First, a bit of background for those unfortunate souls who haven't yet ventured into the Potterverse. Henry Potter is a wizard with magicful powers who lives on a fictional isle called Britain and goes to this wizarding school known as Hogwarts. Hogwarts is basically the Oxford of wizarding schools. To put that in terms my American readers can understand, Oxford is the Harvard of Britain. For my New Orleanian readers, Harvard is the Tulane of Boston, Boston being the New Orleans of Massachusetts. So anyways, this dude Harry, he's got a tattoo on his forehead which is how everyone knows he's a total badass. When his parents fount out about the tattoo they died of disappointment, leaving Henry in the care of his aunt and uncle. His aunt and uncle were fraggles, which means that they didn't have magicful powers so they neglected him and made him live in the cupboard. The cupboard is where I keep my Nestle's Crunch and other delicious snacks so you can imagine that it isn't the best place to raise a child. Eventually the Ministry of Child and Family Services caught up with Harry's aunt and uncle and took Harry away to live at Hogwarts. There he wore a hat that told him to go to Gryffindor so to Gryffindor he went. And then he met his bestie Ron and this girl dork Hermione. Oh also there's this other dude named Lord Voldemort who doesn't even have a nose, and as we all know not having a nose symbolizes evil in the same way forehead tattoos symbolize awesomeness and eyeglasses symbolize bad eyesight. So Voldemort and Henry don't get along too well, I forget why. It's not really important I don't think. So that pretty much catches you up on all the events leading up the latest and lastest movie, which is called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I know that "hallow" is a traditional British greeting, but I don't know what a "deathly hallow" is. But I guess it's British or something, and they speak a different language down there anyway. Everyone in the book is British which I didn't even realize at first, so I had to go and reread all of them and redo the dialog with a British accent. So go do that if you read it wrong the first time like I did. The movies are cool because the actors do the British accent for you.
So anyways, about the movie... It starts out really sad because Dumbledore leaves Hogwarts to enter the exciting world of competitive bearding. In his absence Harry's nemesis Lord Waldemart takes over the Ministry of Magic and wreaks havoc on the Diagon Alley economy, forcing mom-and-pop shops such as Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes out of business. To make matters worse, rumors of insolvency lead to a run on Gringotts, which as the only bank in the wizarding world was thought to be "too big to fail". Unfortunately, this proves to be incorrect and the entire wizarding world is thrown into a severe recession. Waldemart uses the recession as an pretext to institute sweeping austerity measures. Deep cuts to MagiCare lead to St. Mungo's being effectively shut down. Hundreds of owls are laid off from the post office. Much needed improvements to the outdated Hogwarts Express are rejected in favor of renovations to Malfoy Manor. Millions of pounds of taxpayer money are siphoned off to Waldemart's corporate donors in Knockturn Alley while Hogsmeade lies crumbling and blighted. Digusted by Waldemart's incompetent and corrupt leadership and distraught at Britain's bleak prospects, the students of Hogwarts finally decide that they have had enough and begin to riot. From Tottenham to Hogsmeade, Harry and his friends burn and loot with an untamed ferocity not seen in generations. Things reach a climax at the Battle of Hogwarts, where Harry defeats Voldemort once and for all. The Labour Party is put back in power and wizards and muggles alike live happily ever after. The end. Oh, and there was some subplot with these things called horcruxes or whatever, but I couldn't really follow it. I don't think it was important anyway.
The movie was pretty cool I guess. I would have liked it a lot better if I was in it. I actually landed the role of the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor because the producer was so impressed by my performance in Kazaam. J.K. Rowling herself admitted that Kazaam was the inspiration for the entire Harry Potter series. Unfortunately my scenes were cut from the final version due to time constraints. Their loss. But you lucky readers get a Heatblog exclusive! Here are some pics of me on set:
Panic on the streets of London/ Panic in the cells of Azkaban/
I wonder to myself/ could life ever be sane again?/
the Hogsmeade streets that you slip down...
Burn down the Burrow/ Hang the blessed Weasleys
Harry Potter and the S'mores of AzKazaam
