PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore 2022

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore 2022 Based on a screenplay by J K Rowling, screenplay by J K Rowling and Steve Kloves, directed by David Yates.

I picked up the Blu-ray at Target today, not something I'm prone to do very often with new releases. I watched it when I got home and enjoyed it. There's plenty of magical business and Mads Mikkelsen does a great job replacing Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald. The rest of the cast does a great job.

The story is complex and there are plenty of characters to follow as they go about their business. The film jumps around the planet and there's lots of nice scenery, most of it not real. The CGI is fine and so are the costumes and props.

I was happy to finally see it. Looking forward to the next two. We're still waiting to hear if the film made enough money for the other two to get green lite. This was the worse preforming of the films in the HP series, a $405 mil return on $200 mil spent to get it to the screen.

Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone in Yiddish

My copy of the Yiddish version of Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone came Saturday. It's a nicely made book published by Olniansky Tekst. It was $28 shipped world wide. You can read a bit about how the book came to be in this article on The Tablet. I like the cover by Johnny Duddle, it's appeared on English language versions too. My only complaint is the jacket on the book is printed pretty darn dark, no where near as light as the version above, hard to see what's going on. The title is in shiny gold foil letters which look great. It's printed on that velvety cover stock I like a fair bit. It's hardback and under the jacket is a purple book with gold foil letters. Look good. Nicely printed inside.

No illustrations but for the map of Hogwarts and the surrounding area. I liked it, it's by Tomislav Tomic, an illustrator from Croatia. I was Johnny on the spot when I ordered my copy, the first editions first printing sold out in 2 days. I got an email from someone at the company and they said there was a 2nd 1000 printed in Feb. That sold out and there's a third 1000 in March. I suppose they'll keep at it as long as they can. I might never be able to read it but I'm happy with having it collect dust on the shelf with all the other Harry Potter books.

Friday Night Movies 727

Wacko is a 1982 horror comedy that was produced and directed by Greydon Clark. We'd watched his movie Uninvited just a couple of months ago and like that movie I don't think I need to see Wacko again after putting my eyeballs to the test. The movies got 4 writers, Dana Olsen, Michael Spound, Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt. You might need a lot of writers to pen all the gags in the film, it wasn't enough for funny gags. Jim and David worked on Grimm together and David worked on both Buffy and Angel.

It's got a huge cast, Joe Don Baker, Stella Stevens, George Kennedy, Julia Duffy, Elizabeth (EG) Daly, Andrew Dice Clay, Jeff Altman, Charles Napier and Michele Tobin. Some are alright and some are annoying. Same as the gags. Occasionally there was a guffaw or two but they were few and far between. I think I laughed out loud once and smiled a time or two. Not a good average for a movie with a gag or two every minute.

I'd wondered about Wacko after seeing it listed in the Hamilton Books video section but it's 22 dollar price tag put me off. I hardly ever pay that much for a movie, it would have to be pretty special for that kind of outlay. This wasn't special enough for me to shell out that cold hard cash and that's coming from a guy who spends his money foolishly all the time.

I didn't pay as much for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald but it still was in the 18-20 buck range. Usually I can wait for the new Blu-rays to fall a bit in price but I preordered this one. I enjoyed it. Lots of new stuff to think about in the Wizarding World. I'll want to watch it again sometime soon and I'll be interested in seeing what the third movie in the series brings.

Friday Night Movies 627

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them was our first film. It's set in the Harry Potter world but 54 years before Harry was born. Eddie Redmayne is magizoologist Newt Scamander. He's British and the book he's about to write is still used at Hogwarts when Harry goes to school. JK wrote the real world edition back in 2001. She gave away all the profits, along with the profits from a second book called Quidditch Through The Ages, to Comic Relief. So far the sale of the two books has raised more than £17 million.

Newt has come to the US to return a Thunderbird to it's South West homeland. An escaping niffler creates a series of events that lead to the capture of a real prick. I've seen the movie a couple of times now and enjoyed it both times. There's plenty to see, lots of nice locations, sets, props and costumes. They won an Oscar for their costumes.

Katherine Waterson, Eddie Redmayne, Alison Sudol and Dan Fogler are the main characters in the film. JK Rowling wrote the script and David Yates returns to the Harry Potter world as director. He directed the last 4 Harry Potter films. Only one of the characters from HP films appears in this film. You'll find out if you see it.

