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Dave the Longwinded

We haven’t talked at length about some of the characters that we would meet in the DH films.  I personally can’t help but wonder who will play the wonderfully delirious Xenophilius Lovegood (assuming they leave him in the script…).

But, a little news/rumor found its way to IGN today concerning the casting of Rufus Scrimgeour.  It seems as though Bill Nighy might be taking up the scowling minister’s robes.  Lately, he’s best known for his turn as Davey Jones in the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  And uber-dedicated sci fi/fantasy nerds will recognize him from the Underworld movies (which, IMO, suck…). 

His resume is long and varied.  He’s a very versatile actor, and recently he’s been in everything from the hilarious British film Hot Fuzz to The Constant Gardener to Valkyrie (outshining Tom Cruise by a mile — you know, like it’s difficult or something…).

I think his choice is interesting, and it is potentially a quiet but very definitive home run.  But, it’s also got me to thinking about who might play some of the other characters that haven’t made it on screen yet.  Or, for that matter, which ones might be cut in the name of filmic-adaption.

Thoughts?  Ideas?

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LVRTravis asked some of us to fill in on the HBP read-thr0ugh, since he’s busy, you know, editing a book!

It would be easy to skip through Chapter 20 thinking that the most important thing we learn is how Voldemort/Riddle came into possession of Hufflepuff’s Cup and Slytherin’s Locket.  We know that both end up becoming Horcruxes at some point later.  In addition, the connection between these devices, Hogwarts, and Horcruxes is foreshadowed both here and in the earlier Pensieve lesson.  Slughorn’s distorted memory points to a conversation about such things with young Riddle, but it’s clear that he’s gone to great pains to hide important elements of that conversation — the wizard’s version of “trying to forget.”  [click to continue…]

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It’s slated to release sometime next year, but some production art and headshots of characters have creeped out online over time, especially in the last day or two.

And if you’re wondering…  Yes, it is most certainly steeped in Tim Burton’s classic vision of the fantastic.

And yes, the image to the left is Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter.

And, again, yes — it is downright creepy!

If you want to check out some other info, a USA Today article offers some concept art and details some of the story here.  And some other production stills are available at Yahoo! here.

The one thing you can always count on with a story that has been Burtonized:  his ideas will stretch far into a direction you never considered.  At minimum, even if the story isn’t especially compelling, he will always create a visually arresting world that you can’t help but look at.

What do THH patrons think?

(HT to Quint @ Ain’t it Cool News)

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Briefly Re-”thinking” Harry’s Walk in the Woods

June 20, 2009

THH’s readers are a smart set — well informed and willing to stretch their imaginations.  I’ve always imagined that we come from a tremendously wide variety of ages, backgrounds, philosophies and worldviews.  I’ve also figured, in the last few days, that many of us have at least been distantly aware of the turmoil in Iran.  [...]

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Rowling and Bloomsbury Accused of Plagiarism

June 15, 2009

A Yahoo! article indicates that a legal action filed in England is claiming that J.K. Rowling copied significant portions of Goblet of Fire from a 1987 children’s book written by Adrian Jacobs, called Willy the Wizard.
It named the estate’s trustee as Paul Allen, and said that Rowling had copied “substantial parts” of “The Adventures of [...]

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Lego my Harry Potter!

June 3, 2009

I’m a huge video game fan, and this week is full of big news for me.  The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3, if you want to sound cool) is happening in LA, and this when we ludo-philes get some previews of interesting new hardware and upcoming games from all the big companies.
There is a tiny bit [...]

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Harry Potter and the Museum of Science and Industry

May 31, 2009

If you’re in Chicago this summer and can’t score tickets to Wrigley Field, plan a trip the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, instead.  The Museum is running an exhibition of props, scenery, and creatures from the Harry Potter films.

The museum’s webpage states:
They will also be able to take a tour through Hagrid’s hut, enter [...]

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Two Half-Blood Prince Clips

May 21, 2009

Update:  Found a version of the featurette I could embed from IGN.com.  It’s posted below the links.
Checking out one of my favorite geeky websites, Aint it Cool News, they linked to a short featurette with some killer footage from Half-Blood Prince.  The link is below.  It’s a .mov file that plays in Quicktime in beautiful [...]

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What Movie Did I Watch?!

May 19, 2009

Maybe this is why I like the new Star Trek!  Enjoy.

On a related note, have you ever noticed these kinds of uncannyparallels in books or movies you enjoy?

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Dave’s Star Trek Review (No Spoilers)

May 10, 2009

First, let me start my review with a bit of full-disclosure:  I’m not a Star Trek fan.  Never have been — Star Wars was always a vastly more interesting world and story for me.  The characters were more interesting to me, and so was the action.  Thus, I do not come to this film with [...]

