Potter is magic at its most real

clipped from www.salon.com In "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," magic happens as the characters are busy doing other things -- playing sports, falling in love, nursing broken hearts. And while this is, of course, a fantasy movie, the quiet and potent idea nestled inside it is that there's magic in and around the things of everyday life. "The Half-Blood Prince" -- with the help of Bruno Delbonnel's cautiously majestic cinematography and Stuart Craig's reliably gorgeous production design -- is a beautifully paced feat of filmmaking, one that navigates potentially choppy shifts in scale with grace and ease. The most beautiful magic in it is left unseen. And still, it emerges with absolute clarity.

Harry Potter will be a big hit at the box office

Two films are being made from the Deathly Hallows book, part one scheduled for release in November 2010 and part two in July 2011.

In Half-Blood Prince, Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore is intent on preparing student Potter for a final showdown with the evil Lord Voldemort, who is seeking to tighten his grip on the worlds of wizards and non-wizards, or "Muggles".

SHOOT: Good news is the last book will be made into a two part movie. I've already seen Half Blood Prince. Imo it's the 2nd best movie so far of 2009, Star Trek was slightly better.

Read my review.

clipped from www.reuters.com "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" hits screens on July 15, promising high-speed action, dark and dangerous battles with the forces of evil, budding romance at Hogwarts school for wizards and the expected death of a prominent character. The wait has been a long one for Potter fans around the world who have followed the fate of Harry and his friends through the seven best-selling books by British author J.K. Rowling. Warner Bros. pushed the release date of Half-Blood Prince back from 2008, leaving a two-year gap since the fifth movie "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and the final novel "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". "This is just a remarkable franchise that has consistently drawn blockbuster numbers each time out, and it is hard to imagine this picture not continuing that trend," said Brandon Gray, president of tracking firm Box Office Mojo. Really, this film is more sex, potions and rock n' roll.

A Pothole Crater The Size of a Paddling Pool (Houghton/Orchards Area)

About 20 metres further up is a nice slip&slide thing. If it wasn't a road, kids could come and play on it all day. See, water has been flowing over the surface for a number of days, and once algae and slime starts to collect, we should have fish and...as I say, slip&slide ;-)

JKR vs NVDL

The last Harry Potter book is 607 pages, and I admit, I loved reading the book. It's not that Rowling is a good writer as much as she weaves amazingly imaginative stories (there is a difference). That said, Deathly Hallows ends on an extremely cheesy, lame note. I'll give you a hint: Harry's son is called Albus Severus...

Other than that, there are some breathtaking images Rowling imbues in this fabulous tale. I have been coming home from work and diving into this book each day for a week. I am quite sad that that option is no longer availed to me. It's going to be a MASSIVE challenge to turn the last book - so much wheat, so much chaff - into a movie.

But as I say, what surprises me often is that this most popular writer of our time is definitely not the BEST writer. It's her imagination. The same could be said, perhaps, of the likes of George Lucas and many others.

What struck me towards the last third of Harry Potter was a bizarre sense - and I don't mean this in an arrogant way, I mean it in the sense of...sniffing at one's inner potential, one's own potential to be a great (or at least popular) novelist - that I was onto something as a 16 year old, something that may have pipped Harry to the post, may have ultimately become (or outdone) the Harry Potter Franchise.

Inspired by HIGHLANDER, a book called Centennial, Star Wars and various other fragments, I began to weave a tale set in the Scottish Highlands. The idea was really to find an excuse for modern individuals to go and live in a castle, and then to unleash all those chivalrous, medieval themes. The princess, the knight, the sword, the king, the abstract qualities of good and evil, and other deep mythological themes.

The working title of this epic was VERSATILE FLYING SECRETS, though being more than twice as old (and twice as smart) as I was when I was writing it, at 16,17 and 18, perhaps a better title would have been CHRISTOPHER ULYSSES AND THE FORGOTTEN CASTLE. My version of Harry Potter was the character, Christopher Ulysses, a platinum haired, lithe young man who inherits a castle (and all the spooks and historical accouterments contained therein).

The writing of the novel took two years. I remember completing the final sentence about an hour before my matric final science exam (for which I received an E). In the book I also killed off the central characters mother. This was an unexpectedly poignant event, and a profound experience. Two or three months later my own mother died.

It is interesting that when we create a hero we must create a villain. Is life like that? Every Superman needs a Lex Luthor (to prove his worth), Batman needs a Joker, Hitler needs a Churchill, God needs Satan. But in reality, the two are the same, the two are one, the one cannot live without the other. This too, is a metaphor.
My Voldemort was Ogilvie Skye, an absentee landlord who used all manner of evil to procure land. With Venner Field he involved himself personally. The story culminates in a slaughter, just as Harry Potter's story does. But my story is much darker, more mythical and perhaps more terrifying (in two words: less fun) than Harry Potter. The question is, which is more imaginative. For Skye's kingdom I sketched a black and blue (cold) world, where the fields were filled with blue grass, and the walls were black and glistening like bloody wounds in the dark.

I used Lucas' light sabre as Skye's weapon. It was a solid beam of light, in the hands of a Dark Lord. Christopher Ulysses (grey eyes, platinum hair), a 17 year old, attempts to lead a fugitive fleet of granddads and geeks, each leader pushing people into the fray. Skye's army are armed with modern automatic weapons, Ulysses troops are armed with good intentions, tartan kilts, swords and shields. It is the story of the world becoming undone (and undoing itself). Our traditions destroyed against our ambitions, and vice versa. The young massacring the old, plastic undoing thread etc etc. In the end, Ulysses loses a hand to the sabre, but propels Skye into the open oven of a blast furnace. Whilst this battle is underway, the Highlands rage with civilians apparently gone made. Swords battle pistols and rifles. It is a comical, mythical Armageddon, all engaged in war. All coming to grief, except a chosen few.

I remember losing the entire manuscript whilst stationed at an Air Force base outside Pretoria. I posted up reward posters. I finally found it, with some leftovers of a bag of person possessions swiped from my KAS. The manuscript then faded into obscurity. Perhaps it is time to resurrect it. Or perhaps, sleeping dogs should be all lowed to remain that way.