JohnDas FunDas & Ideas

Spider-Man 3 has emerged as the ‘Most Mistake-Riddled Film of 2007.’ According to U.K. website moviemistakes.com, filmgoers have counted over 157 blunders in the latest instalment of Spider-man franchise.

The continuity errors included showing Cleveland, Ohio’s Terminal Tower in view during Spider-Man’s fight with the Sandman - despite the scene being set in New York.

However, Spider-man 3 is not the only film facing criticism, for second on the list is ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’ with 63 mistakes.

‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ came third with 62 errors while Live Free or Die Hard’ stood fourth with 46 mistakes.

Rounding off the top five was ‘Transformers,’ which has 32 faults.

“As movie budgets get ever-larger, you’d think they would be able to find the cash to clear up the more blatant errors, but there’s just no slow-down in the mistakes being made,” Contactmusic quoted Jon Sandys, of moviemistakes.com, as saying.

“Even computer-animated films aren’t immune, which amazes me,” he added.

‘Most Mistake-Riddled Films of 2007′ are:

1 Spider-Man 3 157

2 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End 63

3 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 62

4 Live Free or Die Hard 46

5 Transformers 32

6 Norbit 30

7 The Simpsons Movie 30

8 High School Musical 2 30

9 1408 28

10 Skins 20

11 Hot Fuzz 19

12 Hairspray (2007) 18

13 Grindhouse 17

14 The Bourne Ultimatum 16

15 Blades of Glory 15 (ANI)

Chapter 1

The Dark Lord Ascending

The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow,
moonlit lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands directed
at each other’s chests; then, recognizing each other , they
stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking briskly in the
same direction.
“News?” asked the taller of the two.
”The best,” replied Severus Snape.
The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the
right by a high, nearly manicured hedge. The men’s long cloaks flapped around
their ankles as they marched.
“Thought I might be late,” said Yaxley, his blunt features sliding in and out
of sight as the branches of overhanging tress broke the moonlight. “It was
a little trickier than I expected. But I hope he will be satisfied. You should
confident that your reception will be good?”
Snape nodded, but did not elaborate. They turned right, into a wide driveway
that led off the lane. The high hedge curved into them, running off into the
distance beyond the pair of impressive wrought-iron gates barring the men’s
way. Neither of them broke step; In silence both raised their left arms in a
kind of salute and passed straight through, as though the dark metal weresmoke.
The yew hedges muffled the sound of the men’s footsteps. There was a
rustle somewhere to their right; Yaxley drew his wand again, pointing it over
his companion’s head, but the source of the noise proved to be nothing more
than a pure-white peacock, strutting majestically along the top of the hedge.
“He always did himself well, Lucius. Peacocks . . . ” Yaxley thrust his wand
back under his cloak with a snort.
A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight
drive, lights glinting in the diamond-paned downstairs windows. Somewhere
in the dark garden beyond the hedge a fountain was playing. Gravel crackled
beneath their feet as Snape and Yaxley sped toward the front door, which
swung inward at their approach, though nobody had visibly opened it.
The hallway was large, dimly light, and sumptuously decorated, with a
magnificent carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced
portraits on the walls followed Snape and Yaxley as they strode past. The two
men halted at a heavy wooden door leading into the next room, hesitated for
the space of a heartbeat, then Snape turned the bronze handle.
The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate
table. The room’s usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the
walls. Illumination came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece
surmounted by a gilded mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a moment
on the threshold. As their eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, they
were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the scenes an apparently unconscious
human figure hanging upside down over the table, revolving slowly as
if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in the bare,
polished surface of the table below it. He seemed unable to prevent himself
from glancing upward every minute or so.
“Yaxley, Snape,” said a high, clear voice from the head of the table. “You are
very nearly late.”
The speaker was seated directly in front of the fireplace, so that it was diffi-
cult, at first, for the new arrivals to make out more than his silhouette. As theydrew nearer, however, this face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike,
with slits for nostrils and gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He
was so pale that he seemed to emit a pearly glow.
“Severus, here,” said Voldemort, indication the seat on his immediate right.
“Yaxley—beside Dolohov.”
The two men took their allotted places. Most of the eyes around the table
followed Snape, and it was to him that Voldemort spoke first.
“So?”
“My Lord, the Order of the Phoenix intends to move Harry Potter from his
current place of safety on Saturday next, at nightfall.”
The interest around the table sharpened palpably; Some stiffened, others
fidgeted, all gazing at Snape and Voldemort.
“Saturday . . . at nightfall,” repeated Voldemort. His red eyes fastened upon
Snape’s black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away,
apparently fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of
the gaze. Snape, however, looked calmly back into Voldemort’s face and, after a
moment or two. Voldemort’s lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.
“Good. very good. And this information comes—”
“—from the source we discussed,” said Snape.
“My Lord.”
Yaxley had leaned forward to look down the long table at Voldemort and
Snape. All faces turned to him.
“My Lord, I have heard differently,”
Yaxley waited but Voldemort did not speak, so he went on, “Dawlish, the
Auror, let slip that Potter will not be moved until the thirtieth, the night before
the boy turns seventeen.”
Snape was smiling,
“My source told me that there are plans to lay a false trail; this must be it.
No doubt a Confundus Charm has been placed upon Dawlish. It would not be
the first time; he is known to be susceptible.”
“I assure you, my Lord, Dawlish seemed quite certain,” said Yaxley.

