We are big Potter-heads. Like most Potter-heads -- unless you are a prickly book purest and can't be bothered with the films -- we dig Daniel Radcliffe, especially after meeting him last summer at the opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal in Orlando. What a cheerful, unassuming, likeable, NORMAL young man.
He and all the other Potter youths we met attribute their level-headedness to a British film system that does not pamper young stars, no matter what their income level, and expects them to behave like reasonable people with a job to do, not deranged narcissists. And what a fine actor he has become, growing film by film into a commanding, nuanced presence.
With that in mind, I acquiesced to my daughter's cajoling and put the Tony Awards show up on the Big TV utilizing the mysterious and little-used picture-in-picture (PIP) mode, while watching game 6 of the NBA Finals Sunday night. My issues with PIP include the fact that the little square used to air the secondary channel ALWAYS gets in the way of LeBron missing yet another critical shot no matter which of the four position options you select, and you can't REALLY see what's going on in the little square anyway.
Regardless, with the compelling argument that Daniel Radcliffe was going to perform a number from his hit Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, I agreed to the intrusion.
Check it out:
His singing and dancing skills aren't all the way there yet, but the lad has enthusiasm, gives it his all, and is a stone cold born-performer without the often-attendant neediness. You have to be proud of him.
On the Potter front, as I mentioned last week, the impending release of the final movie in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, is an event frought with wildly tangled emotions, including wistful longing for the moment just BEFORE our relationship with the Potter cosmos began, the relationship awaiting us in a state of luxurious potential, the Big Bang moment of connection just a breath away.
In its marketing of the film, Warner Brothers is wisely mining this emotional vein behind the slogan "IT ALL ENDS 7/15," and in many ways, it does.
He and all the other Potter youths we met attribute their level-headedness to a British film system that does not pamper young stars, no matter what their income level, and expects them to behave like reasonable people with a job to do, not deranged narcissists. And what a fine actor he has become, growing film by film into a commanding, nuanced presence.
With that in mind, I acquiesced to my daughter's cajoling and put the Tony Awards show up on the Big TV utilizing the mysterious and little-used picture-in-picture (PIP) mode, while watching game 6 of the NBA Finals Sunday night. My issues with PIP include the fact that the little square used to air the secondary channel ALWAYS gets in the way of LeBron missing yet another critical shot no matter which of the four position options you select, and you can't REALLY see what's going on in the little square anyway.
Regardless, with the compelling argument that Daniel Radcliffe was going to perform a number from his hit Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, I agreed to the intrusion.
Check it out:
His singing and dancing skills aren't all the way there yet, but the lad has enthusiasm, gives it his all, and is a stone cold born-performer without the often-attendant neediness. You have to be proud of him.
On the Potter front, as I mentioned last week, the impending release of the final movie in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, is an event frought with wildly tangled emotions, including wistful longing for the moment just BEFORE our relationship with the Potter cosmos began, the relationship awaiting us in a state of luxurious potential, the Big Bang moment of connection just a breath away.
In its marketing of the film, Warner Brothers is wisely mining this emotional vein behind the slogan "IT ALL ENDS 7/15," and in many ways, it does.
