HP 6 and the Girls

 

 

 

So the girls and I stayed up way, way past our bedtime to attend the 12:02am showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

We arrived just after 9:00pm, fully stocked for the long wait.  Tickets – check.  Camp chairs – check.  Strawberries and chocolate ganache complete with fancy paper doilies – check.  Being the envy of all in line – priceless.

 

 

 

We were quite a crew.

 

 

Luck would have it, the best seats in theater #3 belonged to us – the center of the center.  Seated around 10:30pm, “informative” and highly stimulating conversation filled in the gap.  Hagrid and Hermione walked in; a couple of young, teenage girls we know.  It happened to be “Hermione’s” seventeenth birthday so we sang to her and hooked “Hagrid” up with the guy sitting just below us.  We’re so helpful that way.  At 12:06am the lights dimmed.  2:45am the credits rolled and so solidified HP6 as my favorite Potter movie to date.

 

I’ve learned to deal with “creative adaptations” in these movies, HP5 was the biggest disappointment with the exclusion of my favorite scenes.  HP6 is no exception, but it was intense, funny, and a satisfying morsel of the book.  Yes, I love Ron Weasley and we got more Ron, though I’m waiting for the loyal and fiercely protective book Ron to make an appearance.  I’ve read reviews were movie-goers trash this latest effort, claiming the purest side of the road and chalking it up to nothing but a two hour and fifteen minute teenage romance wrapped up in eighteen minutes of meaty, plot-moving magical mayhem.  I disagree.  The young Tom Riddle was creepy.  A slowly dying, less than invincible Dumbledore.  (I still prefer the late Richard Harris.)  Draco’s torment to fulfill his mission and Snape’s Unbreakable, knowing the final outcome of his character, was played to perfection by Alan Rickman.  Of course, seemingly vital scenes were either brought about by different characters, i.e. instead of Tonks finding Harry on the train, it was Luna, or all-together missing  (with the hope of incorporating them into the 7th and 8th movies) would leave the non-reader a little perplexed.  As I understand it, the final movies are in production and due out 2010 and 2011 respectively and IMDB has a blurb about absent characters/plot lines, fostering the hope of pulling it all together.

 

Can’t wait to see it again with Devin.  For now it’s bottoms-up with the Diet Coke and the challenge of upright habitation with merely three and a half hours sleep.  Here’s to the girls – those who were missing included – can’t wait for HP7, we’re so dressing up.  Dibs on Bellatrix!  lol  Until then, we’ll continue our lapse in maturity this November with New Moon.