High production values mark this new series, and the mix of fantasy and reality is exactly what you would expect from executive producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, who also made “Lost.“

And they all lived happily ever after – or so everyone was led to believe. Emma Swan knows how to take care of herself. She’s a 28-year-old bail bonds collector who’s been on her own ever since she was abandoned as a baby. But when the son she gave up years ago finds her, everything starts to change. Henry is now 10 years old and in desperate need of Emma’s help. He believes that Emma actually comes from an alternate world and is Snow White and Prince Charming’s missing daughter. According to his book of fairytales, they sent her away to protect her from the Evil Queen’s curse, which trapped the fairytale world forever, frozen in time, and brought them into our modern world. Of course Emma doesn’t believe a word, but when she brings Henry back to Storybrooke, she finds herself drawn to this unusual boy and his strange New England town. Concerned for Henry, she decides to stay for a while, but she soon suspects that Storybrooke is more than it seems. It’s a place where magic has been forgotten, but is still powerfully close… where fairytale characters are alive, even though they don’t remember who they once were. The epic battle for the future of all worlds is beginning, but for good to win, Emma will have to accept her destiny and fight like hell.

Link below will connect you with an example of Leisure Diving.  The advocate tells us that what all men hope to do is “never to grow up.”

The clip shows how “Freedom meets expression of self in an artful way.”  I would be game for this sport in a different body of water.  Be patient: it takes about 10 seconds for the video below the photograph to load.

 http://bostonherald.com/business/technol…

I admit to feeling sure that I was being punked when I read the Comic-Con 2011 report about the new Snow White film.  After Holly Hutchison, who knows more about Comic-Con than I do, reassured me that the high-concept framing of Snow White was for real, I revived my blog post about the film.

The first thing that jumps to mind is that, obviously, this isn’t the typical Snow White in a fancy gown — this is more Joan of Arc territory.

“This girl has the amazing ability to channel fear, things that people are typically afraid to do, into this really focused, really charged, driving energy,” Stewart told panel moderator (and EW senior writer) Dave Karger.

“She truly does not let her heart cloud her mind,” the Twilight actress added, breaking into a smile: “Also I get to have a sword and stuff, and really cool weapons.”

Stewart was playing nice, but Theron, appropriately, was the one showing her teeth.

 http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/07/23/co…

Evidently plans are in the works for a trilogy based on the Snow White story.

And here’s the latest on the film’s rival:

 http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/07/21/li…

Presenting… the fairest of them all! “I keep saying to everyone I feel like I’m walking into a snow globe, a fairy tale, every single day,” says Lily Collins, star of Relativity Media’s as yet untitled Snow White, which co-stars Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen. “It’s so epic. I was part of a costume ball today, so you can only imagine the outfits.”

The movie, out March 16, is directed by Tarsem Singh (The Fall, the upcoming Immortals) and promises a world as surreal as anything dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm. Click through for more details…

Kelly Faircloth has some really great ideas for Hollywood producers.  It’s time to broaden out the fairy-tale repertoire (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella) and revive some of the many other canonical tales.  My favorite of her proposals: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, with its clever slave-girl Morgiana.

 http://io9.com/5823293/10-creepy-sexy-fa…

Not much in the news about this project, but two links below:

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18…

and

 http://screenrant.com/emma-watson-beauty…

The latest project set to utilize the creative talents of the Pan’s Labyrinth filmmaker is a new version of Beauty and the Beast, as is being co-conceived by Denise Di Novi, the producer of early Tim Burton titles like Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas , and Ed Wood. Suffice it to say, she and del Toro are undoubtedly planning a darker spin on the famous fairy tale.

“You’ll be kids the rest of your lives!” shouted Steven Spielberg to a crowd of more than 6,000 roaring fantasy fans at the Comic-Con International convention here on Friday. “I feel the same way!”

Spielberg has confessed to being a huge fan of J.M. Barrie’s “boy who would not grow up.”  Catch Me If You Can is filled with allusions to the Peter Pan story, and of course there is also Hook, with Robin Williams playing a grown-up Peter Pan who has become a corporate pirate.  Here’s Spielberg on how the idea for the film developed: “Originally, I was going to make a Peter Pan movie based on the novel, a live-action version like the 1924 Peter Pan silent movie. But something happened, my son Max was born and I lost my appetite for the project.  I couldn’t be Peter Pan any more. I had to be his father.  Anytime anything flies, whether it’s Superman, Batman, or E.T., it’s got to be a tip of the hat to Peter Pan.  To me, flying is synonymous with freedom and unlimited imagination but, interestingly enough, I’m afraid to fly.”

For more on The Adventures of Tintin, which will be released on December 23, here is a link to the NYT article about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/movies/spielbergs-stop-at-comic-con.html?scp=2&sq=spielberg&st=cse

Nobody in the giant hall asked Mr. Spielberg or Mr. Jackson about the less savory side of Remi, Tintin’s creator, who worked for a pro-German publication, Le Soir, during the Nazi occupation of Belgium. In a period of later repentance, Remi cleaned up “Tintin” panels that were tainted by racist portrayals of black Africans and anti-Semitic allusions to Jews. The closest brush came when Mr. Jackson noted that “serious” themes and issues were embedded in some of the comics, though he did not elaborate.

Recommended reading: Jean-Marie Apostolides’s The Metamorphosis of Tintin; or Tintin for Adults.

