The MPAA and the BBFC - how the US and UK deal with sex and violence in films

The Venice film festival (which is the oldest film festival in the world and remains one of the most prestigious) came to an end the week before last and it was Ang Lee's Lust, Caution that won it.
While this might seem irrelevant to the topic of this post, I assure you it's not ;) The trailer should give you an idea where I'm going with this:


Anyway, the film has received an NC-17 certificate from the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). Focus Features, the distributors of "Lust, Caution", have not appealed it or made any cuts for the American release which is very unusual. The NC-17 certificate is usually not regarded as an option even for less commercial films because this means many cinemas will not show it, many DVD rentals and stores will not stock it and many newspapers will not advertise it. While some art house films in the past have gone ahead with this certificate, it's the first time that such a mainstream director and a film that won such an important festival is going to be released as NC-17.

All the talk surrounding this has made me want to take a closer look at the MPAA and how the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) compares. The MPAA has often been accused of double standards (Hollywood films can get away with more than art house or foreign films, sex is treated much more severely than violence).
Perhaps the strangest thing about the MPAA is that nobody knows exactly who rates the films. All the names are kept anonymous. In fact, the whole thing is so fishy that last year a documentary was made about the MPAA in an attempt to shed some light on it (they even hired a private detective to find out who was sitting on the board!). See the trailer for this documentary here.

Apart from being very secretive about their members, the feedback they give to both the filmmakers and the general public about why films received certain ratings is very limitted comparing to what the BBFC does these days. Check out the quote below from one of the MPAA FAQs:
CARA does provide explanations to the submitter of each motion picture of the reasons for the rating assigned to that picture. However, any such discussions concerning a particular motion picture will be only with the submitter and are also considered confidential. Thus, the substance of discussions about a movie being rated by CARA cannot be discussed with the press or anyone else other than, where appropriate, the submitter of the particular motion picture.
Unfortunately, the level of detail given to submitters often isn't enough for their needs. This timeline of MPAA controversies describes many cases, but one stood out to me in particular. In 1983 Brian De Palma edited his "Scarface" three times to get a lower rating, but none of those three cuts passed. Clearly if they had given him the information he needed, the first cut would have passed their requirements (and oh irony, in the end he received the rating he wanted for his original unedited version!).
In contrast, the BBFC lists quite detailed reasons for the rating and cuts made to each film on their website (the older ratings are less detailed, but the more recent ones are usually very much so) and it also invites the public to "make its views known to the Board at any stage of the classification process".

I have two of my own theories about the MPAA (which you can take seriously or laugh at - whatever ;-P). My first is a conspiracy theory - I think they're consciously giving indie and foreign films harsher ratings and that it's one of their methods of ensuring the domination of the big Hollywood flicks on the US market.
Before you roll your eyes at me (actually you probably have already, but before you do it again ;-P), check out how the MPAA is funded. Here's a quote from the FAQ on one of the MPAA's official pages:
The movie rating system is a voluntary system sponsored by the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Association of Theatre Owners
Since you're probably not familiar with these organizations, I'll "translate". You might already be confused how the MPAA can be funded by the MPAA, so maybe I'll start with clarifying that. For whatever reason, when one talks of the American rating system, one talks of the MPAA giving the ratings (that's how imdb has it for example), but actually the ratings are done by a smaller body called CARA (Classification and Rating Administration) which is part of the MPAA. The MPAA itself is an older and bigger body - you can read about it in more detail here, but it's basically a body created to defend the interests of the major American film production companies - you can see the list of MPAA members (the six biggest studios in Hollywood) on their official site.
The National Association of Theatre Owners is an association of all the movie theatres in the US - most of which are part of cinema chains owned by the six companies already mentioned.
This puts the accusations of bias against foreign and independent films in a totally different light, doesn't it? Clearly it is in the interest of the sponsors of the rating system for films made outside of the six big studios to be given harsher treatment. Wikipedia actually says that Miramax had lots of problems with the rating system while they were an independent company, but now that Disney has bought them out, their problems have ceased!

The BBFC is funded in a much more independent way. See the quote below from their policy (avaliable on their official website):
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is an independent, non-governmental body funded through the fees it charges to those who submit films, videos, DVDs and digital games for classification.
On the one hand this means that British distributors have extra costs (unlike in the US, every film in the UK must be rated or else it is illegal to show it to the general public), but clearly it is a system less open to bias.

