harry potter and the half-blood prince

Our nerdy little genre looks pretty legit today, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made its 82nd annual Academy Award nominations. While you can see the full list of nods on Cinematical, I've taken the time to single out the science-fiction/fantasy films that are in the running at the upcoming Oscar ceremony. The winners will be announced on Sunday, March 2nd.

Some of them are the typical tech award nominations, which we've come to expect for spectacle movies, but there are also a lot of surprises this year, like the Original Screenplay nomination for Up or that the exemplary District 9 is in the running for Best Picture, beating out ill-received obvious Oscar-bait like Nine and Invictus.

You can see all of the sci-fi/fantasy Academy Award nominees after the jump.

This could be the place where I go on a diatribe about how the Oscars continue to prove themselves more and more irrelevant every year and how, as a writer for a science fiction website, I continue to be annoyed by the lack of respect shown to genre films at awards season. For shame, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences! Shame on you and your children and your children's children!

But I'm not going to, because there is news afoot.

The Academy has announced the fifteen films on the shortlist for the visual effects Oscar, the only award that consistently goes to science fiction and fantasy films. Only three will get to wear tuxes and get luxurious gift baskets full of expensive hand creams. Why only three? Why not five? Probably some silly Academy rule, similar to the one that keeps good documentaries from ever getting any sort of recognition.

And your children's children's children!

But I digress. The fifteen films are as follows:

Angels & Demons
Avatar
Coraline
Disney's A Christmas Carol,
District 9
G-Force
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Sherlock Holmes
Star Trek
Terminator Salvation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2012
Watchmen
Where the Wild Things Are

Looking for something good and geeky to watch? Check out this week's notable DVD and Blu-ray releases:

Lost: The Complete Fifth Season (DVD & Blu-ray)
For the truly insane, the fifth season of the greatest show of our time comes packaged in a "Dharma Initiative Orientation Kit" seemingly stolen from the Dharma HR offices. You get the entire fifth season, on DVD or Blu-ray, a VHS Dharma orientation video, embroidered patches, detailed maps, a Geronimo Jackson CD, and some wonderfully retro packaging all for under $100 at most online retailers. Or you could go for the standard version, which is packed with extras like interviews with the cast and a behind the scenes feature with ol' Sawyer himself, Josh Holloway.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (DVD & Blu-ray)
There are way too many versions of this release to list here, so let's just say that Harry, who is growing up and lookin' for love, and his magical wand are available to thrill you in a number of different home video incarnations. There's also the Ultimate Editions and the Year 1-6 Gift Set, which should be pretty popular this holiday season.

Get Smart: Season 5 (DVD)
Don Adams' bumbling spy Maxwell Smart is back to help save the world and wipe away the memory of Peter Sagal's mostly bland big screen update.

Welcome to Captain's Log -- your (semi) daily round-up of sci-fi randomness from around the web. Here's what's happening today:

Adam Brockbank's concept art for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince included the Dumbledore funeral fans never got to see (image above). (via The Leaky Cauldron)

Leonard Nimoy's William Bell is heading back to Fringe this week ... and he might just become a slightly more regular master of the universe in the future, according to Reuters. Plus: io9 shares his thoughts on the state of science fiction.

Forget Jesus! Star Wars Blog shares the deep-breathing twist to Washington's National Cathedral: They pray to the altar of Darth Vader. Okay, not really, but his sculpted head IS a part of the building.

The Venture Brothers premieres on October 18, and io9's got a slew of images, including Hank flying through the air with Captain Sunshine.

The BBC is throwing a contest to design the new Tardis for the new incarnation of Doctor Who.

Finally, Movieline shares word that Almodovar will never do a superhero movie. Thanks, that's good to know.

By: Eric D. Snider

The release of a new Harry Potter film always means a deluge of complaints about how it failed to exactly duplicate every single word of J.K. Rowling's sacred text, and Half-Blood Prince is no different. (Adam Quigley from Always Watching tweeted this amusing screenshot of the IMDb message boards Wednesday morning that sums it up pretty well.) Not having read the book since it came out four years ago, I didn't remember it in great enough detail to notice any major changes in the movie -- until the climactic scene in the tower, when something did stand out. And it stands out as an improvement over the book.

Spoilers for the book and the movie follow!