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Heroes and Villains

April 1, 2009

I wouldn’t normally cite anything from Entertainment Weekly as an especially interesting analysis of things literary, but the most recent issue (3 April 2009) has a piece by Jeff Jensen exploring modern America’s fascination with villains and significantly flawed heroes (”Heroes and Villains”).  This passage struck me:
The current state of heroism can be summed up [...]

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Dr. Manhattan: “The Superman exists…”

March 9, 2009

“…and he’s American” (IV.13).  His backstory comes straight out of a Marvel comic, a company famous for its heroes who are made so by exposure to some form of atomic energy.  He begins life as Jon Osterman, a kid predisposed toward ingenuity.  He becomes a physicist, working in high-tech tests for the federal government concerning [...]

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Dave’s Review for Watchmen

March 8, 2009

It’s at my blog, if you’re interested.

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Rorschach: Watchmen’s Abyss

March 4, 2009

Rorschach (aka Walter Kovacs) is easily one of the more (in)famous characters from Alan Moore’s world.  And Dave Gibbons’s visual take on him has become iconic to many comic fans.  Figure 1 demonstrates the film’s desire to be as faithful to his character design as the medium allows.  The look clearly seems to draw from [...]

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Watchmen: Getting Started

February 24, 2009

Preliminaries (Updated)
Update:  Here’s another link that appeared online:  IGN’s “Top Ten Most Memorable Moments from Watchmen“.
First, here are a couple of links to online “annotated” versions of Watchmen (the book):

Watching the Detectives:  The site bills itself as “an internet companion” to the book; it’s akin to a Wiki, although the layout is different from anything [...]

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Who will watch Watchmen?

February 21, 2009

I had intentions of posting material on Watchmen in the coming weeks, with the movie’s coming release.  But, Red Rocker brought the subject up in the comments section of a post, so I thought I’d give everyone some material to mull over, now.
Watchmen is a radical departure from much of the material we’ve examined here [...]

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Ginny Weasley

January 18, 2009

I’ve always found Ginny Weasley fascinating, given her ever evolving role in the story and the lives of other characters.  In 2004, Rowling hedged her bets on Ginny in an online chat session:
Field: Do you plan for Ginny to take on a major character role in [...]

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Harry Potter and Convergence Culture

November 29, 2008

My coursework at Old Dominion has led me through a lot of writing and reading for last few months — hence, my absence from the site! One of the books I’ve been reading has pushed the back of my mind in some new directions with Harry Potter.  In 2006, Henry Jenkins (head of the Comparative [...]

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Help a Real Study on Harry Potter!

October 30, 2008

Or at least on we fans, anyway!
A classmate of mine at Old Dominion University forwarded me a survey link to gather data about what drives Harry Potter fans to love the books, and to take part in communities like ours here at The Hog’s Head.  The project is a pilot study for a course in [...]

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“The Fall of the House of Usher”

October 14, 2008

In America, we’re trained from a young age to equate Edgar Allan Poe with both terror and Halloween.  In my experience, reading Poe in an English class was something of a yearly ritual, even if the rationale for the exercise was rather forced.  Poe clearly enjoys a better literary reputation than our other horror master, [...]

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Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

October 4, 2008

Even though we now consider Alice as perhaps the monumental book of children’s literature, it has been steeped in controversy.  Yes, much of that controversy has to do with it’s enigmatic author, Lewis Carroll (ne the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson).
The conspiracy theories swirl around Carroll’s apparent fondness of children, particularly young girls.  Those theories are [...]

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Twilight Leak and Author’s Reaction

September 4, 2008

by Dave
I found a story posted on Yahoo! News this morning from Reuters.  Apparently, large segments of the final Twilight novel were leaked online, prompting this response from the author, Stephenie Meyer:
“I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on ‘Midnight Sun,’ and so it is on hold indefinitely.”
Of course, there [...]

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Half-Blood Prince Game, The Sequel!

August 22, 2008

by Dave
An article on The Leaky Cauldron has touched on a different issue concerning the Harry Potter videogames: the potential that they might keep making them after Deathly Hallows. The game industry does have a habit of running moneymaking franchises into the ground, especially if they have marketing tie-ins that reach audiences outside of [...]

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Half-Blood Prince Game

August 21, 2008

by Dave
So, now that the movie has been delayed, what does this mean for the videogame?  Apparently nothing.  Some footage was shown at the Lepzig Games Convention (YouTube link here) in Germany over the last couple of days, and the release date is still slated for this November.  The link is worth a look just to [...]

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Ethics, Law, and Billy Budd

August 9, 2008

by Dave
This is a little outside our interests here at The Hog’s Head, but if you haven’t listened to The Philosopher’s Zone (produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), it is certainly an interesting program. You can download episodes from the link in the program’s title above, or you can subscribe to it as a [...]

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