My other theory is a cultural one - I honestly believe Americans have a different attitude towards sex than we do here in Europe. Just as in India the general attitude towards sex and sexual behaviours seems to be a lot more prudish than in the West (kissing in public is considered obscene and even hand holding can be seen as vulgar), so in the US it seems certain things are a lot more taboo than they are in Europe.
I thought that it was fascinating to compare reactions to Daniel Radcliffe doing a nude scene in Equus (which I covered extensively on this blog ;) - just click on the Equus tag below this post). In the UK it was a big thing, but at no point did I feel there were any moral judgements about it. It was amusing, maybe shocking, but I don't think many people felt that it was somehow morally wrong of him to be doing it. The voices from the US were different though. Just reading through imdb there were many people who felt this amounted to pedophilia and were wondering how his parents could allow him to do such a thing. There were also those who said they would boycott the "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" film. I'm not saying that all the responses from the US were like that, but certainly it did seem to be somehow "a bigger thing" over there.
In this context, I also found it very interesting to read William H. Macy's comment about the reactions to "The Cooler" (this was one of the few art house films that was released with an NC-17 rating):
William H. Macy said that when the film was shown in European film festivals, afterward people mostly discussed the script and the characters, but when the film was shown at American film festivals, people mostly discussed how good Maria Bello looked in her nude scenes.
I think these different attitudes are reflected in not just the decisions of the MPAA and BBFC, but also their guidelines. I did a sort of comparison of the guidelines for each certificate, which you can download here. I wanted to put it straight up in my post, but the formatting I wanted wasn't possible (it's not a big file, don't worry :) ). Most of the guidelines have been just copied and pasted. Pretty much all the MPAA guidelines I found are in that file, but I only put up part of the BBFC guidelines since there were many which couldn't really be compared against anything in the MPAA ones. The full BBFC guidelines are here.

Finally, two random things that I didn't manage to fit anywhere else in this post. Firstly I thought this article was a great read - particularly the list of silly rating reasons (my favourite was "“PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather”).
And also I found it amusing to hear about Alfonso Cuaron's protest against what various rating bodies around the world were doing to Y tu mama tambien.

Order of the Phoenix publicity in full throb

The new Harry Potter film has now released and the publicity for it is going on in full throb, which means there's loads of great interviews with the Trio (and Daniel Radcliffe in particular) floating around.

Here's a long interview with Daniel Radcliffe from Entertainment Weekly. He talks a lot about Equus in it. My favourite bit from it is:

The publicity photos for the play were extremely provocative, and spread all over the Internet as soon as they were released. What was it like shooting them?
I remember being a little bit hyper that day. At that point, we'd just done the nude scene in rehearsals [for the first time]. And I was basically wanting to get my kit off as much as I possibly could, to try and get used to the idea, and in front of as many strangers as I could. I'd be like, ''Ready now? Is this where I take them off?'' And they'd be like, ''Dan! Hold back! Wait! Just give us 10 minutes, please!''


Daniel Radcliffe on Regis and Kelly:


Daniel Radcliffe on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno:


Daniel Radcliffe on the Late Night with Conan O'Brien (part one):


And here's part two:


Here's the whole Trio on Unscripted. It's a little stiff at the beginning, but gets hilarious by the end :D


And this is a bit of Emma Watson doing publicity on Extra:


And here's a longer interview on the David Letterman show. I was actually shocked at how patronizing Letterman was at the beginning especially. But maybe I'm oversensitive or something. She handled it well at any rate :)


And finally, this is Rupert Grint on the Craig Ferguson show:


Post edited to add another article from Entertainment Weekly. It talks a bit about some on set stuff, for example:
A few hours later, Oldman has nailed his scene, decompressed, and begun bantering naughtily with his castmates. ''Have you noticed,'' he asks Isaacs, ''how long my wand is?'' ''Yes,'' Isaacs volleys back, ''it expands in the warm, doesn't it?'' Radcliffe listens and grins broadly. He asks Oldman for advice on a tough role he's signed on for in Equus, a London revival of Peter Shaffer's 1973 play about a troubled stable boy, for which Radcliffe will appear naked eight times a week. ''You'll have to shave,'' Oldman tells him. Radcliffe's wide eyes open even wider: ''What — down there?'' Oldman nods, eyes closing. ''Especially down there.''

Equus review

I'm back from London and saw Equus at the Gielgud Theatre last Saturday. Unlike Ziggy I enjoyed it, so we might have a blog war now *grin* (that is if Ziggy even reads my blog entry of course ;-P).

