Hasta siempre Maggie Smith

A veces aparecen personajes de historias de la pantalla grande y que calan de algún modo en los corazones de muchos. Uno de ellos fue la Dama Maggie Smith, la prolífica actriz británica que es tan querida y recordada como Minerva McGonagall de la saga Harry Potter. Lumos Maxima para ella, siempre vivirá en los recuerdos de los buenos momentos viéndola en la pantalla. En ese y sus otros personajes memorables claro, pero de algún modo mi favorita siempre será el de la profesora que animó a las estatuas a defender su escuela. Se la echará de menos.

 

Lumos Maxima, Dumbledore!

Michael Gambon, el reconocido actor irlandés que interpretó al querido personaje Albus Dumbledore en las últimas 6 películas de la saga de Harry Potter falleció conmoviendo a millones de seguidores en todo el mundo. Gambon entregó su talento y pasión al personaje de Dumbledore, retratándolo como un ser sabio, valiente y compasivo, y quizá algo menos dulce que la original interpretación de su predecesor en el rol, como correspondía en realidad. Su interpretación pronto cautivó a la audiencia porque transmitió la esencia de este icónico mago de la cultura popular. Aunque su legado perdurará en la memoria no solo de aquellos que se adentraron en el mundo mágico de Harry Potter. 

Descanse en paz, Michael Gambon, y gracias por tu inolvidable interpretación del querido Albus Dumbledore.

¡LUMOS MAXIMA!

Hogwarts nunca será el mismo sin ti Hagrid

Nadie es eterno pero sin duda de cuando en cuando aparecen quienes de un modo u otro llegan a trascender, no siempre como héroes típicos o figuras rimbombantes pero sí como aquellas que en lo suyo llegan a calar en lo profundo de los corazones de quienes les conocieron. Una de esas personas ha sido Robbie Coltrane, quien se ganó a más de una generación. El querido medio gigante Hagrid de la saga de Harry Potter, quien siempre estuvo con su amigo de principio a fin en buenas y malas. 

Siempre serás recordado

Downloadus Totalis!

Hace tiempo que no usaba el hechizo ... jaja

 Solo pasa que ya comencé a leer el último libro de la saga de Harry Potter llamado Harry Potter y el Legado Maldito. Y tú también puedes leerlo mientras dure ESTE HECHIZO.

Ahora que si no te interesa entonces ....

¡bromeando! ... o quizá no.

ANIMALES FANTÁSTICOS Y DÓNDE ENCONTRARLOS - Trailer y Poster Comic Con

Comic Con trae anualmente novedades para todos los fans de la ficción, series, cómics, películas y demás. Esta vez entre tantos le tocó el turno a revelar más cosas de la nueva película del universo de Harry Potter a estrenarse en noviembre. Porqué Albus Dumbledore le tenía tanta estima a Newton Scamander y porqué se negó a su expulsión de Hogwarts será quizas una de las cosas que entenderemos por la película.

Este juego de muggles (o nomajs para Estados Unidos) interactuando con magos es algo que muchos secretamente y a veces abiertamente querían luego de ver las películas originales del mundo mágico. Y esta vez se hizo realidad. A ver que nos presentan pues el MACUSA o Congreso Mágico de los Estados Unidos de América parece ser un ente más férreo que su contraparte británica conocida.

Ya espero ver a tanta criatura que sería de seguro una gran dicha para el gran Hagrid.

Eso sí, el afiche pudo haber sido mejor, no está mal pero me hubiera gustado ver más bichos en el mismo.

Always ..... Alan Rickman

¡Qué pena me dio saber de la muerte de Alan Rickman! La fuerza y presencia del gran actor se sentían en sus diferentes interpretaciones. Con todo el rol que ganó mi cariño, después de todo acabó siendo un fenómeno generacional, es aquel del profesor Snape de Harry Potter.

Y de todas sus escenas creo que me quedo con esta:

Always... Siempre...

Y en verdad siempre estará en nuestras mentes profesor Snape....

