Go Harry!

Thanks to Gary Parkinson and Tim Bakker.

 
I suppose some people might view it as an awesome toy…

One of the comments on the reddit thread reminds us all of another unfortunate toy, Mattel’s battery-operated Nimbus 2000. A vibrating broom modeled after the Harry Potter films. It was discontinued. 

(via reddit)

 
I’m not quite sure this is what J.K. Rowling had in mind when writing the Harry Potter series. It kinda gives a new meaning to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

(via TDW)

...is apparently where all the cool kids got to go.

(Everything is Terrible: Hogwart’s School of Evil and Devil Worship)

Japanese fangirl interviews Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.  Tokyomango says:

A popular variety TV show called Sanma no Karakuri TV had a contest where 10,000 Japanese Harry Potter fans competed for a chance to fly to the UK, visit the set of the HP movies, and interview Ron and Harry. The winner was a high school girl named Kana Matsuda. Here’s a hilarious clip of her interviewing Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley. Watch it! It has subtitles. I’m personally a bigger fan of Ron than Harry, but if you want to watch the video of her interviewing Daniel Radcliffe, it’s here.

 
While I was never a fan of Anthony Minghella, or his limp entry in the Ripley sweepstakes (for some truly great Ripley action see this, or definitely this, then, if you’re curious about Patricia Highsmith, maybe read this), I’m a huge fan of both Beckett, and the always entertaining Alan Rickman (not that Beckett, too, can’t entertain).  The 4-disc Beckett On Film ranges, in my mind, all over the place in quality, but I think the set’s standout is definitely the Minghella-helmed version of Play, starring the melancholy Snape himself.  Let’s see…Rickman’s in an urn between the also-urned Kristen Scott Thomas and Juliet Stevenson, and, well…just push “play!”  (You’ll need to push it twice, though: Play II follows below.)

Play II

Well, there is simply no beating around the bush about this one. No mitigating factors. Nope, none. The new Harry Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is absolutely fucking terrible. Not a disaster, just a total bore, which is worse. Please don’t shoot the messenger, I sincerely expected to like it, but man oh man does it suck. It’s mind-numbingly bad. The pacing is all wrong. It felt like we were in that theater for about seventeen hours.  My wife hated it even more than I did.

After a fantastically conceived opening sequence (one of the finest I’ve ever seen, brilliantly executed) my first thought for this review was “Harry Potter franchise kicks it up a notch! Or two!” I was fantasizing about my blurby superlatives showing up on movie posters, but… sadly t’was not to be. After the first ten minutes the film quickly dropped off in energy and intelligence. After 30 minutes, the suckiness picked up speed. Much of the script made no sense. Some—like all the villains—characters’ actions seem to have no motivation whatsoever. Aside from one or two action-oriented scenes (the Quidditch matches were remarkable), it was an absolute snoozefest.

Looks great, same great cast, all the right ingredients, I grant you that, but I will say it again: The new Harry Potter movie is godawful.

I know what you’re thinking. Your kids will still love it. Guess again. Your kids will hate it and get restless after 30 minutes. So will you. No one would love it unless the studio was paying them to love it. I don’t think the people who worked on it or acted in it love it. No one would like this movie. It’s shite. The word of mouth will be horrible.

If you read this far and you still plan to see “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”... as you are sitting there watching one of the worst big budget films in recent memory, a total piece of shit, remember this review and don’t say I didn’t warn you. Because I did.

And if you want to know how I really feel…