt terrific, notwithstanding the visible incision still healing on the right side of his neck. He said he hoped to hold forth on “Larry King Live” for 10 more years. At that time he would be 83. His current contract, which he said he would soon seek to extend, expires in mid-2009.

“What would it take to go?” he said, paraphrasing a visitor’s halting question as succinctly as he might on his own talk show. “If, God forbid, I had an onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s. That would be it. And what I would wish is that if I get that, no joke intended, that it happens on the air. Just to see how they handle it.”

Then, doing a caricature of his own much-imitated gravelly baritone, he imagined his next incarnation. “Live, from the nursing home in Livingston, here’s ‘Larry King,’ the only show hosted by a guy with Alzheimer’s,” he began, before posing his opening question: “Is it day or night?”

When his tenure does eventually end, Mr. King said his first choice to succeed him would be Ryan Seacrest, the “American Idol” host and disc jockey, presuming he is interested.

“He’s the classic generalist,” Mr. King said, his eyes peering through rectangular lenses that evoke flat-panel televisions. “The only thing I don’t know, and I’ve gotten to know him pretty well, is how versed he is in politics, world affairs. Does he read the paper? Is he interested in Iraq? Because if he is, he’s going to be very good.”

Told of Mr. King’s comments, Mr. Seacrest, a sometime guest host on “Larry King Live,” said through a publicist that he was flattered. When Mr. Klein was asked about Mr. Seacrest, he was complimentary, though diplomatically noncommittal.

“Having worked at ‘60 Minutes,’ ” Mr. Klein, a former CBS producer, said, “I’m convinced these guys can all go till they’re 90. I’m presuming that’s going to be the case with Larry.”

To that end Mr. King is readying plans for a week of shows beginning April 16 that will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his first job in broadcasting, at a radio station in Miami. They will feature Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, as well as a roast and an interview of Mr. King by Katie Couric. The following week he is scheduled to travel to Texas to interview George H. W. Bush.

“Most people, they look forward to retirement — at 65, 67,” he said. “They say, ‘I’ll get the boot, I’ll go to Arizona.’ ”

“What,” he said, before uttering a word he can’t say on the air, “am I going to do in Arizona?”

At least part of Mr. King’s longevity can be explained by his work day, which does not usually extend much past the hour his show is broadcast live early each weeknight, mostly from the CNN bureau in Los Angeles.

Once a seemingly permanent fixture on the East Coast — he is a proud graduate of Lafayette High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn — he began shifting his program from New York and Washington to California during the O. J. Simpson trial in 1995. He moved here a little over a decade ago, after meeting Shawn Southwick, 26 years his junior, who would become his sixth wife. The couple have two sons, 8 and 7, whom Mr. King walks to school each morning from his home in Beverly Hills.

His routine rarely varies after that. First there is breakfast in a booth at Nate ’n Al’s. Typically he is joined by two old friends from Lafayette and the Jewish Community House on Bay Parkway in Brooklyn. They are Sid Young, a retired construction company executive, and Asher Dann, a real estate agent.

Ranging from pop culture (Donald Trump’s feuds) to stories of friends long since passed (Jimmy Hoffa, Frank Sinatra), their conversation is not unlike that on Mr. King’s show, as if “The View” had been hijacked by the cast of “Grumpy Old Men.” A recent outtake:

Mr. Young (motioning toward Mr. King): “He likes everybody.”

Mr. King: “No, I don’t.”

Mr. Young: “O.K., who don’t you like?”

Mr. King: (after a pause) “Hitler.” (another pause). “Although he did build the bahn.’ (Big laughs.)

Though his friends said they would be first to alert Mr. King if his mind begins to slip, he does sometimes struggle to find the right word. At Nate ’n Al’s he referred to Jerry Stiller when he meant Jerry Seinfeld, and, when discussing Brian Williams, also said: “The other guy is terrific too. I forget his name.” (Charles Gibson.)

Occasionally that forgetfulness seeps onto his show. One night a few days before his surgery, he included Chris Farley on a list of forthcoming guests, only to catch himself. He had meant Chris Rock; Mr. Farley died in 1997.

“It’s been happening since I was 30,” Mr. King said.