La historia de Dolores Umbridge

Por Halloween JK Rowling publicó la historia de uno de sus personajes que más disfruto detestar, la terrible profesora Umbridge. La comparto por si no la vieron en Pottermore.com

The story of Dolores Jane Umbridge

Dolores Jane Umbridge was the eldest child and only daughter of Orford Umbridge, a wizard, and Ellen Cracknell, a Muggle, who also had a Squib son. Dolores’ parents were unhappily married, and Dolores secretly despised both of them: Orford for his lack of ambition (he had never been promoted, and worked in the Department of Magical Maintenance at the Ministry of Magic), and her mother, Ellen, for her flightiness, untidiness, and Muggle lineage. Both Orford and his daughter blamed Ellen for Dolores's brother's lack of magical ability, with the result that when Dolores was fifteen, the family split down the middle, Orford and Dolores remaining together, and Ellen vanishing back into the Muggle world with her son. Dolores never saw her mother or brother again, never spoke of either of them, and henceforth pretended to all she met that she was a pure-blood.

An accomplished witch, Dolores joined the Ministry of Magic directly after she left Hogwarts, taking a job as a lowly intern in the Improper Use of Magic Office. Even at seventeen, Dolores was judgemental, prejudiced and sadistic, although her conscientious attitude, her saccharine manner towards her superiors, and the ruthlessness and stealth with which she took credit for other people's work soon gained her advancement. Before she was thirty, Dolores had been promoted to Head of the office, and it was but a short step from there to ever more senior positions in the management of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. By this time, she had persuaded her father to take early retirement, and by making him a small financial allowance, she ensured that he dropped quietly out of sight. Whenever she was asked (usually by workmates who did not like her) 'are you related to that Umbridge who used to mop the floors here?' she would smile her sweetest, laugh, and deny any connection whatsoever, claiming that her deceased father had been a distinguished member of the Wizengamot. Nasty things tended to happen to people who asked about Orford, or anything that Dolores did not like talking about, and people who wanted to remain on her good side pretended to believe her version of her ancestry.

In spite of her best efforts to secure the affections of one of her superiors (she never cared particularly which of them it was, but knew that her own status and security would be advanced with a powerful husband), Dolores never succeeded in marrying. While they valued her hard work and ambition, those who got to know her best found it difficult to like her very much. After a glass of sweet sherry, Dolores was always prone to spout very uncharitable views, and even those who were anti-Muggle found themselves shocked by some of Dolores's suggestions, behind closed doors, of the treatment that the non-magical community deserved.

As she grew older and harder, and rose higher within the Ministry, Dolores's taste in little girlish accessories grew more and more pronounced; her office became a place of frills and furbelows, and she liked anything decorated with kittens (though found the real thing inconveniently messy). As the Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge became increasingly anxious and paranoid that Albus Dumbledore had ambitions to supersede him, Dolores managed to claw her way to the very heart of power, by stoking both Fudge's vanity and his fears, and presenting herself as one of the few he could trust. 

Dolores's appointment as Inquisitor at Hogwarts gave full scope, for the first time in her life, for her prejudices and her cruelty. She had not enjoyed her time at school, where she had been overlooked for all positions of responsibility, and she relished the chance to return and wield power over those who had not (as she saw it) given her her due.

Dolores has what amounts to a phobia of beings that are not quite, or wholly, human. Her distaste for the half-giant Hagrid, and her terror of centaurs, reveal a terror of the unknown and the wild. She is an immensely controlling person, and all who challenge her authority and world-view must, in her opinion, be punished. She actively enjoys subjugating and humiliating others, and except in their declared allegiances, there is little to choose between her and Bellatrix Lestrange.

Dolores's time at Hogwarts ended disastrously, because she overreached the remit Fudge had given her, stepping outside the bounds of her own authority, carried away with a fanatical sense of self-purpose. Shaken but unrepentant after a catastrophic end to her Hogwarts career, she returned to a Ministry, which had been plunged into turmoil due to the return of Lord Voldemort. 

In the change of regimes that followed Fudge's forced resignation, Dolores was able to slip back into her former position at the Ministry. The new Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour, had more immediate problems pressing in on him than Dolores Umbridge. Scrimgeour was later punished for this oversight, because the fact that the Ministry had never punished Dolores for her many abuses of power seemed to Harry Potter to reveal both its complacency and its carelessness. Harry considered Dolores's continuing employment, and the lack of any repercussions for her behaviour at Hogwarts, a sign of the Ministry's essential corruption, and refused to cooperate with the new Minister because of it (Dolores is the only person, other than Lord Voldemort, to leave a permanent physical scar on Harry, having forced him to cut the words 'I must not tell lies' on the back of his own hand during detention).

