From the mailbag: "Just got the new Harry Potter book (for a friend...seriously) at the Duane Reade on Worth and Lafayette. I plucked it out of one of the opened boxes marked 'Do not open until July 21' and bought it with no hassle whatsoever. Embargoes are overrated."
Guess what we found on the street? That's right, a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows! The most important book ever—for kids! There are some conspiracy theories out there that claim the Times' Michiko Kakutani bought a "wrong" or "fake" copy of the book, but having read through to the epilogue that ties everything up, it pretty much all jibes with her review. And what of that epilogue? Well, okay. But because there are some of you out there who are for some inexplicable reason fans of the childrens' book series, we will put it under the jump. DO NOT CLICK THROUGH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS.
Ooh! After rogue Internet retailers sent their customers their copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows EARLY, Scholastic flipped. Whatever can they do? Well, basically, they're screwed, so they're appealing to everyone's humanity to try to keep this thing under wraps until Saturday. Also, suing the sellers. Lotsa luck with that. The pleading press release, in all of its futility, follows.
The New York Times joins the crowd of those breaking Scholastic's embargo on revealing anything about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In a review in today's paper, book critic Michiko Kakutani limns the final volume of the Potter series, and, presumably inadvertently, reveals a major plot point. It's kind of amazing.
You probably thought yesterday's little expulsion drill meant that you were safe from redundancy for another week, right? Wrong! We are particularly bloodthirsty of late, and our mania will not be sated until we've escorted another batch of commenters off of Gawker property. This week, however, we've decided we're going to concentrate on a specific group of commenter to can. How did we choose? It's a kind of magic.
Israeli children and simple-minded adults who are hankering for their shot at the final Harry Potter have run into a roadblock: Head Heebs in the Holy Land are trying to keep bookstores closed at the appointed hour of the novel's release. Sadly, that hour comes "at 2:01 a.m. local time this Saturday—on the Jewish Sabbath, when Israeli law requires most businesses to close." Some stores are planning to open anyway—these are Jews, let's remember, and a buck's a buck—which has resulted in predictable outrage from the more Adonai-adoring elements of Israeli society.
"The Harry Potter mania drives me crazy. Our fake ending was fairly clearly fake, and if anyone was confused, they're just too stupid to be allowed on the Internet. I suppose some of the other 'fakes' were more malicious in intent. Our only malice is against adults who read books for 10-year-olds. And they deserve whatever they get." RELATED: Hermione is buggered to death by a basilisk. (Oops, spoiler, sorry.) [NYDN]
For those adults who are desperate to read a children's book, apparently all 759 pages of "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows" or whatever it's called are floating around as torrents. Spoiler: EVERYONE DIES. Kidding!
TorrentFreak reports that scanned copies of the new Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the new book about everyone's favorite teenage wizard, have hit BitTorrent file-sharing networks. If you don't want to find out the ending, log off now. Or download the copies anyway: Apparently the quality is so bad that you can only read some pages by using Photoshop to enhance the images.
· Openly gay publicist Howard Bragman "adores" star client Isaiah Washington, who might have "more gay friends than I do."
· Amy Winehouse might have two functioning livers, but Lily Allen has a third nipple.
· Ah, Hollywood, where even the formerly mobbed-up can make a nice living and knock up Victoria's Secret models.
· Welcome back, Potter.
