The big movie news of late was the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I” last week. Boy, did that sucker make a lot of money: $330 million worldwide in its opening weekend.

I did not contribute to those millions of dollars, but I know plenty of friends who were more than willing to fork over some cash to see Harry, Ron and Hermione in the penultimate Potter movie. Facebook was atwitter with status updates concerning the film: “OMG!! Opening night of HP 7 :)” and other such musings remain common on the social networking site.

Plenty of people in Lake County were among those to see the film as well, as the Polson Showboat Theatre sold out at least four times, theater owner Becky Dupuis said Tuesday afternoon. Dupuis said the Potter-mania began with a midnight showing last Thursday night that came close to selling out, and has continued to bring in dedicated Potter fans.

“Despite the weather, it seems people are willing to risk life and limb to come,” she said with a laugh. “We’re just glad we could bring it to the community when it opened and glad for the support we have gotten from the community.”

Dupuis said it’s been so busy that she herself hasn’t had a chance to see it, but she’ll have opportunities in the coming days. The film will show for two more weeks in Polson, she said, and may play for a week at the Ronan Entertainer too. This holiday weekend should be busy as well, so if you want to see the flick, head down to Main Street Polson early to catch one of three daily showings.

Because I’m scared of snowy streets and Harry Potter fanatics, I bundled up in my house and turned on the instant Netflix. I much prefer to rent from Crazy Mike’s in town, but with my vehicle’s aversion to snow, I was a little bit stranded.

Instead, I went with an old movie that I’ve seen parts of on TV: “The Hunted”, which is also available at Crazy Mike’s in Polson.

Starring Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro, the film came out in 2003 and is the sort of action-thriller that can be enjoyable on a cold winter night.

Del Toro plays Aaron Hallam, a special-ops military guy who’s quite obviously good at his job: finding and terminating targets. The opening scene shows him in Kosovo in 1999, as ethnic cleansing means for a pretty brutal battle scene, filled with explosions and mass murder.

Later, we’re brought to the woods of Oregon, where Hallam brutally murders four hunters, showing off some of his insane knife skills that he’s seemed to have picked up during his special military training. That training came from L.T. Bonham (Jones), a deep-woods FBI tracker, who is brought to Oregon to find his former student. Bonham finds and detains him, but Hallam proves a slippery asset that may know more than he should.

Del Toro is good in his role as a posttraumatic stress disorder military man that seems to have brought his experience in Kosovo back with him stateside. The fight and chase scenes are pretty epic, though the plot and script are a little bit lacking.

Overall, I’d recommend the movie if you’re looking for a fun, older film.