Harry Potter Facts

Here are some random Harry Potter Facts. If you have not gone to the last movie yet you must go before it is out on DVD.

• The film’s budget is estimated to have been £150 million. John Hurt (Mr Ollivander in the films) ranted recently about the ‘quite absurd’ amount of money spent on ‘Harry Potter’ films. He said: ‘I look around and there are three costumes there, none of which are likely to be worn, and they’re all replicas of each other. It’s a vacuous waste of money and it drives me insane.’
• It was all drama at Leavesden as in March 2009, soon after Holmes’ injury, a fire started on set. The fire started during the filming of ‘a big special effects scene’ and took 40 minutes to extinguish but caused no injuries. Apparently there was no damage to the studios and the actual set was ‘due to be rebuilt anyway’ for a new battle scene in ‘Deathly Hallows’ Part 2.
• In the first film, Griphook the goblin was played by Verne Troyer, one of the few Americans in the cast, but voiced by Warwick Davis (Professor Flitwick). In ‘Deathly Hallows’ Davis is both Griphook’s body and his voice, whilst continuing to play Flitwick,
• ‘Deathly Hallows’ is the first time Brendan Gleeson and David O’Hara have acted in the same film since ‘Braveheart’ in 1995. Gleeson plays ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody and O’Hara plays Albert Runcorn – the Ministry of Magic official who Harry impersonates with Polyjuice Potion in order to enter the Ministry.
• Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy) considered not returning for this film as he feared he would have little or no time on screen, after his character was imprisoned at the end of the fifth book, but on meeting J.K. Rowling and begging to be released from prison, she told him ‘You’re out. Chapter One.’ and he signed on for ‘Deathly Hallows’.
• In the epilogue in ‘Deathly Hallows’ Part 2 the cast play their characters in the future, using a combination of prosthetics, computer generated imagery and convincing acting, as in ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’. In this epilogue the wife of Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), Astoria Greengrass, is played by his real life girlfriend Jade Olivia.

These facts were provided to you by Livy Watson a writer for the Telegraph

Movie: Deuces Wild (2002)

I was pretty excited because I thought I had never watched this movie before. I had. The movie takes places in the 1950’s in New York City; it is about two different street gangs who battle it out for “turf and pride” ha-ha. The Deuces are the “good” gang. They are there to protect the streets and the people, while the “bad” gang or the Vipers are determined to keep dealing drugs. James Franco plays Tino who is on the Deuces. He once again only has a few lines but is one of the close confidants to the main character Leon played by Stephen Dorff. His acting consists of “lets get them Leon” “someone needs to pay Leon” etc. It is a very bloody movie with a lot of swearing. Not sure if I would watch it again. The 50's would have been fun though.

Next up is: Mother Ghost (not sure what it is about). IMDB says his name is “skateboarder guy” sounds promising…ha-ha

NPR - PART 2

Tomatoes: I love tomatoes so when this pod cast came on I was very interested. Did you know that 1/3 of all tomatoes come from Florida? That Florida uses 8 times the amount of pesticides than most other states do including California. I found out that most of the tomatoes you buy from your local grocery store have very minimal nutrition. We have actually lost 30-40% of the nutrition in tomatoes since the 1960’s but that we have added 14 times the amount of sodium. Do you ever wonder why tomatoes that you buy from the store don’t crack ever but you can’t carry more than a few tomatoes from your back yard to your house without a few breaking? The podcast talked about the fact that tomato farmers no longer get paid for taste they get paid by the pound. Is this the consumers fault for wanting perfect tomatos in November? Is this the price we pay for not buying local?

This information was provided to me by Barry Estabrook, for more information about him please check out his blog - http://politicsoftheplate.com/.

Job Creating vs. Education: Politicians today all talk about needing “job creation” yet the first thing that is cut today is education. I watched the GOP debate earlier this month and the whole time not one candidate brought up education. They talked about job creation a lot but not education. How can you talk about one without the other as if they were not connected? America is ranked 29th in the world in math in science, will that ever change if our focus isn’t on the future? I understand the need for short run fixes but at some point shouldn’t we focus on the long run?

James Franco - Spider Man 2002 This movie is a classic Marvel Comics movie about Peter Parker (Toby Maguire) getting bit by a spider and turning into Spider Man. This is one of this first movies where James Franco who plays Harry Osborn actually shows us he has some potential. Although Franco wanted the part of Spider Man he played the next best role as the best friend/son to the evil Green Goblin. If you have not seen this movie I would say it is a must see Marvel flick. His famous line in the movie is "What have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? after finding out about his fathers Death. More to come for Mr. Harry Osborn.

NPR Food for Thought Part 1

I listen to NPR podcasts everyday. I thought I would write this blog on a few things that I have found interesting and maybe give people a little Food For Thought. If you want to give me your feedback (good or bad) to my questions or just say hello feel free to leave me a comment in the comments section at the bottom. I would like to thank NPR for giving me this information and some of the questions.

Time: They talked about the evolution of time and how people have evolved from living in a world with just hours to then having minuets to then dealing with seconds to now having milliseconds. Now people use time to tell them when to eat, people rely on time to get places like taking a bus and some people even see time as something that gets in their way. I guess in the end the only thing everyone has in common is the fact that time affects us. How does time affect you? Do you think you could go a whole day without being affected by time?

Less Government: Our country has taken many different turns in the past few years. We are facing challenges that have never been faced before. I believe that we are not only a country that is divided but we are a county who doesn’t really know what we want. I talked to small business owner who was very adamant about wanting less government but then also talked about needing more police by his store and wanting a faster permit process. Does that make sense? Who represents “good government” and “bad government”? Do people only like government when it affects them for the better?

Morally Bankrupt: Our country is bankrupt but have we become morally bankrupt? There is a fine line between achieving goals and stepping on people to get there. The lack emphasis on what is better for the whole has somewhat left our society. Some people hold the mind set that stepping on people as long as they succeed is okay. In the podcast someone said well “that’s capitalism?” Is it? Is ths the new America?

This blog has become a little longer than expected. I post another blog tonight and add onto that blog my MOVIE portion.

Happy Birthday Jo!