Dolores was soon enjoying life at the Ministry more than ever. When the Ministry was taken over by the puppet Minister Pius Thicknesse, and infiltrated by the Dark Lord's followers, Dolores was in her true element at last. Correctly judged, by senior Death Eaters, to have much more in common with them than she ever had with Albus Dumbledore, she not only retained her post but was given extra authority, becoming Head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission, which was in effect a kangaroo court that imprisoned all Muggle-borns on the basis that they had ‘stolen’ their wands and their magic.

It was as she sat in judgement of another innocent woman that Harry Potter finally attacked Dolores in the very heart of the Ministry, and stole from her the Horcrux she had unwittingly been wearing. 

With the fall of Lord Voldemort, Dolores Umbridge was put on trial for her enthusiastic co-operation with his regime, and convicted of the torture, imprisonment and deaths of several people (some of the innocent Muggle-borns she sentenced to Azkaban did not survive their ordeal). 

Birthday: 26th August
Wand: Birch and dragon heartstring, eight inches long
Hogwarts house: Slytherin
Special abilities: Her punishment quill is of her own invention
Parentage: Muggle mother, wizard father
Family: Unmarried, no children
Hobbies: Collecting the 'Frolicsome Feline' ornamental plate range, adding flounces to fabric and frills to stationary objects, inventing instruments of torture

Chismes de Harry Potter - El Ejército de Dumbledore en la Final de la Copa Mundial de Quidditch 2014

JK Rowling, via Pottermore, nos ha traido un vistazo a la vida de Harry Potter en la actualidad a sus casi 34 años. Muy furtivo claro, ya que está escrito desde la perspectiva de la chismosa Rita Skeeter, pero igual es bueno reencontrarse con los devenires de viejos conocidos como Luna o Nevilla también. La Copa Mundial del Quidditch siempre me gustó, ¡qué oportuno reencuentro en el desierto de Patagonia!

Dumbledore’s Army Reunites at Quidditch World Cup Final

By the Daily Prophet’s Gossip Correspondent, Rita Skeeter

There are celebrities – and then there are celebrities. We’ve seen many a famous face from the wizarding world grace the stands here in the Patagonian Desert – Ministers and Presidents, Celestina Warbeck, controversial American wizarding band The Bent-Winged Snitches – all have caused flurries of excitement, with crowd members scrambling for autographs and even casting Bridging Charms to reach the VIP boxes over the heads of the crowd.

But when word swept the campsite and stadium that a certain gang of infamous wizards (no longer the fresh-faced teenagers they were in their heyday, but nevertheless recognisable) had arrived for the final, excitement was beyond anything yet seen. As the crowd stampeded, tents were flattened and small children mown down. Fans from all corners of the globe stormed towards the area where members of Dumbledore’s Army were rumoured to have been sighted, desperate above all else for a glimpse of the man they still call the Chosen One.

The Potter family and the rest of Dumbledore’s Army have been given accommodation in the VIP section of the campsite, which is protected by heavy charms and patrolled by Security Warlocks. Their presence has ensured large crowds along the cordoned area, all hoping for a glimpse of their heroes. At 3pm today they got their wish when, to the accompaniment of loud screams, Potter took his young sons James and Albus to visit the players’ compound, where he introduced them to Bulgarian Seeker Viktor Krum.

About to turn 34, there are a couple of threads of silver in the famous Auror’s black hair, but he continues to wear the distinctive round glasses that some might say are better suited to a style-deficient twelve-year-old. The famous lightning scar has company: Potter is sporting a nasty cut over his right cheekbone. Requests for information as to its provenance merely produced the usual response from the Ministry of Magic: ‘We do not comment on the top secret work of the Auror department, as we have told you no less than 514 times, Ms. Skeeter.’ So what are they hiding? Is the Chosen One embroiled in fresh mysteries that will one day explode upon us all, plunging us into a new age of terror and mayhem?

Or does his injury have a more humble origin, one that Potter is desperate to hide? Has his wife perhaps cursed him? Are cracks beginning to show in a union that the Potters are determined to promote as happy? Should we read anything into the fact that his wife Ginevra has been perfectly happy to leave her husband and children behind in London whilst reporting on this tournament? The jury is out on whether she really had the talent or experience to be sent to the Quidditch World Cup (jury’s back in – no!!!) but let’s face it, when your last name is Potter, doors open, international sporting bodies bow and scrape, and Daily Prophet editors hand you plum assignments.

As their devoted fans and followers will remember, Potter and Krum competed against each other in the controversial Triwizard Tournament, but apparently there are no hard feelings, as they embraced upon meeting (what really happened in that maze? Speculation is unlikely to be quelled by the warmth of their greeting). After half an hour’s chat, Potter and his sons returned to the campsite where they socialised with the rest of Dumbledore’s Army until the small hours.

