I cannot put into words how much I love this picture of the "Kudzu Jesus" in Raleigh, North Carolina, blessing the railroad tracks near a vacant lot.



Kudzu is a non-native Japanese vine that grows about 10 feet a day and creeps all over the Southern U.S. This particular oddity was discovered by blogger John Morris and posted on GoodNightRaleigh. A funny article in The Raleigh News-Observer states: "News, like kudzu, spread. So did jokes. Best yet: I am the way, the truth and the plant life."

Registration is now open for Infinitus 2010, a conference to be held in Orlando, Florida, near the new HP theme park.

Sign Up Here for Inifinitus 2010

...early bird registration price for $165.00 until midnight of September 7th, 2009. After that, registration will be $180.00 until March 31, 2010. It will then increase to $200.00 pending availability. Please note that your registration will include two meals and access to our Ball as well as all Formal Programming except for the Keynote Luncheons (which can be purchased at a later date). Information about park tickets will be available soon.

Interesting review of the entire Harry Potter series on Bookworms and Bibliophiles concerning a mixed message about "Elitism." Yes, it's true ~ the Slytherin bad guys are Elitists (although not all of them are Slytherins), but so are the Gryffindor good guys and gals. None of them would want their son or daughter to marry a Muggle.

I just started a group for Draco Malfoy fans on Chamber of Secrets: Draco Fidelius. It's open to the public, so whether you are a teenage fangirl or a mom like me who thinks Tom Felton is a cute kid, please join (you have to be a member of CoS forum).

Cinemablend has included Draco in Evil and Eviler: Ten Best Villains of the Summer. So move over Nero from Star Trek!

Also, we have this humorous Tom Felton Interview discussing the influence of Alan Rickman:

Watch more Moviefone videos on AOL Video

Also a nice Blog Review with a memorable line about Alan Rickman:

And, of course, I can't say enough about Alan Rickman as Snape. Nobody can say as much with just a glare as Rickman can. I especially love how he bites off the ends of his sentences like they were a chocolate bar, adding menace to everything he says, even "hello." And the way he often pauses....before....each...word in that clipped manner of disdain is just brilliant. I wish there had been more Snape in this movie, though thankfully there is a bit more than usual.

My new friend drinkingcocoais on a roll writing one great essay about Deathly Hallows after another. She gave two speeches at Azkatraz, and has posted them online along with Postscripts that are even more enlightening, plus a new one about Snape and more promised to come. Great stuff and there's more than this if you look around her LJ. You may not agree with every single idea, but it's refreshing to see so much canon-based analysis in one place outside the forums.
The Fully Knowable Snape
Postscript to Fully Knowable Snape ~ Re-Reads plus Harry and Aberforth's Patronus
Was the Mudblood Comment Unforgivable?
Dumbledore Was Never Free
Postscript to Dumbledore Speech ~ Snape and the Elder Wand
Why Dumbledore Delegated the Final Message to Snape

On HPN, the Writer of the Month for August is our own Louisa, otherwise known here as fullmoondreams. Drop by to read her autobiography with links to her great stories, and send your questions for the author to Olwen.

Found on Snitchseeker   : This sounds very promising ~ Tom Felton did an interview with a Japanese magazine. There's no complete translation yet, although there is a rather garbled one on FeltBeatsbut here's a spoiler which I liked very much: 

Tom Goes on to say that in films 7 and 8, we get the impression that Draco Malfoy wishes to help Harry and as such, they save each other's lives. He says we also see this in the final scene at the train station.

Hey all ~ So sorry to be here two hours late. We got home just after three A.M. and I was ready to get online and chat, but our cable connection wasn’t working because Comcast was doing maintenance just in the area of my small town, tonight of all nights! So I tried to make good use of the time and spent about an hour typing up my first impressions.

What can I say about the movie? I was blown away by it.

We had four tickets and my oldest son wasn’t originally planning to go with us. So I thought my husband was going and then I could tell you his perspective as someone not that familiar with the books. That will have to wait for another time because my son changed his mind, and my husband ended up staying home. We should have bought five tickets to begin with, but then we would have had to take two cars, so anyway ~ I went with my three kids.




We went to a huge movieplex called The Rave and you can see how big it is. We had to park a quarter of a mile away because the parking lot was spilling over. They had five large theaters showing the movie and the lobby was completely packed with people. My daughter and younger son went in to get seats, and my older son and I stood in line for about 20 minutes to get popcorn and cokes. After a few minutes my daughter texted us that the only seats left were way down front but by then I was just happy to have seats at all. For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, I would not recommend sitting so close because some of the action shots made me dizzy. However, it was great being up so close to Dumbledore and Snape! 