(more…)

Few would have expected that the name Ulysses Press — a small, independent Berkeley publisher — and the phrase “335,000 copies in print” would ever be used in the same sentence.

But it has happened: The publisher’s “What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7,” by authors from the No. 1 Harry Potter fan site, MuggleNet.com, has been on the New York Times Children’s Paperback best-sellers list for 20 consecutive weeks.

The book can be found around the world, thanks to unabated Pottermania, which is surging in anticipation of the seventh and final Harry Potter volume from author J.K. Rowling, due for release July 21.

Ulysses Press was founded in 1983 with the publication of “Hidden Hawaii.” It publishes 50 books a year, including a variety of titles on alternative health, fitness and spirituality, from a second-story office in South Berkeley.

For Ulysses, a successful book sells about 50,000 copies. “What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7,” with retail sales of five times that number, took in some $5 million, representing about a $2 million gross for the press.

“We were a $2 (million)- to $3 million-a-year publisher before it came out. But this book alone has brought in that kind of money,” said Ray Riegert, the 60-year-old publisher who founded Ulysses with his wife, Leslie Henriques.

A Harry Potter spin-off might seem like an odd fit for Ulysses. But the book’s runaway success reaffirms Ulysses’ practice, unusual in publishing, of developing its own ideas and finding authors to write them. No literary agents are involved and no authors show up at the door bearing manuscripts.

Early last year, Riegert, along with Bryce Willett, the company’s marketing manager, and Nick Denton-Brown, an editor, concluded in a brainstorming session that they would do a “prediction book” capitalizing on the Harry Potter phenomenon.

Denton-Brown had the task of finding an author. He found a chat room full of them at MuggleNet.com. The Web site is named for muggles, or people, as Rowling has reminded us time after time, who have no magical abilities.

The Web site, where all things pertaining to Harry Potter can be mined, was founded by Emerson Spartz, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Notre Dame, in the fall of 1999, when he was 12.

Spartz and Ben Schoen, a 17-year-old recent high school graduate from Moundridge, Kan., are the lead writers of “What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7,” which is an analysis of the first six books and a prediction of the series denouement in the seventh book.

Is Dumbledore really dead? Will Harry and Ginny get back together? Who is the mysterious R.A.B.? Whose side is Snape truly on? This is the stuff of the Ulysses Press book, which is being promoted largely through personal appearances by Spartz and Schoen.

“It’s a new Holiday Inn Express every night,” Spartz said from Los Angeles on Friday. A business major from LaPorte, Ind., he said his goal is to run businesses, not make a career out of Harry Potter. But he remains fascinated with the books — “a wonderful story with characters you fall in love with.”

