EW: Entertainer of the Year — Harry Potter!

December 21, 2011 by 3 Comments

Dan Radcliffe will be accepting the award for obvious reasons.

I confess to being surprised by this choice, which speaks to just how far outside the loop I’m living nowadays. Last summer’s blockbuster cinema hit, the finale of the greatest film franchise in history, seems like aeons ago. But who else could have been chosen as The Face of 2011?

I expect this is just the beginning of awards for the Warner Brothers series and cash cow. Anyone care to predict how many Oscar nominations the Hogwarts Saga conclusion will win? Is it possible Deathly Hallows B could top Return of the King for most gold statuettes?

If you’re asking, “Why should I care?,” the best answer I can think of is that this would be some measure of Harry’s ascent to the Shared Text summit, that is, acknowledgement by the Shadow Casters in the Capitol’s Cave. I welcome alternative ideas!

Did I mention Harry is hosting Saturday Night Live next month? Hat Tip, Arabella!

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Guest Post: ‘By Death Trampling Down Death’

December 21, 2011 by 2 Comments

There are new complementary and opposite trends in mail I receive from readers, a change I find both delightful and reassuring. The little negative email I have had over the years from Culture Warriors [TM] has all but evaporated as the Godly Guardians of the Gates move on to the next literary/cinematic beachhead on which to draw ‘lines in the sand we dare not cross.’ Simultaneously, I am receiving requests for help with papers from undergraduate and graduate students who are writing papers on, you guessed it, the “artistry and meaning of Harry Potter.”

Last week, I shared an exchange I had with a philosophy student in the UK. This week, I have a paper for you from an undergraduate named Sophia at the University of Pittsburgh. Sophia used my How Harry cast His Spell (formerly Looking for God in Harry Potter) as one of her resources and found Gilderoy’s e-address there. She hopes for feedback from and conversation with the HogPro All-Pros on her discussion of “By Death Trampling Down Death”: Resurrection Imagery in Harry Potter; please share your comments and corrections after reading her thoughts!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Posts

Elizabethan Black Adder: BBC Alchemy’s Green Lion

December 20, 2011 by 1 Comment

Hat tip, Adam! A scene from the second series of Black Adder programs which were set in Elizabethan England. For the Green Lion reference, see this HogPro classic, ‘Snape as Vitriol — The Green Lion Alchemical Catalyst?‘

Filed Under: Literary Alchemy

Shared Text: Adam@Home on the QT

December 20, 2011 by 1 Comment

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Hunger Games Items Just in Time for Giving: MisGuided Merchandising or Brilliant Branding?

December 18, 2011 by 19 Comments

The Movie Marketing Gamemakers have clearly decided that The Hunger Games is bound to be their meal ticket (pun most certainly intended) next year, a fact evidenced by big promotions starting this week with the 100 days countdown to film release March 23. The stunning new poster, with its catchphrase “The World will be watching” is both a reference to the ever-present cameras in Panem, and a bandwagon appeal from moviemakers for viewers to go see the “big” movie “everybody” will be going to see. It should not, then, be astonishing the number of items that have now been rolled out in the hopes that readers will snatch them up for themselves, or that that friends and family will purchase mass quantities of this stuff for all the Hunger Games readers on their lists. Follow me after the jump for some thoughts on the humor and horror of everything from nail polish to water bottles sporting the flaming Mockingjay pin. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Elizabeth Baird Hardy, Hunger Games Tagged With: ,