After returning home to make a few calls, and then go out to lunch, Mr. King usually arrives at CNN’s offices on Sunset Boulevard around 4, two hours before show time.

On a recent afternoon he came off the elevator in denim high-top sneakers without laces that had been painted with a skull and crossbones. He was also wearing a pair of AG jeans (a gift from Mr. Seacrest) in which a tailor had sewn buttons to support his trademark suspenders.

Soon, in a glassed-in office within full view of his staff (most of them women), Mr. King removed his casual shirt and proceeded to argue good-naturedly with his executive producer, Wendy Walker, over the tie for that night’s show. For several minutes, he looked less like someone about to interview two senators (Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican) than a guy who’d lost a poker game. Appearing thin and a bit gaunt, he stood naked from the waist up, but for the suspenders he had already snapped over bare shoulders.

For the rest of the afternoon, he mostly schmoozed with his producers. Mr. King has always prided himself on doing the barest preparation for his interviews so that, he says, he might be illuminated along with the viewer; this day was no exception. He had watched almost none of CNN’s coverage of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questioning of D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, though it would be the subject of his lead segment.

“I don’t want to know too much,” he said in his office. “I want the senators’ opinions.”

It is an approach that has proved as soothing as an electric blanket to politicians and celebrities, though maddening to critics, including Amy Reiter of Salon, who wrote last summer: “Whether a guest is flogging a forthcoming movie, airing a few carefully chosen words about a divorce,” or “just trying to sell a war to the American people, he can be sure that Larry will keep him squarely in his comfort zone.”

On this night, once on camera, Mr. King asked Senators Schumer and Specter many variations of a single question — “What do you make of that?” And he asked basically the same question during the two-part segment that closed the show, about the run of Sanjaya Malakar, the 17-year-old “American Idol” contestant with borderline talent who somehow has kept advancing; Mr. King interviewed relatives of Mr. Malakar and his pastor.

Afterward Mr. King confided something that would have surely surprised many viewers, considering how well the interviews had gone. “I have no idea who that guy is,” he said of the “Idol” contestant whose hairstyle has turned heads.

And then, he slipped into the elevator and off to dinner at Spago.

Stefan Raab und Regina Halmich steigen wieder in den Ring. Heute kommt es zum Comeback des Jahres. In der Kölnarena, Deutschlands grösster Veranstaltungshalle, kommt es zum lang erwarteten Showdown: «Die Rückkehr der Killerplauze» in der «McFit Fight Night» auf ProSieben. «Ich bin auf dem Zenit meiner Leistungsfähigkeit und bereit im Notfall auch über die volle Distanz zu gehen», verspricht Raab. «2001 wog ich 93 Kilo. Jetzt habe ich 87 auf der Wage und werde bis zum Kampf noch mal fünf Kilo abnehmen.» Nach seiner knappen Niederlage im März 2001 hatte Stefan Raab seinen Rücktritt vom aktiven Boxsport erklärt. Stefan Raab: «Beim ersten Mal hatte sie noch Glück. Jetzt ist Regina Halmich fällig. Nase um Nase, Zahn um Zahn.» Regina Halmich kontert: «Wie masochistisch muss ein Mensch sein, wenn er so um Schläge bittet. Stefan wird auch diesmal ordentlich auf die Maske bekommen.»

FOR all the talk about satellite radio, the most vibrant frontier in radio may be the Web. Many traditional AM and FM stations have begun streaming on the Internet, along with hundreds of smaller online-only operators. Even subscription download services like Napster, Rhapsody and Urge from MTV have preprogrammed radio for users who are not in the mood to hunt for tracks.

Currently, the most compelling online radio is interactive. Services like Pandora, Last.fm and Slacker evaluate your musical tastes, then serve up a continuous stream of programming to match. They mix familiar songs with new material you might like. They all do it by harnessing the technological forces of social networking, data mining and music analysis, though each uses a slightly different technique.

With so much momentum, there are still plenty of bumps. The Copyright Royalty Board of the Library of Congress recently announced a Web-radio royalty payment plan that has caused many free Internet broadcasters to fear for their fragile business models.