Schoen this year applied to Notre Dame and was rejected. In his appeal he included a copy of the book, a copy of the New York Times review and a clipping of the newspaper’s best-seller list. Notre Dame reversed its decision and welcomed him with a letter congratulating him on his achievements at such a young age.

Riegert, who says other projects with MuggleNet.com are being discussed, is still marveling at Ulysses Press’s good fortune.

“We had no idea it was going to be like this,” he said.

For years, Ulysses mainly published travel guidebooks, but it has varied its titles in the past 10 years. Long a two-person operation, the staff has now grown to 12.

Another successful title for the company, “What Would Buddha Do,” has sold about 60,000 books since it was released in 2002. The MuggleNet.com book has shipped five times that in just eight months, Riegert said.

“There is phenomenal interest” in Rowling’s creation, “one of the biggest publishing phenomena of the last 25 years,” he said. “People are really keyed up, especially for book seven, because everything is going to be resolved.”

JK Rowling says that finishing her final Harry Potter book was “the most remarkable feeling” she has ever known and that she felt both “euphoric and devastated” when closing the final chapter.

	JK Rowling during her interview with Jonathan Ross

The multi-millionaire author finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh book of the series, last month and it will go on sale on July 21.

During the interview to be shown tonight on BBC1’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, she said: “Finishing the book is a relief. I can’t think of anyone who could know how I felt.

“Actually finishing it was the most remarkable feeling I’ve ever had… [I felt] euphoria, devastated, when I finished one chapter near the end I absolutely howled, it had been planned for so long.

“I was in a hotel room on my own, sobbing my heart out. I downed half a bottle of champagne in one and went home with mascara all over my face. It was really tough.”

The plots have taken a darker turn and Rowling has in the past revealed that she would kill off at least two of the main characters.

When asked by the chat show host whether the word “scar” was still the last word in the book, as had been reported, she said: “Scar? It was for ages, and now it’s not.

“Scar is quite near the end, but it’s not the last word.”

Harry Potter has a lightning bolt scar on his forehead as a result of a failed curse by the wicked wizard Lord Voldemort.

Rowling also revealed that the character Harry Potter was “totally imaginary” and not based on anyone, although his red-haired pal Ron Weasley was a lot like her oldest friend Sean.

She also disclosed that Hermione, the heroine of the series, is based on herself and said: “I was quite swotty when I was a kid.”

Speculation is mounting that J K Rowling will kill off Harry Potter in the final book about the teenage wizard after Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays the character in the films, predicted his death.

In an interview in America, Radcliffe said: “I think I might die in [the final book],” before quickly adding: “That’s just my prediction. I think so, but I’ve no idea at all; I have no inside hints.”

	Daniel Radcliffe: many of the characters die in the final book

However, it comes just a day after Rowling told the BBC that the seventh book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has a grisly ending in which many of the characters die.

Rowling told Friday Night with Jonathan Ross that finishing the book was “the most remarkable feeling I’ve ever had”, but declined to be drawn on the young wizard’s fate.

She did, however, warn Potter enthusiasts that they may be surprised and said it was “unlikely” that she would ever return to writing more books about Harry and his friends, Ron and Hermione.

The fate of Harry Potter has been a source of speculation since December 2005, when actor Jim Dale, the voice of the teenage wizard in the American audio books, claimed that Rowling was looking forward to life without the character who has earned her a £500 million fortune.

“She’s lived with Harry Potter so long she really wants to kill him off,” he told a reporter after a business meeting with the author to discuss the characterisation of the parts.

In his interview with the MSN website, Radcliffe said that the highlight of the fifth and latest film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which opens in British cinemas this week, was working with the actor Gary Oldman, who plays Sirius Black.

“I respond really well to Gary,” he said. “We’re very close in real life and that can’t help but translate on film.”

The seventh book will be published on July 21. Previous books have been translated into 65 languages with more than 325 million copies sold. The films have grossed more than £1.7 billion worldwide.