Potter-mania

The final 7th book of the Potter series draw so much attention as expected. I had no interest of elaborating more on the mania-related events around the world with its launch on July 21, which I celebrate the much-awaited D-day for the fate of Potter by watching one of the spin-off franchise, the movie adaptation of the 5th instalment, Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix.

My 2-cents worth of opinion:
1. Imelda Staunton is excellent as the veteran-Elle Wood in pinkish ensemble with annoying chuckles ending every sentences she said.
2. Evanna Lynch's Luna Goodwill is excellent. She's the dramatised dark version of the comedic run of Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe in Friends. Works for me. Potter should go for her instead.
3. Cho Chang is the weakest link.
4. No complaints about the movie, entertaining.
5. Didn't read the book as I stopped after the Goblet of Fire. No comparison can be drawn.
6. Ron and Hermione get lesser screen time. Good or bad? I don't mind indeed when they have to share with Imelda and Evanna or other teachers, or Neville for that matter.
7. Brits actors are skilled lot of thespians around and the British accent sounds sexy ever.
8. Emma Thompson's nearly unrecognizable character is again, less prominent.
9. I admit I kinda waiting for the 6th hehe....

Have to mention about the recent hoo-ha about the decision of the 3 main bookstores in Malaysia to draw back the final series from the shelves after Tesco and Carrefour selling the book at a whoopping RM40 LESS than the retail price of the bookstores. The hypermarkets can do that to attract shoppers cox books are definitely not the item they wanted to sell or gain profit from that, even suffering loss on the books. Marketing strategy hard to be disputed I would say. As for the consumer, of course they want cheaper price and all this hoo-ha finally made everything transparent such as how much mark-up the bookstores were imposing and one can imagine the profit generated from all this. However, one has to be fair to the bookstores as well as they organized lots of activities to go along with the final book, as I got invited to the launch Potter party as well, as a member of the bookstore chain here in KK (of course got canceled). On the other hand, consumers had been complaining about the high price of the book made the effort to inculcate reading habit getting tougher amidst all the other form of leisure activities nowadays. Just like "grandpa has grandpa's logic, grandma has grandma's reason" 公说公有理， 婆说婆有理