That niffler gets Newt in trouble right away and he spends the rest of the film trying to chase down the beasts that got away. He meets up with American Muggle, or No-Maj as they say in the US, Jacob Kowalski, played by Dan, a demoted Auror called Tina Goldstein, played by Katherine, and Tina's sister Queenie Goldstein, played by Alison. Those four are also signed up for future films in the series.

Things don't go so well for our gang. New York is in a bad state, the Wizarding World fears outing because of a series of attacks by some sort of magical beast. Newt, with the help of Jacob and the Goldstein sisters, manages to save the day. Then everyone gets ready for the sequel. I'm hoping they manage to make a few more. The movie was pretty popular, not quite Harry Potter popular but there's plenty of money coming in. I certainly plan to watch it again. Soon. Good thing I bought the Blu-ray. I usually don't do that for new releases. I like waiting a bit for the price to go down.

Our second film was the 1977 Shaw Brothers film The Mighty Peking Man. It was meant to capitalize on the popularity of the 1976 King Kong. It was released first in the US as Goliathon in 1980.

Danny Lee leads a group into the jungle to find a giant ape called Ah Wang. Danny and crew finds the big guy and his blonde jungle companion. Evelyne Kraft is Ah Wei and she's lived with the big fella since she was a child. A plane crash left her all alone in the jungles of India. Ah Wang befriended her and kept her safe. That's Danny on the left and Evelyne on the right. She doesn't seem to like wearing anything but that bikini. The other guy is the producer, he's a bit of a dick. Danny takes Ah Wang and Ah Wei back to Hong Kong. He's dreaming of all the cash the producer says they are going to make, but it all goes hell as the big ape gets away and starts breaking stuff. 

That's the big guy smashing stuff. In Hong Kong, he'll have plenty of things to smash, the place is filled with breakable buildings. That and tall places to fall from.

It's all pretty goofy. I got a few laughs from the movie and there's some nice monster suit action. The Shaw Brothers have a fairly good miniature model making team and they get to make some nice sets for this movie. The romantic subplot between Danny and Ah Wei kind of slows the movie down a bit. It's still a fun movie to watch with plenty of "what the hell?" kind of moments. We watched the British Blu-ray and it looked the best I'd seen it. Not everyone's going to be interested in this but fans of this sort of thing should have a nice time.

Harry Potter And The Cursed Child 2016

I did read the new Harry Potter book and have mixed feelings about it. It's a time travel story that takes place in the years starting right after the epilogue of the last HP novel. JK Rowling wrote the story that the play is based on. Some theater guy named Jack Thorne wrote the play and John Tiffany is the director. It's their play that is in the new book.

When I was reading the book I thought it was like reading a fan fiction both in format and story. A lot of the Harry Potter fan fiction is stripped down, just streams of dialog with play like descriptions for setting and scene. Many Fan fiction writers aren't content to try to write like JK and create stories in her world, they want to stamp their own style and thoughts into their stories. Sadly that often ruins the story.

I read a bunch of HP fan fiction and much of it was awful. And stuff with the different "ships" was often the worse. The meanest porn writing would be more entertaining than some of what I read. Or tried too, I stopped after a short while and haven't been back to the HP FF sites in years.

In Harry Potter And The Cursed Child some of the dialog is like something JK would write but often is just isn't. It makes me wish that I could read the story that JK wrote before Jack got his hands on it. Hard to know what he changed without seeing that story.

I'm not a believer in spoiler warnings but since this is so new, I'll only describe the barest bit of the story. Harry's son Albus is off to school where he gets put into Slytherin. He becomes the best friend of Draco Malfoy's son Scorpius. Albus feels alienated from his father and Harry can't communicate with his son. Scorpius isn't much better off over at his house. They need a friend and they find each other on the train to Hogwarts. Like Harry, Albus makes some decisions and uses a time turner to try to change the past. It's gets pretty messy and things get pretty awful before they get better.

I did like the story well enough but it seems like a weak sequel to the earlier work. It was sort of like being back in that world but it wasn't quite right. I see that there are reviews on Amazon saying the same thing, it's more like fan fiction, that I was. It's got it's fans, 39% of the votes are 5 Stars, and it's detractors, 22% of the votes are a 1. I think it's interesting that so many are disappointed, there are also 12% giving the book a 2 Star rating. I'd give it a 4, thinking it's better than a 3. By comparison 86% of the votes for Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone are 5 Star and only 1% of the votes are 1 Star.

