I was fortunate enough to see a midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie last night. My quick summary: The movie is awesome! I laughed, I cried, I nearly peed my pants. You should rush out and see this movie right away.

For those of you familiar with the size of the novel, you have to figure that the movie has been greatly boiled down. The people who made the movie decided to concentrates on the plot of the Tri Wizard Tournament. In short, the Tournament is a set of 3 challanges that the champions must face with only one winner in the end. Even thought it was late, the movie moved really quickly through the first 2 challanges (I think mainly to fit everything in…) and right up to the start of the third challange. By the time we reach the thirds challange, the pacing of the movie had really slowed down. Since this is the end (and most important) part of the movie, this is not totally suprising. But the pacing transition caught me a little off guard as I tried to adjust to the slower pacing that took us through to the end. But it was worth it as the difficulties of the ending of this novel were expertly handled leaving the viewer not on a happy note, but not on a sad note either.

Every time a new Harry Potter movie came out, I thought it was better than the previous. My main theory on why, is that each book gets successively better as well. If you have better source material, you can make a better movie. You can also toss in that each of the kids are getting better and better as actors as they get older (more practice!). Put that together with jucier roles for the kids, and you are going to get a better movie.

All in all, another excellent movie in the Harry Potter Pantheon.

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I picked up my copy of the new Harry Potter book at Walmart yesterday when they opened at 7:00 AM. I’m only 150 pages into it (I had things to do, so I unfortunately couldn’t dedicate the day to reading it…), but I had some initial thoughts about it.

One thing that I have really liked so far about the new book is how JK Rowling has brought the post 9/11 feel into her books. Her description of Diagon Alley and also the security measures recommended by the Ministry of Magic happen to reflect the real world. Even though the possibility of a Death Eater grabbing you on the street in the middle of the day is about as likely as Malfoy complimenting Harry, the “gang” couldn’t go out alone and had to make sure that Mr. Weasley went with them. I also loved the protection against Polyjuice Potion (Agree on questions to ask people to prove that they are who they look like. ie. What is your favorite jam?). That so captures the (mostly) insane security measures recommend to people following 9/11. Thankfully over time in our world, calmer heads prevailed and most of those nonsense security measures have gone away.

I also love the way that JK Rowling separated the world into two generations: Kids and Adults. And with her later books, she has been able to link the situations that the Kids face to actions and things that happened to their parents. It is not like we are living in an isolated world where these kids are having brand new adventures. Rather, it is a rich world where the actions of our fathers have a direct effect on our lives.

But all these changes has me wondering a little bit: Is this still a kids book? While the writing uses simple words and sentence structures that very much suit a kids reading level, the issues dealt with aren’t always kid friendly. But maybe reading about how Harry handles issues like Death is a good introduction for a kid to start thinking about it. I don’t know, but I would probably let my kids read it (my parents let me read anything I could get my hands on when I was a kid and I didn’t turn out that bad).

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Originally from Boing Boing, but a Guardian article on doing Dumbledore’s Death Scene in the Style of Famous Authors. I’m including one below, but the full list can be found in the article.

Jane Austen:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an old wizard in possession of a big secret must be in danger of his life.

However little known the existence of this secret, or the views of a such a wizard may be on his first entering Hogwarts, it takes little time for minds of surrounding magicians to consider it the rightful property of themselves or one of their number.

“My dear Dumbledore,” said Hermione one day, “have you heard that there is a dark cloud brooding over the castle?”

Dumbledore mumbled that he had not.

“But there is,” returned she. “Ron Weasley has just been outside and told me all about it.”

Dumbledore made no answer.

“Do you not want to know what is causing it?” she cried impatiently, turning to face the old wizard.

Again, Dumbledore was provokingly silent.

“You must know that Ron says that it is caused by Voldemort. He came down on Monday on a broomstick to view the place and was so much delighted with Harry’s absence that he immediately called in… Dumbledore, do you not wish to hear the remainder?

Dumbledore slumped forward over the pianoforte at which he had been sitting. A discreet trickle of blood began to darken the keys.

Dumbledore? Dumbledore, my dear! You have delighted us at the piano long enough. Really. Now do tell me what you think, Dumbledore.

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