This was the first time for me to have known the text of a play quite well before seeing any performance of it which was an interesting experience in itself. I guess the biggest surprise for me was how many jokes that I hadn't seen in the text they found and how so many of the dialogues were a lot funnier when performed then when read.
In terms of humour perhaps what surprised me the most was that the scenes in the second act which built up into the culmination point (in which Alan Strang blinds 6 horses) were some of the funniest of the whole play.
The design of the play I think worked great with the text. I particularly liked how they did the horses. The dancers playing them did an awsome job with the movement and the lighting and the masks really created a brilliant effect.

As far as the acting goes, it varied from person to person I guess. I have to partly agree with Ziggy that Daniel Radcliffe wasn't as good as perhaps he could have been, but I'm no where near as harsh!
I think his main limitation is voice projection. More than anybody else on stage he was having to strain his voice which meant that how he could use his voice on stage was very limitted. When you compare to the older generations of actors or even to the girl who played Jill, they sounded pretty much as if they were speaking in a normal tone. It kind of created the impression that Alan was constantly speaking with a raised voice at everyone. Whether that was actually the point - I don't know. At any rate I didn't like it. When reading the text I always pictured Alan as somebody who projects this sense of being calm, but might blow up at any moment. Whereas the Alan Daniel Radcliffe was playing was somebody who was struggling with himself much more visibly. I don't know whether this was deliberate or whether it was his lack of voice training that made it seem so (I rather think the voice was the bigger issue - surely the scene in which Alan and Dysart are sitting, smoking and very calmy talking together wouldn't intentionally be interpretted that way?).
But there were positive things to be said about Daniel Radcliffe as well IMO. I actually thought he did an awsome job in the culmination scene. He really gave it all he had and that's always been something I've respected a lot in actors when they can do that. It takes guts to reveal yourself that way and I don't mean the nudity ;-P I mean yes, it takes guts to do that as well ;) but I'm talking more of what he did emotionally in that scene. I think many actors either have too much of an ego or not enough guts to really be able to do a scene like that, so to me that already commends Daniel Radcliffe a lot. I also think it's great he took such a role in the first place. That in itself tells you that he's really serious about developping himself as an actor. Personally, I think the actors who really try to challenge themselves are the ones who often turn out good work throughout their whole careers rather than just during a phase of it. Even when they have many faults to start with, they often get very far.
But ok, enough about him ;) The other actors in general did a great job as well. I thought Richard Griffiths as Dysart was really good. Perhaps he was the reason why the play somehow felt so much more funny to me in performance than on the page ;) But he really captured the character well I feel.
The horses were all absolutely brilliant, as was the young horseman (just awsome). I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on Will Kemp now (he played Nugget and the young horseman).
Also Alan's parents were very well played - they actually made a much better impression on me in performance than when I had read them on the page.

Going back to the play itself, unlike Ziggy (;-P) I really loved the culmination point. Both in terms of acting and the choreography of it. Somehow it feels weird to be giving details since it's a major spoiler (even if you're only ever going to read the play), but the way they did it was really beautiful. The nudity was quite amazing in that lighting with that choreography and design and all. The way the horses moved, the sounds they made, the way Alan moved amongst them - really awsome choreography.
Something again that struck me when comparing text to performance was that it was so much more weirder to have Dysart talking to Alan all through that scene. It's such a private moment for Alan that it felt quite bizzarre to me (though I really liked the effect).
Something that struck me rather negatively about the text which I hadn't seen at all when reading was that the division into acts felt very weird. In the first act the scenes and places are all rather mixed up and disjointed. Time passes in a way in which the viewer (or reader) can't really even tell how long Alan has been in the hospital before one thing or another happens. This is not a bad thing by any means. I rather like it actually. It's the contrast between this and the second act which makes it feel wrong. The second act is one tightly knit unit in which you can quite precisely work out how time passes. It almost feels like just one or two scenes, something emphasized further by it being shorter than the first act. It's a silly thing really but somehow it bothered me.

Now I'll go back to Ziggy's post and refute what I don't agree with ;-P
So firstly, Daniel Radcliffe is just 17. Perhaps they could have indeed found an actor over 20 who they could make to look and act like a 17 year old and who would have done a better job, but I very much doubt they could have found a 17 year old who would have managed this. It's a very difficult role and any theatrical performance requires somebody who reaaally knows his craft (unlike film where it is indeed possible to pretty much take somebody off the street if he or she suits the part - in some film styles this is actually desirable!). And whatever one might think of Daniel Radcliffe he has had a huge amount of acting experience for his age - more than most actors have at 20 something. Yes, the lack of theatrical experience is a minus, but you probably wouldn't find many actors that age who would have much more.
As for "being over the top" - I don't really know what is meant by that. All I saw was the voice being raised for the majority of the play. Otherwise I thought he was quite subdued actually...