I read through the thing pretty darn quickly and will have to read it again. I got lent a copy of the US to read, when the UK version comes, in a week or so, I might talk myself into read it again. Then again I might wait a while.

The Day The World Ended 2001

The Day The World Ended was the 4th in the Creature Features series that was on Cinemax back in 2001. They were films that used the titles of old AIP films and wrote a new story. They were produced by Lou Arkoff, Colleen Camp and Stan Winston. Lou is the son of original AIP owner Samuel Z Arkoff. Colleen is an actress who started acting in 1973 and is still acting. Stan was a special effects guy who had his own shop. He worked on the Terminator series, the Jurassic Park series, Predator 2, Edward Sissorhands and many more. Sadly he died a few years after this movie. The original 1955 Day The World  Ended was a post-apocalypse film and this story is about a kid with psychic abilities. It's written by Max Enscoe and Annie deYoung, with Terence Gross directing.

 

Nastassja Kinski is a school psychologist who comes to a small town to work. Randy Quaid is the town doctor and the kid next to him is his son, played by Bobby Edner, who's got psychic powers. Harry Groener is the sheriff. You might remember him as Mayor Wilkins on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Something happened before the movie starts that caused Bobby's mother to die and he's got some issues about that. People seem to know he's got some sort of powers. Bobby has a vided imagination, fueled by his interest in Science Fiction, and he believes he's the son of an alien. He thinks his father will come back to pick him up sometime. Nastassja brings out the truth and it turns out that his dad isn't an alien. Bobby just creates a physical monster, based on a monster in a movie he'd seen, that kills off all the people who were mean to him and his mom years ago. We find out why they all needed to die and there's a bit of a happy ending.

There's plenty of monster action and some drama. The acting is fairly good, I usually like to see Randy Quaid. There's a nice bit from Stephen Toblowsky, but he's a favorite of mine, always nice to see him working. It's not a great movie, it scores a 4.4 on the IMDb but I think it's a bit better than that. I'd give it a 5, maybe a 6 on a better day. It's got a good fun side, not too sorry I saw it, but I wouldn't bother buying one, unless I found it for a couple of bucks. I might not get back to it so why bother. There's a nice enough commentary by Producer Stan Winston and co-producer Shane Mahan.

Harry Potter - Hogwarts Castle Film 1-6 Blu-ray

If you've got a spare 1300 bucks lying around you could always waste it on this statue of Hogwarts and send it to me. The wooden base has a drawer that holds the Blu-rays of the first 6 movies and it measures 10 by 11 inches. You could keep the Blu-rays, I wouldn't need them. The cold cast porcelain castle is supposed to be about 12 inches high and it all weights 16 pounds.

It's not a bad looking model and it's covered to keep dust out of the crevices.

It's not as nice as this huge model they used in the shooting of the films.

It's massive and you can see how big it with a guy standing next to it. It was build after the first film and used for the rest of the series. For the Battle of Hogwarts the castle was re-created digitally so they could blow it up a good bit. The big castle model is part of The Making Of Harry Potter studio tour at Leavesden Studios, London that opened a few years ago. You can see a nice bunch of pictures from an article in the Daily Mail. It would be nice to see everything but I doubt I'll bother.

Harry Potter - The Wizard Collection

 

As nice as I think the 31 disc set that I bought last year is there's a much nicer set. When I first saw the Harry Potter - Wizards Collection it was over $400 and I sure wasn't interested in buying that. Not that I wouldn't have wanted it, it's a nice collectible. They have gone out of print and today it was $888 on Amazon. It's been higher, almost $1200 before Christmas last, but I can't tell you if it sold or they lowered the price. You can find it on ebay for $600 and up.

It has the same discs as the set I have but they are packaged in a heavy box that folds open to reveal a series of drawers. It reminds me of the case that Professor Lupin magically closes when he packing to leave the school or the Weasley Brother's Skiving Snack Box.

There's the box. It's pretty big, about 13 inches tall and 10 - 11 inches on a side. Here's a nice lady's blog with a review of the set. She says it weighs about 19 pounds. There are 5 drawers that pull out and 4 secret compartments. Besides the discs in their booklets there are a number of other artifacts included: a replica Horcrux locket, the Bonus Disc, the Ultra-Violet codes, a cloth map of Hogwarts and the area, a blueprint of Hogwarts Castle, 6 sketch prints, 8 concept painting prints, a book of labels from the movies and a second book with prop pictures from the movies. 