Some new interactive music services choose not to stream anything. Instead, they rely strictly on music the listener already owns or new tracks donated by publicity-hungry independent artists and labels. Others are becoming as creative with the way they license content as they are with the way they personalize it for you.

On its surface, Pandora is the simplest option. When you visit www.pandora.com, enter the name of a song or artist you enjoy. Immediately you will hear music from a “station” based on that initial choice. You can refine your station by naming other artists and songs, and Pandora picks music from those artists but more important, it chooses other songs you might like based on your suggestions.

Pandora makes recommendations based on analysis of songs by musicologists in Pandora’s Music Genome Project. The experts listen for up to 400 different characteristics in every song, from musical genre to the presence of a particular instrument. Songs with the most similarities naturally make their way to the same radio stream.

If you do not like one of Pandora’s suggestions, you can click on the “thumbs down” sign and it is never heard from again. If, on the other hand, you do like a song, you can give it the “thumbs up,” and that particular preference will be used in later suggestions.

Now that the free ad-supported service has been operational for 15 months, it can use the behavioral data of its six million listeners to add a new layer of suggestion. For instance, even if, on paper, the musicologists think it logical to pair a song by the “American Idol” superstar Clay Aiken with one by the Canadian folk balladeer Ron Sexsmith, several hundred listeners may give the juxtaposition a vote of no confidence. Tim Westergren, a Pandora co-founder, says the database now contains half a billion useful points of “contextual feedback.”

Last.fm (www.last.fm), an interactive radio service started in 2003, doesn’t use a musicologist. Instead, it bases its suggestions primarily on the wisdom of the crowd. A Last.fm co-founder, Martin Stiksel, refers to it as “collaborative filtering applied on a massive scale.”

At signup, the service asks users to download software — available for Macs and PCs — that tracks the music playing on your computer. The song-counting process, called “scrobbling” by Last.fm’s chief software developer, lets the company observe shifts in popularity, spot unexpected correlations between songs, and even discover new artists — or new tracks by known artists.

To date, Last.fm has “scrobbled” 65 million tracks by 8 million artists, in just about every country in the world. As with Pandora, you can identify songs you love, which helps to tailor your radio experience. The result is a stream of music that, statistically speaking, you ought to enjoy.

An important byproduct is the identification of musical “neighbors.” As the Last.fm community grows to over 15 million active users, it also promotes itself as a social networking site, like MySpace. You can see and contact others whose musical tastes correspond significantly with your own.

“This is community-driven,” Mr. Stiksel said. “Interest in new music flags when you don’t have an infrastructure of informers around you.”

The most ambitious free service is Slacker, unveiled this month. The ad-driven beta program at www.slacker.com resembles Pandora. But when the full-fledged release becomes available in early summer, Slacker will have several components. Slacker was founded by former chief executives of Musicmatch and Rio, so it is only fitting that Slacker will offer a free software player, like the once-popular Musicmatch Jukebox, and sell a portable iPod-like device, like those Rio made.

One twist is that, like Last.fm, the Slacker jukebox will enhance the radio stream by paying attention to the songs you choose. (D.J.’s will aid in programming as well.) Another twist is that, in addition to MP3s, the portable player will carry personalized radio streams that will be automatically freshened. For $7.50 a month, users get access to more features, but even if you do not pay, you will be able to buy the portable device and have access to free — though ad-rich — radio streams.

Most radically, sometime this year Slacker says it will introduce a satellite receiver dock for the portable player. The Slacker team plans to blast individual song files to listeners from a satellite several times an hour. As each song is sent, the player itself will determine whether the song is a good fit for its particular user. If so, it will be saved. If not, it will be rejected.

Because of the controversy over royalty rates, and because of its unique portable properties, Slacker made its own licensing deals directly with the four major music groups plus several hundred independent labels. Last.fm recently announced content deals with the Warner Music Group and EMI for tracks on its new, ad-free $3-a-month premium radio service.

The royalty issue is explicitly why services like Soundflavor, Goombah and Mog don’t offer true streaming radio. Soundflavor DJ, a free player available at www.soundflavor.com, uses a collaborative filtering technique, but instead of streaming new songs, it lets you cue up songs on iTunes or Windows Media Player, then takes over D.J. responsibility, matching your initial choices with other tracks from your own collection. It is especially effective if you have a library with thousands of tracks. After every few songs, Soundflavor offers you a free track download from an independent artist, or the opportunity to buy a song that its filter suggests you might like.

