Friday, August 29, 2008

A couple interesting topics

I have a few interesting news stories that I'd like to talk about...I didn't want to post it with my school post, so here it is, separate.

Firstly, I checked Mugglenet, a Harry Potter news site, yesterday and saw a really interesting story. Apparently, Warner Brothers, the company which produces the Harry Potter films, sued an Indian film company named Mirchi Movies, because of the title of their soon-to-be released film "Hari Puttar", just because the name is too close to "Harry Potter". Warner Brothers hasn't released much info about it, just saying "Warner Bros values and protects intellectual property rights. However, it is our policy not to discuss publicly the details of any ongoing litigation."
The Mirchi spokesperson says their film doesn't have anything to do with Harry Potter.

First of all, I looked the movie up and its not that similar to the Harry Potter story. Its about a 10 year old Indian boy who moves to England and becomes involved in a battle to stop criminals from stealing a secret formula invented by his scientist father. The only similarity is that it is a young boy in England.

What Warner Brothers has to understand is that "Hari Puttar" is not a first and last name...its NOT the Indian 'version' of Harry Potter. Hari is a popular name in India and Puttar means "son". I mean, I'm sure that they picked the title as a kind of take-off of Harry Potter (The second part of the title, Comedy of Terrors is a Shakespeare parody), to get publicity, but it doesn't mean the same thing. Bollywood film companies are like that (by the way, I'm half Indian - thats why this story caught my eye). I don't think the movie "Hari Puttar" is going to take away from Warner Brothers Half Blood Prince release in any way...firstly, its Indian, doesn't seem like it will be a hit movie (though alot of Indian movies are cheesy and elaborately dramatic like this seems to be) and is coming out around 10 months before their movie does. WB is just trying to flex their muscles I guess, and its stupid.

So thats one story. My other is the Democratic convention. I think it went off very succesfully. Bill Clinton gave an epic speech that endorsed Obama fully and which I think probably converted some of the disgruntled people who still support Hillary for some reason.
A quote I liked from that speech, about U.S. foreign policy, "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power." I really agree...I thought that was a great line.

Obama also gave a great speech last night, in that huge stadium. It ended the convention nicely, and made everyone revved up to make sure he is elected. In case you haven't already noticed, I support Barack Obama for president and am very liberal. Just to get that out there. I can't vote yet, anyway. I'll talk more about the election at other times, and how I think McCain and his newly picked woman VP, Sarah Palin, who is a pro-gun, pro-life (anti-choice), pro-drilling in wildlife reserves, against equal pay for equal work governor of Alaska with pretty much no experience, are obviously not the ones to change America. Sorry about that sentence; its not the best grammar. Anyway, this was a long post. Had to get it out there. Talk to you later.

3 comments:

Marshall said...

OMFG. I read about McCain's running mate. what the hell is her problem??? She's pro-life, which is okay i guess, not that radical, but she's even anti-abortion in rape and incest cases! pro-drilling in alaska??? she sued the Bush administration because they put the polar bear on the endangered species list, and she thought it would interfere with plans to drill for oil! AAAGH!

sorry...i'm just really not happy with her. I *might* have been okay if McCain won the election before this, but now he HAS to lose now so that b**** doesn't get to be in office.

Marshall said...

wow, sorry for the long and angry comment.

Sarita said...

yeah, marshall, I totally agree with you! She's an idiot! Because of all the things you said and many more...she is a lifetime member of the NRA (and then pro-life, which doesn't make sense), she promotes aerial shooting of wolves to help moose and deer pop., but then her favorite meat is moose meat, wants to drill in the arctic wildlife refuge, and the list goes on!
That is really bad about how she wants the polar bears to be off the endangered species list so she can drill more! gah...she makes me mad. I would have been really angry and depressed if McCain won before this, but now I would be even more.