It's a nice looking cloth map but it's not quite right. Hagrid's hut would be on the Forbidden Forest side of the school. You'd think someone would have noticed that, wouldn't you. The image on the left is JK Rowling's map of Hogwarts that she sketched out herself. The cloth map is fairly big when you see it in the picture on the right. That's the gal that did the blog entry on the set, the one where I got the size and weight.

 

That's the concept painting of Shell Cottage and Dobby's grave. The other is a sketch by Production Designed Stuart Craig of the graveyard where Voldemort returns. Again, happy to have the digital copy but I'm betting that they might be in the Page To Screen book I have. 

That's the concept painting of Harry and the gang leaving Hogwarts on thestrals. They are heading to London to rescue Sirius at the Ministry of Magic. 

Each movie comes in it's own book and they get put into the drawers. Each movie has some nice art on the cover.

Years 1-3.

Years 4-6.

Year 7 and the Bonus disc.

Much as I would like one, it's too big and heavy, I just don't want to have that much stuff anymore.

Harry Potter - The Hogwarts Collection

Earlier today I just finished working my way through the 31 disc set of Harry Potter - The Hogwarts Collection. I got it July 2015 and that was before I had even picked up a Blu-ray Player. I finally got a player about 2 months ago but didn't get around to hooking it up for a while. I got The Hogwarts Collection as one of those Amazon Deals Of The Day and it cost 97 bucks. It's currently $158 on Amazon. You can buy the 8 movies on Blu-ray for $50-70 most of the time. I had all the movies on DVD and was happy enough with those until I saw the Blu-rays. Mostly I felt it was a cheap way to get the documentary Creating The World Of Harry Potter.

 

I had started buying the Ultimate Editions to get that documentary. Each set comes with the DVD or Blu-ray of the movie, a hardback booklet, a couple of character cards and one part of the 8 part series Creating The World OF Harry Potter. I had only picked up the first two sets before money got diverted to more important things. The first two were about $35 for each movie box set. That's more than $280 for the series. Since I already had the movies on DVD it seemed pricey for a 52 page booklet, a couple of character cards, and a couple hours of making of material so I sort of gave up on them. On the plus side the series is nicely packaged. I do like those boxes, all the discs and extras come in a slipcase with fold over magnetic cover.

When the DOTD for The Hogwarts Edition came along I saw that the 31 disc set had the Blu-ray movies, the DVD movies, Blu-rays of Creating The World Of Harry Potter, 3D versions of some later films and a Bonus Blu-ray with more making of material. At that price, 97 bucks, it was sure worth it, even if they didn't get the booklets and cards. The booklets are nice but they're tiny and the images, which they claim are rare, are pretty small. A lot of the images are in the making of material on the disc and some are in the Harry Potter Page To Screen book that came out at the end of the series. It's a massive book, 7.6 pounds and 13 inches tall, with over 530 color pages of material. I haven't read Page To Screen through yet but I've looked at most of the pictures more than once. It's really a gorgeous book. It's part of a series of making of books that I have been picking up. Those making of books repeat images from book to book. They also repeat a lot of material in Creating The World Of Harry Potter and the other making of material on the discs. I've heard some of the same clips 4 or 5 times over the whole series.

Here's a run down of the Creating The World Of Harry Potter from Amazon. Each part of the series is about an hour long.

Part 1: The Magic Begins - Explore the early decisions that impacted the entire series, and follow the search for the young leads.

Part 2: Characters - Learn about the casting process and how the actors brought J.K. Rowling's beloved characters to life.

Part 3: Creatures - Meet a new group of wizards: the artists who created the monsters and marvels in Harry's world.

Part 4: Sound & Music - Hear how the composers and sound experts used their craft to magnify the series' emotional journey.

Part 5: Evolution - Join the filmmakers as they discuss how the creative vision for the films evolved throughout the series.

Part 6: Magical Effects - Watch how technical wizards conjured up an amazing alternate reality using CGI and practical effects.

Part 7: Story - Listen in as J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves discuss how the books were adapted for the screen.

Part 8: Growing Up - See how the young stars' ideas of acting, fame and themselves have changed over ten years.

That's The Hogwarts Collection. There's a nice hardback book holding the discs, a nice heavy slipcase and all those discs. Here's a rundown of what each disc contains. Again pilfered from Amazon.