As readers well remember, that scene has Draco Malfoy confronting Dumbledore with the intention of killing him, as ordered by Voldemort. In the book, Harry is under the invisibility cloak at this point, so no one knows he's there, and Dumbledore has stupefied him so he can't act. Then the Death Eaters and Snape come along, and Snape finishes the job that Draco can't muster the courage to perform. Harry is powerless to do anything until Dumbledore is dead, which cancels the stupefying spell.

The movie plays out essentially the same way but with one key difference. Instead of being stupefied and invisible, Harry is hiding silently below the floor where the action is happening. Why? Because Dumbledore told him to, having already extracted from Harry a promise that he would obey whatever directions Dumbledore gave him.

UPDATE: The estimate as now changed to $22 million. Way to go Harry!

Just when you thought there was no way that boy wizard would take down The Bat comes word from Variety that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince nabbed a whopping $20 million in midnight screenings on Wednesday (according to early estimates), putting it ahead of both The Dark Knight ($18 million) and Star Wars Episode III ($17 million), earning it the highest midnight gross of all time.

To show a comparison, Order of the Phoenix (opening in the same exact spot) only grossed $12 million in midnight shows. That's nuts! Goes to show you that holding out a little longer for release meant that Potter fans were literally craving more as if the boy wizard were a drug. Kudos to you, sir Potter -- now let's see what other records this sucker can break.

So you're heading out to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (buy tix here) at midnight tonight (or shortly thereafter), and you need something to get you in the mood ... am I right? Check out this roundup of all things Potter from across the fine AOL networks:

Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Cinematical Seven: Mocking Harry Potter

Insert Caption: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (win some very cool prizes by providing a caption for a photo from the film)

Moviefone's Interview with Daniel Radcliffe

Potter Cast Reflects on a Hogwarts Childhood

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Character Guide

Which Harry Potter Character Are You?

15 Things to Know About Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The Harry Potter Villains

Harry Potter Romances

The Five Best Things About Half-Blood Prince

Life After Harry Potter


That should hold you over for a few hours. Enjoy the show!

With his film due out in a couple of weeks, Harry Potter is beginning to make some waves. First up is an update on the Potter IMAX delay. Long story short, Half-Blood Prince won't be arriving on IMAX screens the same day the film hits conventional theaters because of a deal IMAX made with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for an exclusive four-week run. However, three theaters will be getting Harry Potter in IMAX on opening day, July 15th, but if you don't live in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, you're out of luck. Collider tells us those three theaters are as follows: Century City IMAX (Los Angeles), Henry Crown (Chicago), and AMC Loews Lincoln Square (NYC). The first 12 minutes of the movie have been converted to IMAX 3D, and so I'm sure it's worth the trip for those who live in the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, everyone else will have to wait another two weeks.

But with a little so-so news comes some very cool news. The Independent reports that British actor Bill Nighy has finally nabbed himself a role in a Potter movie after once suggesting that he was the only British actor who hasn't been in a Harry Potter film yet. Nighy notes, "I don't think I'm allowed to say it but I'm going to be in the next Harry Potter film. I won't say which character, but he's a goodie. I just got the gig." Though he's been itching to nab a Potter role, Nighy also admits to not having read the books: "Not yet, but I will!" he says. "It's rather like being in a Shakespeare that way, you know?" Look for Nighy to appear in one or both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when they hit theaters on November 19th, 2010 and July 15th, 2011, respectively.

Discuss: Okay Potter fanatics, who do you think Nighy is playing?

Some interesting news on the IMAX front for both Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. First up, multiple sites are reporting that Half-Blood Prince won't hit IMAX screens until two weeks after its July 15 release in conventional theaters due to a contract IMAX signed with Paramount stating that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen would have a four-week exclusive window on IMAX screens because Michael Bay shot scenes with IMAX cameras.

While we await official confirmation on that, Michael Bay was talking up the Transformers IMAX experience on his blog saying audiences will get to see a "slightly longer cut with more robot fighting." He added that four scenes were shot using IMAX cameras for the sequel, which means that like The Dark Knight, those scenes will fill up the entire IMAX screen and look pretty spectacular in person, we imagine. Here's Michael Bay's IMAX plea: "The way to see this movie is on IMAX. Never before has there been 4k rendered character animation shot on full IMAX 70 mm film. This is a first and the results are stunning. You will see Optimus Prime in a few shots where he is actually perfectly to scale on the IMAX 50 foot tall screens."

Discuss: Will these four IMAX scenes convince you to watch Transformers 2 in IMAX? And does the Harry Potter delay screw up your plans to watch that film on IMAX screens too?