Goombah (www.goombah.com), another new service, asks you to download software that analyzes your entire music library. You can, however, select artists or albums that you do not want included in this evaluation. After the analysis, Goombah offers free track downloads and connects you to music fans with similar tastes.

Mog (www.mog.com) is a bustling new online community of music fans. Like Goombah, it uses software to examine your whole library, but it gives you the opportunity to prioritize songs played recently. The result is not streaming radio, but a music blog (hence “mog”) scene where people with overlapping musical tastes talk about concerts, post MP3s and share videos.

Mog’s most inspired development starts today. It is Mog TV, a personalized stream of YouTube music video posts. Mog says there are 400,000 videos there now, plenty to personalize for all tastes.

“Imagine if YouTube knew what songs were in your music collection,” said Mog’s chief executive, David Hyman. “It’s the ultimate mash-up.”

As for artist royalties, that currently appears to be YouTube’s problem.

Dick und Doof in schwarz
In «Norbit» läuft Eddie Murphy zur Hochform auf

Als Findelkind, das aus einem fahrenden Auto geschmissen wird, landet Norbit (Eddie Murphy) im Waisenhaus von Mr. Wong (Eddie Murphy) und trifft dort auf das Mädchen seiner Träume, Kate (Thandie Newton). Die wunderbare Zeit des «verschätzelet Seins» endet für die beiden jedoch abrupt, als Kate wegadoptiert wird. Die einzige Freundin, die Norbit nun noch bleibt, ist die dicke Rasputia (Eddie Murphy). Jahre später sind Rasputia und Norbit immer noch ein Paar. Als sie heiraten, wird Norbit in der Folge während der Erfüllung der ehelichen Pflichten von ihr platt gemacht und schuftet tagsüber in der Baufirma von Rasputias Brüdern. Aber hey, Norbit hat endlich eine Familie, wie er sie nie hatte. Umso traumatischer ist es für ihn, zu erfahren, dass Rasputia fremd geht. Das geschieht genau dann, als Kate wieder in der Stadt auftaucht. Sie hat sich mittlerweile zum Magerbabe mit dem Herz am rechten Fleck entwickelt und will das Waisenhaus, in dem sie einst gewohnt hat, aufkaufen und weiterführen. Dumm nur für Norbit, dass sie bereits verlobt ist, mit einem vordergründig netten Kerl (Cuba Gooding Jr.), der jedoch Dreck am Stecken hat. Zusammen mit Rasputias Brüdern will er hinter Kates Rücken das Waisenhaus zum Strip Club umfunktionieren.

Gemogelt?

Bild: PD

Die britischen Teilnehmer des Eurovision Song Contest Scooch haben es schwierig: Zuerst schlug der Moderator der Vorausscheidung den Sieg in einem peinlichen Missverständnis einer anderen Band zu. Nun soll die Teenager-Band gemogelt haben.

[Cinergy:pbl] Beim Auftritt der Gruppe während der Fernsehshow sind zwei zusätzliche Background-Sänger gar nicht zu sehen gewesen. Sie haben sich hinter der Bühne aufgehalten und die hohen Noten gesungen. So sei der verfälschte Eindruck entstanden, die Band singe ziemlich gut. Scooch wurden von den TV-Zuschauern zum Sieger gewählt.

Verärgert ist auch Justin Hawkins, der Ex-Sänger von The Darkness. Er trat für ein Duo mit der schwarzen Sängerin Beverlei Brown auf. Nun brandmarkt er das britische Fernsehpublikum, es sei «dumm» und «rassistisch», weil es für Scooch stimmte. Der englische TV-Sender BBC steht indes hinter der Band und teilte mit, sie hätten nach den Regeln gespielt und seien als Live-Band aufgetreten.

By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, March 6 — It was a little weird at first, Erin Tobin said, seeing Harry Potter right there on the stage without his pants, or indeed any of his clothes.

