The entirety of
Brad Neely's unauthorized redubbing of the first
Harry Potter movie,
Wizard People, Dear Reader, is available in its entirety on Youtube (
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 & 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35). Surreal, excessive, goofy, and at times oddly poetic, it tells the story of "Harry, the near-perfect new god", and his sidekicks Ronny the Bear and the Wretched Harmony (who has "complex on top of complex"), as they explore the world of wizardry while avoiding the cruel she-professor Snake and the dreaded vampire tattoo-maker Valmart. If you'd like to read along,
a full script is available here. "Well, bless my nippers! Bless them all day long."
(Previously, but the last post required you to burn WPDR to CD and play it along with the movie; now the entire thing is streaming online)
posted by Rory Marinich
on May 17, 2011 -
106 comments
My Immortal is an infamous piece of fanfiction by Tara Gilesbie that has the distinction of being the
top Google result for "worst fanfic ever". It's a fascinating read, both for its unique turns-of-word (like when Draco and the author begin to "make out keenly"), and for how effectively it reveals the author's culture and insecurities — the way it alternates between denunciations of superficial "prep" culture and elaborate descriptions of its protagonist's wardrobe, its constant obsession with sex mixed with a squeamish aversion of any eroticism, and its desire, chapter by chapter, to both denounce its critics and to prove them somehow wrong.
TVtropes,
Urban Dictionary, and
Encyclopedia Dramatica each debate whether the piece is sincere or satirical. "If it's fake," says UD, "it's complete genius; and if it's real it's total desecration of a perfectly good book/movie series."
posted by Rory Marinich
on Nov 19, 2010 -
85 comments
Is Rupert Grint the new Leonardo DiCaprio? Martin Scorsese thinks that Rupert Grint is the real star of the Harry Potter films and would like to direct him in a 'badass' role. Is he right?
Growing up has been eventful for the Harry Potter stars. Daniel Radcliffe has trod the boards naked. Only this weekend the paparazzi chased Emma Watson around the Glastonbury festival. Yet, according to Martin Scorsese, public attention has been focused on the wrong actor – for the celebrated auteur, it's all about
Rupert Grint.
[more inside]
posted by Fizz
on Jun 30, 2010 -
75 comments
"There was a hobbit, who didn't even know how to return home. He lived in a hole in the ground, and didn't know where he came from or where he was going to. He even didn't know why he had become a hobbit. This was Hogwartz School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 5th year apprentice Harry Potter. "
11 fake Harry Potter books from China.
posted by Bulgaroktonos
on May 10, 2010 -
37 comments
The Single Mother's Manifesto. "But wait, some will say. Given that you have long since left single parenthood for marriage and a nuclear family; given that you are now so far from a life dependent on benefits that Private Eye habitually refers to you as Rowlinginnit, why do you care? Surely, nowadays, you are a natural Tory voter? No, I’m afraid not..." J.K. Rowling on welfare, patriotism, and the upcoming UK election. (via
Crooked Timber)
posted by No-sword
on Apr 15, 2010 -
48 comments
"You turned into a cat! A SMALL
cat! You violated Conservation of Energy! That's not just an arbitrary rule, it's implied by the form of the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting it destroys unitarity and then you get FTL signaling! And cats are COMPLICATED!
A human mind can't just visualize a whole cat's anatomy and, and all the cat biochemistry, and what about the neurology?
How can you go on thinking using a cat-sized brain?" McGonagall's lips were twitching harder now. "Magic."
Eliezer Yudkowsky —
rationalist,
AI pontificator and
singularitarian — writes
Harry Potter fan fiction.
(previously)
posted by teraflop
on Apr 6, 2010 -
67 comments
"
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. -- Rainey Johnson, sporting a yellow shirt, yellow socks and yellow paint smeared on his face, darted across the freshman quad.
Other students, in capes, ran after him clutching brooms between their legs and grasping in vain for a tennis ball stuffed in a sock hanging out of his yellow shorts."
[more inside]
posted by rtha
on Sep 22, 2008 -
43 comments
Apparently, the new black is... really, really black. "Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made -- about 30 times as dark as the government's current standard for blackest black." But what possible benefit to society could come from this blacker than black substance? Why,
invisibility cloaks, of course!
[more inside]
posted by willie11
on Feb 20, 2008 -
53 comments
British actor
Jim Dale is
greeted as a "star" by children and adults when he appears in public and at readings. He has narrated the U.S. audiobooks for the "Harry Potter" series. For the series
he worked six-and-a-half-hour days, recording about 18 to 20 pages. Over eight years he has crafted over
200 distinctive voices for the books' characters. He takes into account the aging of the main characters, who started out as 10 and 11 in “Sorcerer’s Stone” and are now 17 and 18 in “Deathly Hallows.” Like the books, the tapes and CDs have been a publishing phenomenon selling more than 5.7 million copies. For his work on the “Harry Potter” series, Mr. Dale has won a Grammy Award, a record 9
Audie Awards (the Oscars for audiobooks) and holds the record for creating the most voices in an audiobook in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Audio clips and
video interview.
posted by ericb
on Jul 22, 2007 -
39 comments
Sally Wallace creates highly detailed miniature dollhouses, including several from the Harry Potter films (
Olivander's wand shop & Honeydukes,
Hogwarts,
The Stairs).
Via.
Warning, every single annoying web 0.9 trick in the book is employed somewhere on this site, including but not limited to: embedded midi files, that java fake reflecting water deal, virtual exploding fireworks, etc. ugh.
posted by jonson
on Feb 10, 2007 -
4 comments