As for this part of Ziggy's post:
This sad spectacle has been created for two purposes only:

a) To earn bucketloads of cash, because of the Harry Potter's celebrity appearance
b) To give Daniel Radcliffe "credibility" so that he can say "Look I did a play, I'm a real actor now."

The project itself had actually been in the works for quite some time. I think there was even talk of having a big revival of Peter Schaffer's plays, but I'm not sure this has received financial backing.
Kenneth Branagh was originally supposed to direct Equus when the idea for the project first came to light and it was meant to have been ready 1 or 2 years before now. There was gossip that Daniel Radcliffe had been offered the part but that he had declined it based mainly on schedule conflicts and also not feeling old enough to play the part (he would have been about 15-16 then). The play was then supposed to go forward without Daniel Radcliffe.
Eventually, however, Branagh left the project (according to gossip because of artistic differences with the producers), the whole thing was postponed and then Thea Sharrock took over the project. The part was offered to Daniel again and this time he accepted.
In other words - the project has a history much like very many projects...
Yes, of course when you have a name as famous as Daniel Radcliffe attached then it helps a lot with publicity and of course they used it. And yes of course Daniel Radcliffe wanted to show he was capable of things other than Harry Potter, but these were hardly the reasons to make this play! Nobody sat down thought up those two reasons and decided "aha, we shall make this play with Daniel Radcliffe". It just doesn't work that way.
Besides, I don't understand the logic of it being a bad thing for Daniel Radcliffe to want to develop and challenge himself as an actor even if it didn't work out as well as it could have. If he doesn't challenge himself he'll never get better!

As for the comments about the writing - I generally like it and I can give the reasons for it if you like ;) But I'd like to hear what you didn't like ;-P

Daniel Radcliffe on the Jonathan Ross show once again

Daniel Radcliffe has given a new interview on the Jonathan Ross show (the one from last year which was just as hilarious has been taken off youtube, but you can still access it - unfortunately in poor quality - here). The new interview is about Equus and the fifth Harry Potter film and IMO it's the dirtiest interview Dan has given yet ;) (although with a presenter like that it would be difficult not to ;) ).
Just on a side note (cause I keep rambling on about things like this), I think it's interesting that people are commenting that in the US a 17 year old (or any sort of big star really) would not be getting those sorts of questions (they're not saying it's bad, just pointing out that it wouldn't happen in the US). But I guess the same would be true for Poland. I'm wondering - is this specific to the UK or is it the US and Poland that are unusual?
Anyway, the interview is here (again it was on youtube and I originally intended to embed it, but it's been taken off).

Pornography, sexual content and obscenity

According to this and this (both articles in Polish unfortunately!) Poland might be facing a full ban on pornography in the near future. The new legislation that some politicians want to bring in (perhaps they'll be in the minority, we shall see!) will make it possible for someone to get a prison sentence not just for distribution but even for possession of any kind of pornography.
No definition of what constitutes pornography is given in this proposal, which sort of brings me to what I want to discuss (other than how stupid our current government is I mean ;-P). I've always felt that the limit of what's ok and what's not ok as far as sexual content goes is a fascinating discussion topic. Of course it's largely about taste and I don't think I'm going to come up with any reasonable conclusions, but if you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them :)

Not so long ago in India, there was a legal complaint against the kissing scene between Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in Dhoom 2 (imdb page, trailer on youtube). A quote from IndiaGlitz reads:
According to the complainant, the women felt offended after watching the scene and it promoted vulgarity in society, especially among the youth.
Now for anyone who read the Polish articles on the pornography ban you might have noticed that those are almost the exact reasons for which some of PiS want a full pornography ban in Poland. In case you're wondering, here's the scene which we're talking about (the actual kissing happens late in the clip and sorry for the lack of subtitles but didn't find a clip with them):

It's not even as if there's no kissing in commercial Indian cinema, so it's hard to say why this particular kiss was so controversial. In the end, the kiss was cut.