Not actually Harry Potter, of course, since he is fictional, but the next best thing: Daniel Radcliffe, who plays him in the movies. Now 17, Mr. Radcliffe has cast off his wand, his broomstick and everything else to appear in the West End revival of Peter Shaffer’s “Equus.” He stars as Alan Strang, a disturbed young man who, in a distinctly un-Harry-Potterish moment of frenzied psychosexual madness, blinds six horses with a hoof pick.

“We’re all kind of freaked out about seeing his — well, him naked,” Ms. Tobin, 20, said after a recent performance. “I still think of him as an 11-year-old boy.”

To make it clear what audiences are in for, at least in part, photographs of Mr. Radcliffe’s buff torso, stripped almost to the groin, have been used to advertise the production. It is as jarring as if, say, Anne Hathaway suddenly announced that instead of playing sweet-natured princesses and fashion-world ingénues, she wanted to appear onstage as a nude, murderous prostitute.

“Equus” opened last week, and the consensus so far is that Mr. Radcliffe has successfully extricated himself from his cinematic alter ego. Considering that playing Harry Potter is practically all he has done in his career, this is no small achievement.

“I think he’s a really good actor, and I sort of forgot about Harry Potter,” said Ophelia Oates, 14, who saw the play over the weekend. “Anyway, you can’t be Harry Potter forever.”

In The Daily Telegraph, Charles Spencer said that “Daniel Radcliffe brilliantly succeeds in throwing off the mantle of Harry Potter, announcing himself as a thrilling stage actor of unexpected depth and range.”

Mr. Radcliffe told The Telegraph that “I thought it would be a bad idea to wait till the Potter films were all finished to do something else.” There are still a few to go. The fifth, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” is scheduled for release on July 13, and Mr. Radcliffe has signed on for the final two installments as well. (Meanwhile, the seventh and last book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” will hit stores on July 21.)

Harry and Alan could not be more dissimilar as characters, even if both “come from quite weird backgrounds,” as 13-year-old Ella Pitt, another recent theatergoer, put it. (And no, she declared, she was not too young for all the nakedness, swearing and sexuality.) Both characters have unresolved issues relating to their parents: Harry, because his are dead, and Alan, because his have driven him insane.

But when it comes to romance, for instance, the celluloid Harry has yet to kiss a girl; the big moment comes in the forthcoming film. Meanwhile, Alan in “Equus” not only engages in some serious equi-erotic nuzzling with an actor playing a horse, but is also onstage, fully nude, for 10 minutes, during which he nearly has sex with an equally naked young woman.

“Equus,” which also stars Richard Griffiths as the unconventional psychiatrist who helps untangle Alan’s ecstatic madness and tortured imagination, is playing to sellout audiences at the Gielgud Theater here, and there is talk of transferring the production to Broadway, perhaps next season. Some people are drawn by interest in the play itself, which won the Tony Award for best play in 1975. Some come to see Mr. Griffiths, a seasoned actor who himself won a Tony Award last year for his role in “The History Boys.”

Then there are the Radcliffe fans, who have watched the actor negotiate the rocky path of adolescence right before their eyes. They have watched his Harry Potter fly through the air, forget to do his homework, talk to snakes, smite people with his magic wand, stay up past his bedtime and suffer any number of traumatic near-death experiences. Try as they might during the performance, they cannot completely de-Potter their minds.

“I was, like, ‘I don’t want to see him poke the eyes out of horses,’ ” said Marie Aveni, 22.

Emily Bunch, 21, remarked, “I thought, ‘Harry Potter! Where are your glasses?’ ” Wendy Krekeler, 20, described her first glimpse of the shirtless Mr. Radcliffe this way: “I thought, ‘Wow, he must have been working out.’ ”

But, his admirers say, it is clear that Mr. Radcliffe is not a one-trick actor, fated to end his career playing elderly magicians in “Harry Potter” rip-offs.

“I wanted to see if he could play both a wizard boy and a psycho patient,” said Ashley Lucas, 21, “and I think he did an excellent job.”

Mr. Radcliffe’s star presence in “Equus” does not appear to have traumatized innocent “Harry Potter” aficionados, although not everyone knows what to expect. At one performance, Karoline Nordmo, an admirer from Sweden, said she was hoping to buy tickets for herself and her 12-year-old sister, Lorentine.