In the next tent are Potter’s two closest associates, the ones who know everything about him and yet have always refused to talk to the press. Are they afraid of him, or is it their own secrets they are afraid will leak out, tarnishing the myth of He Who Could Not Be Named’s defeat? Now married, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger were with Potter almost every step of the way. Like the rest of Dumbledore’s Army, they fought in the Battle of Hogwarts and no doubt deserve the plaudits and awards for bravery heaped upon them by a grateful wizarding world.

In the immediate aftermath of the battle Weasley, whose famous ginger hair appears to be thinning slightly, entered into employment with the Ministry of Magic alongside Potter, but left only two years later to co-manage the highly successful wizarding joke emporium Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Was he, as he stated at the time, ‘delighted to assist my brother George with a business I’ve always loved’? Or had he had his fill of standing in Potter’s shadow? Was the work of the Auror Department too much for a man who has admitted that the destruction of He Who Could Not Be Named’s Horcruxes ‘took its toll’ on him? He shows no obvious signs of mental illness from a distance, but the public is not allowed close enough to make a proper assessment. Is this suspicious?

Hermione Granger, of course, was always the femme fatale of the group. Press reports of the time revealed that as a teenager she toyed with the young Potter’s affections before being seduced away by the muscular Viktor Krum, finally settling for Potter’s faithful sidekick. After a meteoric rise to Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she is now tipped to go even higher within the Ministry, and is also mother to son, Hugo, and daughter, Rose. Does Hermione Granger prove that a witch really can have it all? (No – look at her hair.)

Then there are those members of Dumbledore’s Army who receive slightly less publicity than Potter, Weasley and Granger (are they resentful? Almost certainly). Neville Longbottom, now a popular Herbology teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is here in Patagonia with his wife Hannah. Until recently the pair lived above the Leaky Cauldron in London, but rumour has it that Hannah has not only retrained as a Healer, but is applying for the job of Matron at Hogwarts. Idle gossip suggests that she and her husband both enjoy a little more Ogden’s Old Firewhisky than most of us would expect from custodians of our children, but no doubt we all wish her the best of luck with her application.

Last of the ringleaders of Dumbledore’s Army is, of course, Luna Lovegood (now married to Rolf Scamander, swarthy grandson of celebrated Magizoologist Newt). Still delightfully eccentric, Luna has been sweeping around the VIP section in robes composed of the flags of all sixteen qualifying countries. Her twin sons are ‘at home with grandpa’. Is this a euphemism for ‘too disturbed to be seen in public’? Surely only the unkindest would suggest so.

Sundry other members of the Army are here, but it is on these six that most interest is focused. Wherever there is a red head one may make an educated guess that it belongs to a Weasley, but it is difficult to tell whether it is George (wealthy co-manager of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes), Charlie (dragon wrangler, still unmarried – why?) or Percy (Head of the Department of Magical Transportation – it’s his fault if the Floo Network’s too busy!). The only one who is easy to recognise is Bill who, poor man, is grievously scarred from an encounter with a werewolf and yet somehow (enchantment? Love potion? Blackmail? Kidnap?) married the undeniably beautiful (though doubtless empty-headed) Fleur Delacour.

Word is that we shall see these and other members of Dumbledore’s Army in the VIP boxes at the final, adding to the glitz and razzmatazz of a gala occasion. Let us hope that the behaviour of two of their younger hangers-on does not embarrass them, heaping shame on those who have previously brought honour to the name of wizard.

One always hesitates to invade the privacy of young people, but the fact is that anyone closely connected with Harry Potter reaps the benefits and must pay the penalty of public interest. No doubt Potter will be distressed to know that his sixteen-year-old godson Teddy Lupin – a lanky half-werewolf with bright blue hair – has been behaving in a way unbefitting of wizarding royalty since arriving on the VIP campsite. It might be asking too much that the always-busy Potter keep a tighter rein on this wild boy, who was entrusted to his care by his dying parents, but one shudders to think what will become of Master Lupin without urgent intervention. Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Bill Weasley might like to know that their beautiful, blonde daughter Victoire seems to be attracted to any dark corner where Master Lupin happens to be lurking. The good news is both of them seem to have invented a method of breathing through their ears. I can think of no other reason how they have survived such prolonged periods of what, in my young day, was called ‘snogging.’

