Harry Potter Blu-Ray Special Event with Sneak Preview!

Posted on December 9, 2009 at 8:00 am

“Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe and director David Yates will answer viewer questions during a live community screening event for purchasers of the Blu-ray DVD on December 12th, 2009. This audience will also be the first to see footage from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” featured on the Blu-ray and 2-Disc Special Editions of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, available on this week.
The worldwide live screening event, which showcases the interactivity offered with Blu-ray and Warner Bros. BD-Live, will take place on December 12th at 12:00PM PST (3:00PM EST) live from London. BD-Live capable Blu-ray users can simultaneously watch the movie together with Daniel Radcliffe and director David Yates and hear an interactive Q&A where fans can ask questions about the blockbuster film directly to Daniel and David, directly from their home.
Daniel Radcliffe, who has played Harry Potter since the first film, said he is looking forward to talking directly to fans at this event. “It’s a wonderful way for fans and for those directly involved with making a film to share opinions and ideas.”
Warner Bros. BD-Live is an interactive feature exclusive to the Blu-ray format that allows
users to experience a variety of exclusive interactive features. In addition to access to the multi-territory community screening, other exciting BD-Live content available to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Blu-ray owners include:
· An exclusive introduction to the upcoming Harry Potter Ultimate Editions by Daniel Radcliffe
· My Commentary – fans are able to post user-generated Picture-in-Picture commentary over the film and share it with their friends and other BD-Live community members
· Live Community Screenings – Allows users to send invitations and have a virtual screening with friends and family while chatting together through the BD-Live platform
· Facebook Connect – allows users to interact with their Facebook friends, update their Facebook status while in BD-Live and invite their Facebook friends to Live Community screenings.
Warner Bros. BD-Live community members who have registered and signed up for the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince screening event will receive an emailed invitation to participate in the event. The first 100,000 members who RSVP will secure a spot for the screening. WB BD-Live registered users from the participating territories who own the Blu-ray Disc and have signed up for the BD-Live event will be able to insert the disc, connect to WB BD-Live and logon to the community screening at this designated time to participate in this ground breaking exclusive event.

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Scholastic: A Night Before Christmas (with Hannukah and Kwanzaa)

Posted on December 7, 2009 at 8:00 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	All Ages
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Mild peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to DVD:	2009

My very favorite series has a special family treat for the winter holidays. Clement Moore’s classic poem about Santa Claus is read by Anthony Edwards. Theodore Bikel reads “In the Month of Kisley,” a delightful Hannukah story about a poor but happy family who teach a wealthy man the meaning of the holiday, featuring some clever insights into family happiness and a very wise judge. In “Seven Candles for Kwanzaa,” the Pinkney’s story and illustrations teach us the values of family, history, and community that each of the nights of the holiday symbolize, with Alfre Woodard narrating. Ed Martinez tells us about how Maria might have lost her mother’s ring in the “Too Many Tamales” she is making for Christmas dinner (Spanish and English narration). The set also includes three other Christmas stories: “Max’s Christmas,” “Morris’s Disappearing Bag,” and “The Little Drummer Boy.”

Rosa Parks Changed History on This Date

Posted on December 1, 2009 at 10:00 am

On Thursday December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and a volunteer secretary for the NAACP, was sitting in the section of a public bus reserved for black passengers. As she rode, the seats designated for white riders were filled and the driver told her and three other seated black passengers to get up so the whites could sit. She refused and she was arrested.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,” she wrote, “but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

A young minister, new in town, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, led the bus boycott in protest of her arrest. It is important to remember how modest the demands were. King’s group did not ask that the buses be fully integrated. They only asked that the black riders should not have to move. When the segregation was ruled unconstitutional, Dr. King circulated a memo to remind the black community that not all white people supported segregation and that they should be courteous, even in the face of insults. He urged them to maintain “a calm and loving dignity” and to “pray for the oppressor and use moral and spiritual force to carry on the struggle for justice.”

Scholastic has some good teaching materials on Rosa Parks and the boycott. Older children and adults will appreciate Angela Basset’s performance in The Rosa Parks Story and Iris Little-Thomas as Mrs. Parks in Boycott.

A Thanksgiving Treat

Posted on November 26, 2009 at 6:00 am

One of my very favorite movies begins with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the original Miracle on 34th Street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yTNW5a08yw

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Best wishes to you and your families, and please know how grateful I am for the chance to be here on Beliefnet and for every one of your comments.

Rocky and Bullwinkle Celebrate their 50th Anniversary

Posted on November 20, 2009 at 8:54 am

My friend Bob Elisberg has a marvelous salute to the sensational Rocky and Bullwinkle, “from the maniacally clever mind of Jay Ward,” who yesterday celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first broadcast.

My parents were very strict about television, but this was one of the few shows they let us watch. They not only let us — they watched with us. It was one of the first television shows for children to have jokes for adults. As I grew up, there were innumerable times when I would learn something new and suddenly have the retroactive pleasure of understanding some past Rocky and Bullwinkle joke. There’s an opera called “Boris Godunov?” Aha! That explains the name of R&B bad guy Boris Badanov! And remember the name of their alma mater? Wassamata U? Remember “fan mail from some flounders?” And “watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat?” (“That trick never works!”)

Few people today will get the joke about the Kerward Derby (a play on the name of then-minor-celebrity Durward Kirby), but this is still purely delightful.

And of course I always had a special fondness for Dudley Do-Right because his leading lady was named Nell.