· Harry Potter takes in a huge $190.3 million at the international box office in its opening weekend, but the haul still leaves it behind Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Still, Warner Bros. should be able to crank out a passable trade paper ad touting the result as the Best Overseas Opening Weekend of All Time* (*For Fifth Installments Of Franchises Based On Best-Selling Children's Books About A Wizard Academy) [Variety]
· Though Volkswagen executives have been underwhelmed by the results of their product placement deal with NBC Universal, they seem happy with the Touareg 2's upcoming Bourne Ultimatum cameo as The Official Getaway Vehicle of the World's Deadliest Amnesiac Spies, an identification that should help capture the attention of a market segment that has long eluded them. [THR]
· Sicko performs well after expanded release, though the Weinstein Co. would like you to compare the movie to Bowling for Columbine, not his record-setting documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, because global terrorism is an inherently sexier topic than health care reform. Seems fair to us. [Variety]
· THR breaks down the WGA/AMPTP negotiations into three easy-to-understand, likely phases: 1. "Paris peace talks"; 2. The acknowledgment of differences about difficult issues; 3. Fisticuffs, tears, and the total eradication of Hollywood life as we know it. [THR]
· Confronted with the choice of watching a new episode of Big Brother or reruns of Law & Order and Desperate Housewives, viewers make the difficult choice to spend an hour with CBS's scheming houseguests. [Variety]
The Smoking Gun reports that authorities on the East Coast intercepted a shipment of 400,000 ecstasy pills from Europe, including the "Harry Potters," pictured above, embossed with the familiar logo of the current title holder of Biggest Movie Star in the World. Perhaps the developing wizard has outgrown Every Flavour Beans in favor Bertie Bott's Dopamine-Draining Rave-y Good Time Pills, explaining how the affable Harry of previous chapters has been replaced by the horny and depressive one currently grinding his teeth and marveling at the fluffiness of Cho Chang's Hogwart's uniform sweater in Order of the Phoenix.
On this most magical of Monday mornings, carefully remove your wizard's robe, drape it over the back of your desk chair, and begin your week of toiling for Hollywood's version of Lord Voldemort by taking a tour of the weekend's box office numbers:
· Universal Pictures extends its 21-year marriage with Imagine Entertainment, signing a five-year deal that gives the studio first-look access to the fascinating contents of superproducer Brian Grazer's mind through 2013, and which ends a rumored flirtation with those homewreckers at Paramount. [Variety]
· The AMPTP has issued a clarification about its recent "let's nuke the residuals system" musings, a proposal that the Writers Guild is expected to dismiss as merely "crazy," a downgrade from yesterday's "batshit insane." [THR]
Actual lyric from Harry Potter tribute band Harry and the Potters: "I got a mysterious gift from my dead dad / It was an invisibility cloak — how rad!" Actual lyric from "rival" Harry Potter tribute band Draco and the Malfoys: "You may have freed our house elf, and brought doubt to our family name/ but your parents still got toasted by a big, green, glowing flame." Other Potter tribute bands whose lyrics were not featured: Hermione and the Know-It-Alls, Weasleys Tore My Flesh, and Cho Chang and the Wandteasers. [ABC News]
We realize that between gas, parking, exorbitant ticket fees, and outrageous concession stand prices, the enjoyment of the latest chapter of your favorite fantasy film franchise can often turn into a cost-prohibitive affair. We here at Defamer are therefore more than happy to connect Harry Potter fans of limited means to those of you looking for moviegoing companionship with the potential for something more. Or, to put it more plainly, who'd like to get some hot Craigslist action for the price of a movie ticket?
· Onetime NBC Messiah Aaron Sorkin has signed on for a three-picture deal with DreamWorks. First up is a script for The Trial of the Chicago 7, a period political piece about the clash between protestors and police at the 1968 Democratic convention that Sorkin was able to adapt from an unaired Studio 60 sketch in which Lobster Boy and new character Pigasus the Immortal argue over who might be the better Yippee candidate for president. [Variety]
· Katherine McPhee is, by far, the hottest American Idol runner-up in Hollywood right now, landing a role in the still-untitled Anna Faris comedy about the Playboy bunny who teaches some lame sorority girls how to unleash their inner tart. In an empowering way! [THR]
· Madonna demanded that interviewers not break eye contact with her for the duration of their backstage encounter at Live Earth, a measure necessary for her to cast the Kabbalistic mind-control spell that prevents reporters from asking intrusive questions about her disastrous film career or black market orphan purchases. Word has it that the spell takes hold more quickly if her subject inhales the vapors from a candle that smells like God or if he or she can be tricked into touching her red string bracelet.
· Following last night's episode-ending, tranny-junk-dangling freeze frame, Entourage creator Doug Ellin promises the rest of his series will be schlong-free.
· Is this the exact moment that Jason Lee's career began an irreversible downward trajectory? Only time will tell.
· Harry Potter fans really need to just let go.
· Truly, the new generation is high to glue to fuck the type quickly.
Sunster Lenore Skenazy anxiously anticipates the release of the final Harry Potter book.
