It took in over $12 million during its midnight showings. The total for Wed. was $44.2 million. Who hasn't seen Harry Potter yet?
If you answered, "Me!" and you don't want any spoilers, skip most of tonight's blog.
As for the rest of you...let me set the scene.
Crowded theater (no duh, opening night), the promise of a digital "print," and a family with a toddler just across the aisle from you...sounds like potential disaster doesn't it? Actually it was only a minor annoyance. I will say this though. The local theater lied about how many DLP showings they were having. I pulled for this place specifically for the DLP and instead we got a regular print which took the loser working the projector about 5 minutes to pull into focus.
Let's put all that aside and just concentrate on the flick itself. I always need to see Harry Potter films twice. The first time finds me noticing what was left out from the book. I fully understand why things get cut, but the realization of the missing bits always proves distracting. Having said this I should tell you I've only seen the movie once (going again on Sat.).
I can say I did enjoy this movie alot. Is it my favorite? Not at this moment. I'm a big fan of Prisoner of Azkaban, with Goblet a close second. I will tell you what I really enjoyed though.
The opening sequence with the dementors. Luna Lovegood. The crazy evil of Umbridge (she sort of reminds me of a certain employee at the store). Ron's efforts to impress Hermione. Ginny's telling glances when she sees Harry and Cho. The big Sirius moment. The two big battles at the end. Most of the training sequences. Meeting Gwarp (er, however you spell his name). Trelawney getting kicked out. Umbridge questioning Harry.
Okay, I know there's more, but I'm blanking.
Here's what I wasn't so keen on.
Why was Kreacher even in this? When he was introduced, I thought that meant he would come into play later, like he does in the book, but na-da. I would've liked to have seen more in the scene where Mr. Weasley gets attacked. I wish we could have seen more of the kids fighting the Death Eaters before the Order arrived, like the book. I wish we could've seen more of Snape's memory (esp. the part involving Harry's mom). I thought having Cho being set up to take the fall for snitching on the D.A. was sort of a cop out. In the book, it is her snarky friend who lets it slip. Cho defends her friend and gets mad at Hermione for having done a spell that would reveal to everyone who the snitch was. It shows (along with a few other scenes) how shallow Cho is and that seemed like a more logical reason for she and Harry breaking up. In the film, we are lead to believe she willingly told Umbridge what was going on. The rest of the D.A. ignore her as does Harry, but at the end of the movie we find out she was given a potion to make her tell Umbridge so her movie version of the character wasn't really a bad person. That just sort of irritated me.
As you can tell, most of what I wanted would have made this movie about 3 hours long. Obviously that wasn't going to happen. Oh--and I would've liked a bit more between Harry and Dumbledore at the end.
Overall, the film flows pretty well, though if you haven't read the book you might get a bit lost as some plot points aren't really explained. There is definitely humor throughout and some good nasty bits as well. AH--just thought of something else--I was genuinely disappointed that the "line writing" scene wasn't more like the book. I was really looking forward to seeing what I considered to be a truely sadistic punishment being given. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, in the book Harry gets detention and he's supposed to write "I will not lie" or something like that. He's given a special quill, no ink required. He doesn't need ink because once he puts quill to parchment the "ink" is his own blood and the line he is writing appears cut into his other hand. In the book, his hand heals after each line...only the more he does it the less it heals. Umbridge tells him he will keep writing till he has gotten it down. In other words, until it is almost permanently etched in his flesh. I was blown away by this scene in the book. In the movie, we see the line get etched, which is pretty cool, but the scene is short and you get the impression that there is no healing and re-etching. Of course, it is a PG-13, so maybe they thought that would be too intense for kids.
Screw the kids!!!! Give me the pain brother!!!!
One last bit, the title of tonight's blog refers to the lovely Mr. Radcliffe. We get several tight close ups when Harry is suffering through his nightmares and in virtually each one I thought, "hmmm...looks like Harry needs a better razor." Thank goodness he turns 18 very soon. Seriously, have you seen the promo pictures for Equus? And the cover of the latest Details magazine? Daaaaamn sister. Although there is one shot inside the mag where he is wearing the worst leather vest. He looks like a younger, slightly less gay version of one of the Village People.
WATCH IT:
NEW PSYCH ON FRIDAY! NEW PSYCH ON FRIDAY! ALL HAIL JAMES AND DULE!!!!
LISTEN TO IT:
Interpol--Our Love To Admire. Their latest just came out on Tues. and I've been listening to it almost non-stop. Right now my faves are The Heinrich Manuever (I know I spelled that wrong), Mammoth, and Rest My Chemistry. This cd sounds more relaxed than the last one. Sometimes these guys sound like they are so beyond the rest of us in the coolness realm, which can be a little off putting. This cd though is very inviting and I think will sound amazing when played live.
READ IT:
Still working on Chuck K. IV at work and HP and the Half Blood Prince at home.
Finally, props to Laura who once again got the quote right--Dante from Clerks for those of you who don't read the comments.
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