The Washington Post consults a set of experts about the draw of the Harry Potter series and comes to the following conclusion:

One of the most interesting discussions centers on the community of readers. Some have suggested that though reading is often a solitary experience, many of us read Harry Potter as part of a community, discussing, interacting, writing fan fiction. Rowling has seemed acutely aware of her audience and has interacted with that community of readers increasingly through the text as the series went on. (Ebony Elizabeth Thomas)

In fact, with Harry set to move onto the recently announced Pottermore, the series will soon be at the forefront of digital social media.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/coll…

When you go to the Pottermore website (link below), you will find a video of J.K. Rowling, explaining how Pottermore provides a platform for sharing the experience of reading the series. “an online reading experience like no other.”  It will also be the “exclusive”  place to purchase digital audiobooks and e-books.  I would be very curious to know what Henry Jenkins (author of Convergence Culture) thinks of Pottermore.

 http://www.pottermore.com/

Here’s what Jenkins has written in “Why Heather Can Write: Media Literacy and the Harry Potter Wars,” a chapter in Convergence Culture.

“So far, we have seen that corporate media increasingly recognizes the value, and the threat, posed by fan participation. . . .  Storytellers now think about storytelling in terms of creating openings for consumer participation. At the same time, consumers are using new media technologies to engage with old media content, seeing the Internet as a vehicle for collective problem solving, public deliberation, and grassroots creativity.  Indeed, we have suggested that it is the interplay–and tension–between the top-down force of corporate convergence and the bottom-up force of grassroots convergence that is driving many of the changes we are observing in the media landscape. . . .  Corporations imagine participation as something they can start and stop, channel and reroute, commodify and market.”

And here’s Sony, sponsor of the site.  Sony embraces, see below, the “philosophy of make.believe.”

The critics have finally been won over, and the final installment in the Harry Potter film franchise is receiving rave reviews, including the one by Manohla Dargis in today’s New York Times.

 http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/mov…

The movie, the eighth, is tightly focused and as somber and unsettling as it should be considering its apocalyptic events. It’s also often beautiful, washed in gray and so drained of other color that at first it looks as if it’s in black and white. It’s no wonder: Mr. Yates has kicked into Manichaean mode — and it’s the fight of good against evil, wizards against Voldemort and his hordes — so the director can be forgiven for almost overplaying the fascist overtones (the students rhythmically marching in the opener are nearly goose-stepping) if not for the juvenile St. Crispin’s Day speech at the end.

Oh wait, not everyone has been won over.   Here’s columnist Frank Bruni, who sees the books and films as the obsession du jour:

As for Potter, I saw 10 minutes of one of the movies, and can’t recall if it involved a goblet of fire, a deathly hallow or neither. Hogwarts was mentioned, so I’m now up to speed. It’s like Exeter, but with a different kind of spelling test.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/opinio…

Bah, humbug, although I admit that it took me more time than I want to admit to be won over by the books.  Inspired by the discovery of all seven volumes, orphaned in a large box put out for the trash on the streets of Cambridge, I began re-reading this week.  And now I am intoxicated as never before by the mysteries of the world that opens up in your mind as you move from chapter to chapter.  It is no wonder that the series has quickly moved from bedtime reading to cultural myth.  And here’s my favorite passage:

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry.  “Is it real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”

Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it’s not real?”

Everything about that passage is brilliant, but what I like best of all is the “bright mist” that envelopes Dumbledore, both concealing and revealing him.  The oxymoron acts as a wonderful literary device, enabling us to see Dumbledore even more clearly at the very moment that his figure is obscured.  It gives the entire passage what I call ignition power (in Enchanted Hunters)–the capacity to make something from nothing, to visualize worlds made from nothing but words.  And we get a shot of the aural mingling with the visual as Dumbledore “beams” at Harry all the while that his voice sounds loud and clear in Harry’s ears.

Addendum on July 15:  Here are some scary Harry Potter fans.

 http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/07…

Norman Lebrecht writes about the cult of reading that began to flourish with the release of each new Harry Potter book.  He offers some interesting comparisons with Dickens and reminds us that it took a while for the books to catch fire.  The first print run was 500 copies, sold mainly to libraries!  Pottermania is hitting a new high with the release of the final film, and the Wall Street Journal has multiple articles about the films in addition to this one about how reading made a comeback around the time the second installment of the series came out.

Not since the serial novels of Charles Dickens in the middle of the 19th century had the works of a single author excited such universal and immediate interest. The parallels with Dickens, born 200 years ago next February, are multiple and compelling. “What happens to Little Nell?” crowds shouted in New York harbor to incoming ships that carried the latest installment of “The Old Curiosity Shop.” “Is Hermione all right?” booksellers were asked as midnight purchasers scanned the closing pages of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” knowing a main character was to die.

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424…

Manohla Dargis reviews Catherine Breillat’s new film based on Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty.”  Great news here about a “Beauty in the Beast” in the works, to complete a trilogy of fairy-tale films that also includes “Bluebeard.”  My favorite reworking of “Sleeping Beauty” remains Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her (2002).

“Beauty and the Beast” (the title could work for some of her other films) will be the final chapter in a projected trilogy that I hope she expands: Andrew Lang collected 12 volumes of fairy tales, some ripe for her singular deconstructions. The pleasures of Ms. Breillat’s work are its commitment and seriousness and its raw, sometimes very funny perversity: she’s lets everything hang out, without apologies.

 http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/mov…