Disc 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Theatrical Version + Extended Version + Extra Content (Blu-ray)

Disc 2: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Theatrical Version (DVD)

Disc 3: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Creating The World: The Magic Begins (Blu-ray)

Disc 4: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Disc 2 from the Special Edition (DVD)

Disc 5: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Theatrical Version + Extended Version + Extra Content (Blu-ray)

Disc 6: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Theatrical Version (DVD)

Disc 7: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Creating the World: Characters (Blu-ray)

Disc 8: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Disc 2 from the Special Edition (DVD)

Disc 9: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Theatrical Version (Blu-ray)

Disc 10: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Theatrical Version (DVD)

Disc 11: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Creating the World: Creatures (Blu-ray)

Disc 12: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Disc 2 from the Special Edition (DVD)

Disc 13: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Theatrical Version (Blu-ray)

Disc 14: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Theatrical Version (DVD)

Disc 15: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Creating the World: Sound & Music (Blu-ray)

Disc 16: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Disc 2 from the Special Edition (DVD)

Disc 17: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Theatrical Version + Extra Content (Blu-ray)

Disc 18: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Theatrical Version (DVD)

Disc 19: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Creating the World: Evolution (Blu-ray)

Disc 20: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Theatrical Version + Extra Content (Blu-ray)

Disc 21: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Theatrical Version (DVD)

Disc 22: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Creating the World: Magical Effects + Extra Content (Blu-ray)

Disc 23: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 Theatrical Version + Extra Content (Blu-ray)

Disc 24: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 Theatrical Version (DVD)

Disc 25: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Creating the World: Story + Extra Content (Blu-ray)

Disc 26: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (Blu-ray 3D)

Disc 27: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 Theatrical Version + Extra Content (Blu-ray)

Disc 28: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 Theatrical Version (DVD)

Disc 29: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, Creating the World: Growing Up + Extra Content (Blu-ray)

Disc 30: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (Blu-ray 3D)

Disc 31: Harry Potter Hogwarts Collection Bonus Disc (Blu-ray)

I took me so long to watch everything, more than a month, that I want to watch the films again. I've already seen them more than a dozen times each but who's counting. Not me, no point, since I lost count.

Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone: The Illustrated Edition

I wasn't sure if I was going to pick up the new illustrated edition of the first Harry Potter book but after looking at in a bookstore a couple of time I decided to get one. It's big honking book, about 10 by 11 inches and over an inch think. There are 256 pages on a nice dense heavy stock making it weight over 3 pounds. I won't be holding it up to read it.

It's heavily illustrated by Jim Kay, though not every page has an illustration. Even the plain text pages have ink on them, faint washes of color and blobs of ink or paint splattered about. It could have turned out to be a bad look but here I think it works well. It's got a 40 buck admission but I got one for 22 bucks plus tax.

I like the paintings quite a bit. There's a good number of them out on the web so I grabbed a couple or three. I thought it was a good version of Harry, alone in his broom cupboard. Those seem like some big ass spiders.

Hermione Granger was always good at making those little blue fires. Another illustration that captures the character. You can see a lot of familiar names carved into the door. I don't remember there being a door with names on it in the book,  it might be there, but I could have forgotten. One of the things I've always admired about JK's writing is how she can create a setting that you think is more filled in than it really was. Just try going out to find some detail about any of the locations. There's barely anything there but it's just the right amount for you to start to fill in for yourself.

I really liked the painting of Professor McGonagall. I wonder if that's Neville's frog? The painting of Professor Snape with his potion jars is another one I liked quite a bit. I didn't care as much for the Sorting Hat illustration but overall I think as I go through the book a couple of more times I'll be liking more of the artwork. Mind you I'm always a fan of the heavily illustrated book.

There's a pricey, $275, collector's edition coming out next week but I'm not getting that. It doesn't seem like you are getting much extra for the money. Nice purple covers and a slipcase but I'm happy to have a picture of it. It's big pull is the giant fold out poster of the Diagon Alley paintings. You saw it above with Jim Kay sitting behind it above. Nice poster but not that nice. I'll be happy with the cheap version. I'm most likely not going to actually read the text. I'll just look at bits and pieces when I look at the pictures over and over. If I want to read the books again, and I will, I'll stick to reading the Canadian editions I bought. They aren't the best editions but they are the lightest I have.