Have you heard?

This is probably news to a lot of you, but there’s a movie coming out this weekend about Hairspray. And some book about a boy wizard…?

Ha, just kidding. Those Hairspray ads are all over the place, and evidently, the major media outlets are all very concerned about whether Harry Potter will die at the end of the series.

I don’t really know where that comes from. There must be some clue I missed. I mean, I didn’t lose sleep over whether Neo was going to die at the end of the Matrix trilogy. Or Frodo at the end of The Lord of the Rings. I accept the fact that sometimes they die, sometimes they live…

Maybe Harry will die, but that’s not the big question that plagues me as I anticipate reading the last book. I’m more worried about whether I’ll remember what happened in the previous one.

I believe I bought the last one at Target, doing my part to make sure that the publishers don’t make any money on the best seller. And yes, once I start reading them, I find them hard to put down. In the sense that I spend several consecutive hours reading, not that I stay up all night finishing them in one sitting.

I started with book 2, which I found on sale at a bookstore in Scotland, I believe. But I don’t have a huge need to go get the new one at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. I’ll just buy the first copy I see for 40 percent off or more.

Still, the more articles I read about obsessed fans, the more I think I need to read the book right away. It’s not just the hype. Part of me wants to get through it before some website or news show gives something away. And when book reviewers lightly summarize plot points, I remember how much I enjoyed the first 6 parts (I went back and got the first one after reading the second one).

Now let’s talk about Hairspray, which I am, at this point, dying to see. When I first saw the trailer, I was like, “Whaaat? They made a movie from the musical they made based on the John Waters film? Whatever for? The movie just came out.”

Of course the Broadway show had new songs, so there’s one explanation. But also, how old am I exactly? The first movie came out almost 20 years ago! I saw it in the theatre. (Oy. I’m still confused. Just now I thought, “That can’t be right, I’d have been 10. But no, since it came out in 1988, and I’m actually almost 32, not still 30. I would have been 13. Or, 12 going on 13, rather.)

So I’m like, John Travolta in a dress, whatever. But then the cast keep coming on the Today show, and the director is a guest judge on So You Think You Can Dance, and Kelly Preston (who should know) said it’s the best movie she’s ever seen. Better than Battlefield Earth? Sign me up.