More Order of the Phoenix promotion

I'm putting it up because whenever Daniel Radcliffe talks about nudity or kissing I giggle (sad, I know).

Here's a news clip from the first press junket which I think was in the UK:


And here's the Japanese press conference (the world premiere was in Japan this year):

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix clips

11 scenes from the new Harry Potter film as well as some cast interviews and backstage clips have been released here.

Some of the best in my opinion are:

• "I see them too"
  It's the first proper glimpse we've had of Luna. It's just 2-3 lines, but she's perfect! (and very funny ;) )
  
• "How long have you worked here?"
  Umbridge is probably also going to be a lot of fun ;) I so love that Snape is like twice taller than her on that clip ;)
  
• "I will attempt to penetrate your mind"
  Occlumency lessons were something I've been really looking forward to seeing and while I'm not sure I entirely like it (and am fully anticipating to hate the worst memory scene), at least the intensity of the scene hasn't fallen below my expectations.
  
• "Hand me the prophecy"
  Now this is something for which my expectations were rather low (probably because I'm not a big fan of the climax of book 5), so I'm positively surprised!

P.S. (edited June 30th) You can also access those clips here

Indian film releases I'm excited about...

So there's Chak de India, the new Shahrukh release in August, which I'm anticipating to be rather awful judging by the trailer (though of course because it's a Shahrukh release I'm still a little excited ;)). The premise of the film is Shahrukh's character coaching a women's field hockey team. The first teaser is below:


But I also think it's high time to introduce the topic of Akshaye Khanna onto this blog (yes, there are in fact Indian actors other than Shahrukh that I'm a fan of lol). Some of you may have seen Akshaye in Dil Chahta Hai. Otherwise he's not a Bollywood star that has gotten much attention before this year really. But recently his career seems to have taken off. His style of acting is rather rare in mainstream terms (I'd say he's usually a very subtle actor even in Western standards) and I think he's quite into experimenting with different things, so with the recent surge of interest in him, he seems to have had some interesting film offers to choose from. The result is that I'm quite excited about a few films with him him attached that are coming up ;)

So firstly, there's Gandhi, My Father which is probably going to release in August and is getting even some international focus. While Gandhi as a character has featured in a huge amount of films, this film seems to be a very unique (and controversial) take on him. You might like to read up on this film a little here. But if you don't - then well basically it's about Gandhi's family and the conflict he had with his son (Akshaye plays the son). They never got on well and apparently Gandhi forbade him to become a lawyer which is what his son really wanted to do. The film tries to paint both Gandhi and his son in grey colors and tells the story of how Gandhi's sacrifice for the nation was very difficult on his family. Below is one of the first trailers for this film:


On a lighter Akshaye Khanna note, there's Naqaab. I don't know when this is going to be released, but I assume probably soon as the trailers have started coming out. I've no idea what this film is about ;-P But it's probably totally crazy, as the directors of it (Abbas-Mustan) are the ones responsible for films such as Baazigar (1993) and Baadshah (1999). The difference is that now they have the special effects to pull off a silly James Bond type movie with James Bondy type effects if they really wanted to ;) Trailer is below:


Finally, on a rumoured Akshaye Khanna note, he may be part of a much talked about and controversial film (I think it's Western financing), which has been in pre-production for a very long time. Even though When Kiran met Karen seems to be appearing in news articles quite a lot considering how early the stages of its production are (for all we know it might not even get made), there's hardly any info about its plot. What mainly gets repeated is that it's a "lesbian flick".

P.S. This month my blog has been rather neglected, the reason is that June is my busiest school period, but now that's almost finished, there's hope I'll improve ;) (though I'll be off-line for about 2-3 weeks in the second half of July - first bit of August).

Experimental Travel

As the summer holidays are approaching, you might want to find out a bit about experimental travel (see the definition on wikipedia).
There are many very creative ideas to follow, for example what is known as Blind Man's Buff Travel:

Hypothesis
Explore and experience a new place without seeing it.

Apparatus
A friend to guide you and a blindfolding mechanism of some kind.

Method
Spend 24 hours blindfolded in a new location.

You will find many more ideas of how to travel the world in an experimental way here. I also recommend looking at the stories of people who followed some of these ideas, which you will find on the home page of the experimental travel website (the four featured experiments).

And I thought Poland had it bad...

This is a short follow-up to my big pornography post. While Polish politicians have been debating about a total ban on pornography, Iran seems to have taken their politic debates muuuuch further. If the proposal passes, anybody involved with the making, distribution (including websites) or production of porn films in Iran could be sentenced to death.