“We know that it has something to do with horses, and that he’s in it,” she explained.

Katelyn Gill, 20, a student from California who saw “Equus” with several friends, said the experience had not ruined the “Harry Potter” films for her; it only changed her perception of its star.

“After we saw the play, we were like, ‘Oh, my God — we’ll never be able to see Harry Potter in the same way again,’ ” she said. “We saw him naked!”

Es ist ein Fantasy-Märchen im Mantel einer Geschichte über den Spanischen Bürgerkrieg, das uns Guillermo Del Toro hier erzählt - oder umgekehrt. Eine wunderschön gestaltete Fabel, in der die wahren Monster Uniformen der Francisten tragen.

[Bilder: PD] [Cinergy:jts] Im Zentrum von Guillermo Del Toros Filmen standen schon immer die Charaktere, die tragischen Helden mit ihren Ängsten und Nöten. Das ist insofern bemerkenswert, als dass Del Torro in Genres tätig ist, in denen für gewöhnlich Special-Effects und Actionszenen die Figurenzeichnung überlagern. Selbst in reinen Auftragsarbeiten wie «Mimic» oder «Blade II» bot der Mexikaner mehr als nur Spektakel, liess ein wenig von der psychologischen Tiefe aufblitzen, die seine persönlicheren Filme wie «Cronos» oder «Hellboy» auszeichnen. Mit «Pan's Labyrinth» zeigt er sein bislang reifstes Werk. Es ist eine gespaltene, fast schon schizophrene Geschichte, eine Fantasy-Story ebenso wie ein Familien- und Coming-of-Age-Drama und ein Film über den Spanischen Bürgerkrieg. Dass Del Toro alle Elemente harmonisch zusammenbringt, dass hier nichts forciert wirkt und den Fluss der Geschichte stört, grenzt an Alchemie. Womit wir wieder bei der Fantasy wären. Das Mädchen Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) reist mit seiner schwangeren Mutter durch das Spanien des Jahres 1944. Ziel ist eine Hütte in den Hügeln des Nordens, wohin der neue Mann der Mutter die beiden Frauen befohlen hat. Der Stiefvater (Sergi López) ist ein gefühlloser, brutaler Militär, der die francistischen Milizen der Gegend befiehlt. Ofelia flüchtet sich vor ihm und dem Krieg in eine Fantasiewelt, in der sie als verlorene Königstochter eines unterirdischen Fabelreichs drei Aufgaben erfüllen muss, um in ihre Welt zurückzukehren. Ob die Faune, Alraunen, Riesenkröten und Monster, die der Zuschauer nun zu sehen bekommt, einzig in der Vorstellung des Mädchens existieren, wird nie klar. Genau so wenig lässt sich sagen, ob Del Toro eine Geschichte über den Bürgerkrieg in den Mantel eines Fantasy-Märchens hüllt, oder ob es genau umgekehrt ist. Ein Umstand, der den wunderschön gestalteten Film zuweilen in die Nähe des Belanglosen rückt. Ein Kinderfilm jedenfalls ist es nicht. In Ofelias Welt gibt es viele bedrohliche Momente, etwa wenn das Mädchen vor einem Menschen fressenden Monster fliehen muss, dessen Augen in den Handflächen liegen. Die brutalste Szene kommt aber, als Sergi López einen hilflosen Dorfbewohner mit einer Weinflasche brutal zu Tode prügelt. Sowieso, dieser Sergi López - allein wegen einem Blick in seine kalten Augen lohnt sich dieser Film.

Filmlänge:	119min
Land (Jahr):	Mexiko Spanien USA (2006)
Genre:	Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
Besetzung:	Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, Sergi López, Ariadna Gil, Maribel Verdú, Álex Angulo, Roger Casamajor, Sebastián Haro, Mina Lira, Federico Luppi, Ivan Massagué, Chema Ruiz, Manolo Solo, Milo Taboada
Regie:	Guillermo del Toro
Drehbuch:	Guillermo del Toro
Kamera:	Guillermo Navarro
Produktion:	Álvaro Agustín