Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince

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Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince- What the fuck is it about? (Spoilers)

Essentially this is the film in which Dumbledore has assigned Harry the special mission of allowing the new teacher of potions, Professor Slughorn, to take him to a variety of parties and then eventually seduce him. Well, I suppose it is a boarding school after all. Slughorn has a memory that Dumbledore needs in order for him to discover a secret that might help them to defeat Voldemort. Although if this film had been set in our modern day world, it would have been pretty fucking easy to do considering everybody now posts their every waking thought as a status on some form of social media. 'Can't believe I just taught Voldemort how to live forever lol #WatANob'.

Therefore a lot of this movie is spent in a thing called the Pensieve which allows us to see Dumbledore's memories of their noseless enemy's youth. The only thing that makes this a bit weird is that extracting these memories looks a lot like Dumbledore is using a twig to pull bits of jizz out of his hair... and then he makes Harry stick his face right in a bowl that's full of it all. Again.. I guess this is a boarding school. Oh, and one of the big mysteries running through this movie is- why does Dumbledore have a black and dying hand? Except, let's face it- that's not much of a mystery is it? Ever heard of that 'dead man's wank' thing? Basically you just lie on your hand for ages and wait for it to go numb before tossing yourself off so that it feels like it's being done by somebody else. Clearly Dumbledore just did that and the hand turned manky because he waited so long that he accidentally fell asleep on top of it. It's easily done!

So was it shit or not then?

Well I'd like to say that I really fucking loved this movie. Like, really loved it. I'd like to say that I thought the way it blended fantasy and horror was a thing of genius and that there's a maturity and intelligence at this point in the series that's so often lacking in other adaptations of young adult fiction. However I can't. I can't say that because this is the film in which my Hollywood career was fucking snatched away from me. To explain.. When this film was being made I had a quick look on Wikipedia to see where pre-production was up to and discovered that there were several minor characters that were yet to be cast. One of which was the character of Blaise Zabini, who I'm sure you'll definitely remember having been in this movie? You don't? Strange. It's almost as though they cast somebody really fucking forgettable! Anyway, the Wikipedia entry described Zabini as being 'tall' and having 'dark skin'. “I'm tall-ish and have dark-ish skin” I thought, “ and I'm the same age as the main characters”. So off I went to the computer to write up an email for director David Yates to let him know that his search was over.

Obviously I'm not an actor and so wasn't sure what the appropriate phrasing should be in this kind of message. So figuring, 'why take any chances?' I just wrote up an email emphasising that if they didn't cast me, then I would find Daniel Radcliffe, and I would fucking murder him. I then tracked down Yates' agent and sent it off to them. Nothing can go wrong with that, I figured. Anyway.. months went by and, in honesty, I completely forgot about what I'd done. Then I got a letter back from David Yates. As is obvious, I clearly didn't get the fucking part. “Thank you for your very funny e-mail', the letter began presumably in reference to my very real death threats against their lead actor. It then went on to say that, “I'm afraid that the character of Blaise Zabini is a young black teenager as in the book” and with that I became the first person ever in the history of Hollywood to be denied a role due to the colour of my skin.. being white.

And also.. black?! Wikipedia didn't say 'black', it said, 'dark skinned'. Now, look.. I appreciate that there aren't enough non-white characters in this franchise and that it'd be a bit fucking rich to start white-washing the few that there are. However instead of just giving every other ethnicity the breadcrumbs, lets give them something substantial, shall we. Make Dumbledore black, make Hagrid black, or as they've done with Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, make fucking Hermione black. I don't care.. just make me famous! Do you know what Zabini does in this movie? He sits on a train, he sits in the great hall, and then he sits on a broom. Do you know what the one thing I'm really good at is? Sitting on my arse! I'd have been fucking perfect for this role.

Getting over all of that however, and had the film not been ruined by its lack of me, then I would have been saying how brilliant I thought it was. There's actually not a huge amount of shit happening this time with most of the story and drama being depicted through the characters' various interactions. It's basically a giant coming-of-age drama in which all of the teenagers are feeling angsty and deciding that they just want to start banging each other. Just check out the scene in which Ginny leans down to tie Harry's shoelace in an act that will unquestionably have led to a moment that should be known as Harry Potter And The Agonising Pain Of BlueBall. However at this point in the franchise, all of the characters have gotten really good at playing their role and so I don't give a shit about Dark Lords and Black Magic as I just want to spend time with the characters. I mean, really I do just want to be friends with those main three because I think they'd really like me. I'd keep them grounded. Every time somebody said to Harry, “Oh you've got your mothers eyes” I could chime in with, “What do you mean? Dead!” Honestly that would be a joke that would never get old.. for me..

Plus, regardless of how fucking dark this film gets however, there is a really funny sequence near the end in which Harry drinks something called 'Liquid Luck'. Despite sounding like a euphemism for what Clarice Starling had flicked into her face in Silence Of The Lambs, it essentially makes Harry act as though he's on drugs, which is great. If this film is a coming of age story then I suppose drugs are things that some teenagers will experiment with and so it's nice to see how unjudgemental the film is about it. I guess it makes sense to use a magical drug too, because not only does it aid the plot in the way that it does, but in a world in which there's such a thing as 'Every flavour Beans', something like marijuana would have just shut everything down. There'd have been no adventures with Dumbledore, no fighting on a subterranean zombie island, and no climactic scene in the tower. And don't get me wrong.. these scenes are amazing. They're emotional, thrilling, scary and just generally pretty brilliant. But with the introduction of a little weed, it'd have just been two hours of them pissing their pants laughing and then eating the shit out of everything instead. It's just such a shame that none of that matters and that the film doesn't work either way simply because I wasn't dark enough to be in this piece of shit. Thanks for reading, motherfuckers, and see you next time.