If you're really, really wealthy and/or a really, really big Harry Potter fan, check out this 16-disc, 199-euro complete Harry Potter DVD set, available in November via the French Amazon site:
I am neither rich enough nor a big enough fan of the movies to shell out that kind of money, but even I have to admit that box set looks totally awesome. Here's hoping it's not exclusive to Europe...
We will all be happier if this is an image-free post.
These Reborn Harry Potter Babies are the most horrifying things I have ever seen. I'd like to think the dolls are some kind of belated April Fool's Day joke... but whenever I click the link to read more, I just find myself staring, hypnotized, at their creepy little faces.
The NY Times recently posted an article about what they describe as the "unexpected, turbocharged success of the $265 million Potter playland" (i.e., Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park in Florida). The article and its accompanying photographs make the park look pretty cool... but I can't help but think about the blogger FoodJunk's recent reviews of two Harry Potter-themed foodstuffs: Pink Coconut Ice and Pumpkin Juice. Neither one of 'em sounded enticing, and their ludicrously high prices left me feeling rather depressed about the park as a whole.
Huh. NPR informs me that the 4th Annual Quidditch World Cup is taking place at De Witt Clinton Park in New York City this very weekend, and will feature more than 60 different teams from high schools and universities across the country.
The end of the beginning of the final Harry Potter movie
MTV's Movies Blog is reporting that the first half of the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will end at roughly Chapter 24, for those of you who've been wondering. (Here's hoping that's not the really boring bit in the woods.)
Well, I suppose the full-length trailer for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows adaptation looks nice enough. But I'm still SUPER IRRITATED by Warner Bros.' decision to split the story into two parts. It feels like a naked attempt to suck more cash out of the fans--not only will they get double the ticket prices, you just know that they'll eventually repackage the two films as one mega-movie (probably with bonus footage) so hardcore fans will have to buy the stupid thing twice.
Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe is continuing his march towards Broadway fame. Unlike his role in Equus, we're assuming playing J. Pierrepont Finch in the 2011 production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying will allow him to remain fully clothed.
Some dude called Brian Orndorf was kind enough to post some photographs of the construction happening at the Harry Potter theme park, and I have to say: it does look kind of awesome. I'm not sure it's how I pictured the books, but it's very close to the movie set:
We're sincerely grateful to Brian, because there is little chance of us rushing out to see this for ourselves. Well, some of us might want to, but if *I* am going to pay big money to go to a book-themed kids' park, it is totally going to be Moomin World.
After a seven-month delay, the release date has finally hit for the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and people seem to really, really, really* like it.
*Although the Rolling Stone article, as of this writing, is spelling "Daniel" as "Danel" and "Gryffindor" as "Gryffandor", so they obviously didn't like it enough to spellcheck.
So, it's been several days of crazy news, right? Palin resigned! The Californian economy went belly-up! Michael Jackson died! And then, in a little bit of weirdness that sat atop the great big pile of weird like a cherry on a sundae, Rupert "Ron Weasley" Grint announced that he'd gotten--and then recovered from--the swine flu.
They've released a whole bunch of Harry Potter images on the British Warner Bros. site, and I am once again taken aback by young Daniel Radcliffe's ability to over-emote:
See what I mean? His overacting is clear even in a non-verbal, totally non-moving medium. I want to go in there and draw a dotted line between their gazes, connected by a heart in the center.
...or maybe poodle skin. It's a little hard to tell.
Emma "Hermione" Watson has appeared in another bizarre photoshoot, this one for the French fashion magazine Crash. The photographs were taken by Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, and feature young Emma wearing a strange nun-like headdress, the muppet skin featured above, and lots of other, more conventionally ugly stuff. Check it out for yourself here.
I finally found a copy of the new HP trailer that I was able to embed:
Seriously, guys, this movie looks so exciting. I'm still having trouble picturing how the last book will work on film (I mean, why do they need to split it into two movies when all I can really remember of the story is huge sections about Harry and Hermione sitting around in the woods?), but this one looks straight-up awesome.
New Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince trailer up...
...and while my favorite HP trailer of all time remains the one for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (with the school choir clutching toads and singing "Something Wicked This Way Comes"), this one is really working for me:
