Muggle News

On Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie from Cesar Soriano:

...Just as Harry Potter is growing up in J.K. Rowling's series of phenomenally popular books, the screen version of the young wizard isn't entering quietly into his adolescence. Judging by the first look at the finished film at a screening for journalists Friday night, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire more than earns its PG-13, the first in the series to receive that rating. In the USA, PG-13 carries with it a caution for parents and warns that some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. Goblet is cited for its sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images. Says director Mike Newell: "Audiences that began with No. 1 and are now 14, 15, 16 years old will kind of want to know you are not infantilizing the situation. These are not children's books; these are adult stories."

Among the more frightening scenes in the fourth Potter installment, due in theaters Nov 18: a giant man-eating snake; an implied murder; the graphic destruction of the Quidditch World Cup campsite at the hands of the dark-hooded, skull-faced Death Eaters. And that's just the first 15 minutes...

On Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince book from Leah Sottile:

...Whenever I finish a Harry Potter Book, I close the back cover feeling fulfilled, optimistic and pleasantly—not urgently—anticipating J.K. Rowling's next volume. But when I finished her latest, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I finished, closed the cover, set it down and said, "Well, what the f— is Harry going to do now?!" I seriously said that—to my cat.