But even a Western perspective of what's ok and what's not may sound just as ridiculous at times. Having been rambling about Equus on this blog I'm going to link to a Guardian article which uses Equus as a starting point to write about the history of nudity in British theatre. Apparently 40 years ago only female nudes were ok in the theatre and only if they didn't move. If they moved they were automatically considered obscene.
Not that people in the West don't have (what I would call) weird ideas about nudity even now. If you check out some discussions about Equus on-line, a lot of people (many of whom seem to be American) think that Daniel Radcliffe appearing nude on stage is enough to constitute child pornography because he's not yet 18 (he will be in about 6 months by the way). In accordance with US laws this might actually be true, I'm not sure, but I still feel it's a bit weird...

Of course so far I've been writing about stuff which nowadays only a small minority of people in the West would call obscene or pornographic (if at all that is - I'd be shocked if someone considerd the Hrithik-Ash kiss as such!). When we think pornography we generally think about stuff which is more explicit - usually photos or films which show people really having sex rather than just pretending. But there are films which would confuse us even there because they show *real* intercourse and yet they probably wouldn't be of interest to someone who is looking for pornography. One such film is definitely Lars von Trier's The Idiots (imdb page, trailer on youtube), another (although I haven't actually seen it) is Michael Winterbottom's 9 songs (imdb page, trailer on youtube). Both of these were shown at art cinema festivals and entered normal distribution in many countries.
And it's not just with films. If you ever check out some sites which specialize in fetish photography you'll find that most of the photographs are very artistic (sometimes - especially when we're talking about the violent stuff - very unsettling, but still artistic). I'm not sure what it is specifically about the fetish community but they really take photos which are way more than something that's just supposed to turn people on (in fact I've not seen many fetish pics which show people "in the act"). And yet when people hear "fetish" we usually think "obscene". Check out Incubus Choice if you want to see some stuff (though I am warning you - if you click on the link you are straying into territory that maaaany would consider porn, not that I think that should scare you but I'm saying it all the same).

Ok, so I've gotten from kissing scenes to real intercourse and photography portraying naked people tied up. Surely there should be a limit somewhere, right?
Lets look at the law then - I found this article very interesting and useful for this. Law is obviously different in different countries. But what I think is true pretty much everywhere is that it is illegal to supply pornography to people below a certain age (usually 18 or 16 though in Poland surprisingly enough it's 15 at the moment - however most Polish shops dealing with any sort of porn would not sell it to anyone below 18). It is also illegal to force the viewing of pornography on anyone (hey, I warned you about that Incubus site so I've done nothing illegal! ;-P ). The other legislations differ. Usually depicting bestiality is illegal (though I don't think that is true in the Netherlands - I think it is ok there as long as the animal is not harmed in any way). And of course there's child pornography which also has different restrictions and definitions in different countries. Mostly nobody below the age of 18 should be depicted although sometimes it is 16. Shockingly enough until 1999 Japan was extremely liberal about child pornography:
Prior to 1999, the only Japanese statute prohibiting actual child pornography was very limited in its reach, applying only to children under 13 who filed complaints within six months of an incident. A general criminal obscenity law protected minors over 13, but it also specified that the material must depict sexual organs to be considered illegal. Consequently, pornographic materials in Japan often resorted to showing other sexually oriented depictions of children, including abuse or torture, to avoid running afoul of the law.
Most countries also have laws against possession of child pornography (reading through the imdb boards, I'm not sure if this is true but apparently in the US anybody with nude pics of Daniel Radcliffe from Equus on their computer could theoretically be arrested for child pornography - not that there are many non-photoshoped pics of him floating around but I think even those are not legal under US law).
Many countries have laws which seperate child pornography into "virtual" and "actual" penalizing the virtual kind just as much. Virtual pornography is defined as depictions in which adult models are made up to look like children, and artistic or computer simulations of children involved in sexual activity. Now while I can see the logic of this I at the same time can't help but wonder if some of the stuff I've read or seen wouldn't be considered child pornography of the virtual kind. I mean particularly when I think about Harry Potter fan fiction and fan art... there's a lot of teacher-student relationships portrayed in those. To give you some examples, here's fan art showing Snape with Draco, Snape with Harry and another of Snape and Harry. I can see how for some people this might be considered totally sick, but is it harmful?
There have been (more about this in the long article I linked to) attempts at trying to find a link between watching porn and comitting sexual offences, but generally it seems the results depended on who tried to find this out (conservatives found a correlation and liberals did not).