But let us not be severe. Harry Potter and his cohorts never claimed to be perfect! And for those who want to know exactly how imperfect they are, my new biography: Dumbledore’s Army: The Dark Side of the Demob will be available from Flourish and Blotts on July 31st.

Ceremonia de Inauguración Londres 2012

En general de lo que vi me pareció una muy buena inauguración. Me encantaron los anillos olímpicos al inicio.

Eso sí, no esperaba ver a la Reina siendo escoltada por James Bond  para acabar lanzándose en paracaídas al complejo olímpico.

Hasta Sir Winston Churchill hizo una participación especial!

Pero creo que lo que a muchos nos sorprendió gratamente también fue ver quién comenzó a leer un fragmento de Peter Pan...

¡JK Rowling! ¡la escritora de Harry Potter!

Por cierto parecía que Jo leía desde un montículo de Hobbiton

El escenario hasta parecía tener al Árbol de la Fiesta de Bilbo Baggins de El Señor de los Anillos... peor según me dijeron en twitter era Glastonbury.

Me gustaron esos guiños que hubieron a la literatura infantil.

Pero a pesar de que yo mismo lo había leído y puesto en el post anterior no esperaba en verdad encontrar lo que vendría en esta ceremonia.

En efecto, aparecieron varios villanos de la literatura infantil británica como Cruella de Vil, el Capitán Garfio y Lord Voldemort luego del baile de los médicos, enfermeras y niños pacientes.

Voldemort destacó todo grande y magnífico

Pero tanto bla, bla bla...

Tanto Avadakedavra ...

Para que venga Mary Poppins en modo clon y .... OWNED!

¿Será que Mary Poppins habrá sido aurora?

¡jajaja!

OWNED!

Muy buena la actuación de Rowan Atkinson, Mr Bean, que se robó el show con su intervención durante el Chariots of Fire.

El paso de las delegaciones fue un tanto largo, hubieron varias en trajes típicos y otras en lo que parecían uniformes escolares. Destacable ver a Muhammad Ali aunque pareciera estar en otra el grande ya.

Perú pasando al compás de Mr Blue Sky de Electric Light Orchestra

Algo que fue evidente fue que algunas personas comenzaron a aburrirse con tanto desfile o algo así ... o no Su Majestad?? ¡jajaja!

Y lo mejor vino al cierre, el gran Sir Paul Mc Cartney se la pasó buen rato de la ceremonia informando en twitter a sus seguidores de lo que se venía. Travieso el genio. Hasta bromeó de las habilidades de Su Majestad con el paracaídas.

Hey Jude es de mis temas favoritos así que estaba contento. Por cierto muy mal por el canal local ése que interrumpió la transmisión de la ceremonia por pasar una tontería.

A su manera ha dejado buen recuerdo.

Juegos Olímpicos Londres 2012

Sería bueno ver Juegos Olímpicos a la Dinotopia alguna vez pero qué se hace!! ....

A las 9PM de hoy (hora de Londres, 10 de la noche en España; 3 de la tarde hora de Perú, Ecuador, Colombia, Cuba; 4 de la tarde en Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay y Chile; 5 de la tarde en Argentina; 2 de la tarde hora de Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras,San Salvador, Costa Rica, Panamá) comienza el espectáculo.

Las mascotas olímpicas Wenlock y Mandeville se ven simpáticas.

Me pregunto si en verdad Voldemort será enfrentado por Mary Poppins en la inauguración como dicen

Web Oficial - Twitter Oficial - LIVE!! Señal en Vivo

La Mujer en el Cine... #IncisivosaurusSabe!

Creo que, como de costumbre en este blog, la expresión del Incisivosaurus lo dice todo! xD

WTF!
=======
Nota aparte (traducción por si acaso:)
Eowyn: Pelearé en esta guerra ...
Hermione: Ayudaré a salvar el mundo mágico ...
Bella: Sólo me quedaré tirada aquí y dejaré que mi novio brilloso haga todo el trabajo ...

Tema de Harry Potter - Piano Solo de Jarrod Radnich por ThePianoGuys

Me gusta su forma de tocar "Hedwig's Theme", el clásico tema de Harry Potter.

‪Harry Potter en 99 Segundos‬‏

Si sabes inglés creo encontrarás divertido este resumen de la historia al ritmo de varios temas de la saga. Y está subtitulado así que no te quejes. Me gustó el "EDWARD CULLEN GETS SLAYED"