We didn’t dress up in costumes, which is just as well because sadly there weren’t that many people there in costumes. However, there were enough to make it interesting. I saw one boy who had on a Gryffindor-colored bathrobe, but he was wearing a batman mask, so he looked like a strange Death Eater. Then I saw quite a few Slytherin types in black robes with green neckties or socks. Lots of kids were wearing pajamas. Since my son didn’t want me to dress up, my alternate plan was just to wear all black and white. I had a black and white shirt black pants, and my daughter wore all black.

Usually my kids are very critical of the movies, so I expected a lot of nitpicking in the car on the way home. But it didn’t happen! All three of them said it was the best movie of the series. My daughter just read HBP again and she said it was the first time that the movie left her as satisfied as the book, which is high praise indeed. 

And here are my thoughts mingled with some of their perceptions:

( Major Spoilers Ahead!!!!!!!!!! )

~~ I wrote this post once today, so you are not seeing double. The code went berserk and the margins went crazy on me just because I edited one little punctuation mark. Then my husband and I went out to dinner for his birthday, which is tomorrow, and I just got back to work on this.  I hope this post works!

I'll leave this thread up between now and Tuesday, and then do a chat thread on Tuesday night for the midnight showings. That way if anyone wants to drop in at 3 a.m. to discuss the movie we'll have a spoiler thread for that.

I have made a ton of new icons, but I'm not putting them up until Monday or Tuesday. However, if you see any new ones here they are free for the taking - just credit  nettlebrew 

lemon_ashwinder and I along with others on HPN are passing the time playing the Five-Word Game, and things have taken a turn for the controversial. Are Harry's eyes really black? Did his mother really buy him a tiny black frockcoat when he was a baby? Did James not pass the DNA test? If you can be snarky in five words while hopefully ticking off certain people about Harry's gene pool, please join us.

There are a few interviews and new videos worth posting after all, but with spoilers of course.

A long interview from The Scotsman with Helen McCrory who plays Narcissa from Snitchseeker:

"Don't reach down for your popcorn, because by the time you do, I could be off the screen, in Half-Blood Prince I am literally like, whoa, there she goes! But everyone was like that. In our first scene, Helena Bonham Carter and I are rolling past this blue screen, and we knock on the door and Tim Spall comes out.

( Read more... )

SPOILERS!!!

Behind the Scenes with Snape, Draco, Fenrir, and Bellatrix.
Harry and Snape actually have a conversation, which is a vast improvement from the book.




( More Under the Cut )

You can listen to samples of music from the Half-Blood Prince Soundtrack in this video. Strangely, Hedwig's Theme seems to have become "Ginny's Theme."



There are also lots of new interviews out with

MAJOR Spoilers

-

These releases from WB are summarizing practically the entire movie, with input from the actors about their character's motivation. We've rarely gotten this much info a month before a movie in the past. So beware when you click!!!

Rounding Out Slughorn's Character

The Hermione-Ron-Lavender Love Triangle

Rough and Tumble Quidditch like Rollerball on Brooms

This next one is chock-full of stuff about Spinner's End, Narcissa, and Bellatrix.

Draco's Death Eater Turn

Voldemort's Past Explored

Snitchseeker says they have another interview about the Inferi Cave. I'll post the link when it appears.

This is the thread for discussing the new trailer whenever it comes out - supposedly at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Someone had put it up on YouTube early, but now WB has taken it down. Did anyone watch it?

Update: And here it is!!!

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ZOMG! Snape is everywhere!

Download links for every type of player ~ HERE on HPANA

This video was just released today! It's alot better than the lame video they showed during the Oscars. It has scenes with Dumbledore and the Inferi (nice Wizard Wrock name possibility), Draco and Harry during Sectumsempra, Hermione shooting birds at Ron (ha), and Slughorn's house all torn up during his fake death.



And Occlumencia has this beautiful new banner with Snape right in the middle.


 

Passing along the latest HBP Poster art of Harry, Snape, Draco, and Dumbledore.  Also larger resolution Yarn Pictures of Tonks and Lupin.

Thanks to "the hollow" on HPN for telling me about them, and of course hbpmoviepics and masterofmystery who posted the hi-resolution versions Here. Mine have been edited for size.

 

( See More Under The Cut )

Another fabulous Snape pic from HBP! This one must be from the talk they have during Slughorn's party. Alot of expression on Alan Rickman's face as Draco walks away. Just before that happens in the book there is a great line:


"Why was Snape looking at Malfoy as though both angry and . . . was it possible? . . . a little afraid?"
~ HBP, Chapter 15

There's a close-up of Alan Rickman under the cut, thanks to Bscorp on HPN: