Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the least successful of the big screen adaptations about the Boy Who Lived.  It's still very entertaining, but the pace is all wonky.  Part of the wonkiness has to do with trying to cram an extraordinarily long book into a digestible film (and Phoenix is 20 minutes shorter than its predecessor), and part, certainly, has to do with losing screenwriter Steven Kloves, who adapted the first four J. K. Rowling novels.  Kloves will be back for the final two installments, but here, we're stuck with Michael Goldberg, who you may remember from such films as Bed of Roses and the recent update of Peter Pan.  The result feels more like a race than a film, and for a story that should involve the adult characters more than the previous four films (the titular Order ain't exactly made of students), they're all conspicuously absent aside from a 30-second appearance here and there.

In this tale, Harry finds himself shunned by most of the wizarding community (over his claims that Lord Voldemort has returned), by his beloved Dumbledore (for reasons not known until the final reel), and to a certain extent, his BFFs Ron and Hermione (because, like most of the recurring adult characters, there's no time for them).  Harry wishes he'd get the same treatment from new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Dolores Umbridge (a sublimely evil Imelda Staunton), who tortures Our Hero before Goldberg's script quickly whisks us off to the next scene before anyone can realize how truly sadistic she is.  The ending doesn't pack the same punch experienced in The Goblet of Fire, but if you see it in IMAX theatres, the last 20 minutes will be in 3D.  PSB says 7

You'd be incredibly unlucky to find a bigger piece of hot summer shit than Evening, a film that promises secrets and mysteries but delivers the cinematic equivalent of repeated punches to the kidneys.  Like The Hours, it's adapted from a Michael Cunningham novel.  Like The Hours, it's structured in a very unusual format.  Unlike The Hours, none of the characters fill their pockets with rocks and slowly sink into the river, though you'll openly be hoping for each and every one of them to.  In Olden Days, Ann (Claire Danes) is a free-spirited young woman who has a brief fling with a guy (Patrick Wilson) while at the wedding of a friend (Mamie Gummer).  In Present Day, Ann (Vanessa Redgrave) is on death's door, and blurts out out a couple of things about her fling while her two daughters (Toni Collette and Natasha Richardson) are listening.  That's it.  That's the secret and the mystery.  Bang a hot guy when you're still young, keep it a secret, and then mutter some odd details about it when you're about to die.  PSB says 3

Michael Moore haters will see Sicko -- his indictment of the American healthcare system (without even bringing up the 47 million citizens with no insurance) -- with their minds already made up about his numbers being fudged and his situations being staged.  Michael Moore lovers won't really learn anything they don't already know.  The people who see Sicko with, god forbid, some kind of open mind, will be shaken to their very core at the differences between the HMOs in the USA and the free healthcare doled out in Canada, England, France, and Cuba. Sure, you might have to wait in line to get treatment in Canada, but when's the last time you didn't wait for hours in an American emergency room, and then worry your claim would be denied for some bullshit reason?  You can argue the numbers until the cows come home, but it all boils down to this: In the US, HMOs are rewarded for rejecting the most claims; and in other countries, doctors are rewarded for actually making their patients healthier.  U-S-A!  U-S-A!  PSB says 8

Next week: We're skipping "Gay Week," so there won't be reviews of Hairspray or I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.  We're fresh out of gypsy tears, and lacking the necessary protection, it's wouldn't be prudent to partake in these sinful cinematic experiences.