I think I've finally come to the end of this post, but I don't really have a conclusion... I do believe people should be left with a choice as long as it doesn't harm anyone, but when it comes to "mental harm" it's very difficult to establish what is harmful and what is not (other than making somebody watch porn when they don't want to). Obviously if pornography causes sexual offences then something should be done about it (though I'm not sure a total ban would work), but we don't even know if it does (I've even heard claims that it actually makes the amount of sexual offences drop! but unfortunately don't have a link for this). Also I think even describing what pornography is is problematic. I'm not saying that any sort of porn is ok. There is definitely a lot of things happening in the porn industry which are not right - there are many reports of children and women being forced into starring in porn films (and in the case of children even if they did this willingly there would be reasons to say this is wrong).
On a final note, I think it's interesting that porn is apparently a huge economy booster and a pioneer in technology. The BBC article even says that the switch from Beta to VHS happened because of the porn industry.

More on Equus

Since I've had lots of fun posting about the Harry Potter nude story, I thought I'd follow it up ;-P

The play opened in London at the end of February and so far all the reviews I've seen have been good. Pretty much everyone who's seen the play says that by the time he takes off his clothes nobody cares because that's really not the point ;) Even those who dislike Peter Shaffer's plays or Daniel Radcliffe's acting in Harry Potter seem to be giving rather good reviews.

Here's an interview with Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths (who plays Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter series and Dysart in Equus) after one of the shows:

Harry Potter nude and some even more exciting Potter news

I keep putting off writing anything because I've not written properly for such a long time and I feel I should write a long, clever post about something. The problem is I'm really not feeling clever or up to writing a long post ;-P
So I'll just be boring and write more of the usual. It's not that I don't have anything to write about - on the contrary, you wouldn't believe how many drafts I have on my blog (I just checked - the number is 80 drafts versus 43 published posts :D), but a lot of it seems just too much effort to write about just now ;-P
Therefore lets continue the topic of nudity (apparently it's the main theme of my blog since January 15th).

Harry Potter himself is appearing nude in a play in London and if you don't believe me I'm sure this article will convince you.
You can see some publicity pics for the play on the play's official site. And if like me you derive a certain amusement out of seeing people offended and acting as if it really is Harry Potter appearing nude rather than Daniel Radcliffe, then I recommend the imdb boards for Daniel Radcliffe. I particularly enjoy the comments in which certain Americans claim this is child pornography because according to American law Dan is not of legal age (no matter how many times they're told that under UK law he is, they still don't change their tone lol). But I think the people who think he's going to have real sex or masturbate on stage are even funnier (the arguments that there are no such scenes in the play don't seem to be getting to them ;) ).
On a more serious note, I do love the play. At least on paper it made a huge impression on me. It's the story of a boy who blinds six horses with a metal pick and gets sent to a mental institution. He is treated by a psychiatrist who has started doubting the point of his job. I really love the way the relationship between them is written out. I'm very excited about seeing it on stage (which I will in late April, wheee!).

But lets get to some more exciting and even more frontline Harry Potter news ;-P There is finally a release date for book7 "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!!! :D Of course annoyingly it has to be on the 21st of July which is during the film festival in Wroclaw that I want to attend ;-P I'll probably try to force myself to wait until the festival finishes about a week later cause I want to be able to sit down and read it in one go (book 6 took me about 11,5h non-stop reading when it came out ;-P).
So far my favourite news tidbit about book7 coming out is enlikening two characters in the series dieing off to Take That splitting up in 1996 (it appeared in this article). Here's the relevant quote:
British book retailer Waterstone's is hoping to set up a helpline for distressed fans of the popular
Harry Potter series because two characters will be killed off in the final instalment, The Daily Telegraph reported.

"This could be a similar moment to when (pop band) Take That split up -- there could be a lot of upset teenagers out there," said Debbie Williams, a buyer for the book chain.

"We are looking to set up a helpline for them."

(for those of you who don't know - when Take That split up they set up a helpline because they were worried girls might get suicidal!)
But actually everything surrounding the release is absolutely amazing. It has shattered all pre-sale records and even before J.K.Rowling had finished writing the book, the bookies were already taking bets for who would kill Harry. Of course we don't even know if Harry will die! (personally I think he won't ;-P)


Very often when I say I don't feel up to writing anything long I end up doing what I say I won't ;-P (but when I say I'm not feeling up to writing anything clever I do mean it ;-P)
On a final off-topic note - Surya Bonaly chickened out, she was not nude at all.