talkingsoup | Sugar-Coated Cyanide

Hey hey, the heat wave is leaving us! Yay!

So yes. We arrived at the theater at 8 nearabouts since we wanted to be early. There were at least 6 theaters playing Harry Potter and ALL the tickets had been sold out. The IMAX line took up most of the central hallway and there were other lines down the other two hallways for the regular movie. We sat around for about an hour before they moved a group of people into one of the theaters, which meant we got to move to the front of the line. Other people started arriving then, namely Lindy--Liz, Sarah and Sarah's friend Craig were already there. About another hour later, they let us into one of the theaters, and we sat there for I think another hour, playing Apples to Apples (which I'd never played before and which was pretty fun). Then I couldn't sit still, so a handful of us went out to get Coldstone (woo!), and by then two other people showed up. Once we got back a wee bit of drama was underway, as Liz had disappeared to take a call and various stuff was happening.

Then, finally, maybe another thirty minutes after that, everyone resurfaced from whatever they'd been doing and the movie started.

Previews first--lemme say right now, I really want to see that 10,000 BC movie, although I wonder if they're gonna be all PC and change it to "10,000 BCE." Probably enough people don't know what that stands for, so I doubt it. I can't remember much of the other previews except for the ping-pong movie, which has the guy who plays Hiro on Heroes. I shouted "yatta" with pretty much the whole theater.

And then, of course, the movie itself started. There was quite a bit of cheering.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Hands down the best Harry Potter movie to date, and this was ironically probably my least favorite book. Harry was just so annoying in it, but this movie just...it was wonderful. It made me not be annoyed at Harry, lol.

So for everyone who's been living under a rock, this one takes place after Voldemort has returned and the war is just beginning. People are disappearing and taking sides, and the government is convinced that Voldemort isn't really back, and they've begun interfering at Hogwarts itself. The OT3, the Trifecta of Awesome, is growing up and having to face the reality of the situation, as well as everything else that comes with being a teenager. All this while they have to deal with a new Dark Arts teacher, Professor Umbridge, who is so exquisitely evil I can't even talk about it, with a world that disbelieves Voldemort's return, and while Harry has to deal with the fact that he and Voldy have some sort of near-telepathic/empathetic connection.

Everything I disliked about the past movies was better in this one. The kids have grown up and their acting skills have gotten so much better. The screenwriters and the rest of the team actually put thought into what to include in the movie and what to leave out. There was less cheese and more of the darkness that pervades this book and of course the next one. The OT3 acted like real teenagers. And plus, unlike the other movies, there were some simply exquisite moments, the kind that are cinematic gold.

I think I'd probably have to say that even the camera work was the best in this one. The dream sequences and the Occlumency lessons were edited superbly. Some of the forest shots and the shots in the Department of Mysteries were just beautiful. Prisoner of Azkaban had great camera work as well, particularly some of the swooping shots, but they did it even better in this one (admittedly, it was a different director).

The acting, too, oh man. The acting and writing were both better. The kids are so much better. It's really kind of amazing to track their growth from movie to movie. Radcliffe and Grint have both done some branching out (Radcliffe to rather humorous results, *koff* Equus *koff*) and so have some extra experience under their belts (I'm not sure about Watson). Sirius wasn't quite as flat as he was in the third one--the guy who plays him is supposed to be wonderful, so I think it was the writing in the third one. God, everyone was just so much better. And best of all, though a lot of the characters got very little screentime, they nailed their characters in the few minutes they did have.

And the casting. Oh man. Luna? Perfect. It's like the character came to life and was this girl. Umbridge? Perfect. She did the whole sweet-but-evil thing incredibly well. Tonks was great, though not quite perfect, and I wish she'd had more screentime (same with Luna, actually).

There were at least two absolutely perfect moments in this movie. The scene where Harry goes into Umbridge's for detention and he starts writing with the quill and realizes what it's doing to his hand--it's one of the most amazing movie moments. Like, neither of them say much of anything, but you can just tell on their faces exactly what's going on and how they feel. The other absolutely perfect moment was when Sirius and Harry were up by the Arch in the Dept. of Mysteries. Harry launches a spell at someone and Sirius shouts, "Well done, James." And there's this incredibly brief moment of silence right afterwards and oh my god, you could just feel it. It was perfect--cinematically perfect.

As for the inevitable death scene, well...they handled it very nicely. Not exactly what I'd pictured--they took some liberties with it--but it worked. And it was horribly sad. The scene right after it was great, with Remus grabbing Harry and Harry running off to take revenge on Bellatrix (who was also amazing, btw. Love for Helena Bonham Carter).

And holy shit the visuals. The magic was the best I've seen it.

And last but of course not least, the fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort. Holy. Shit. Most amazing fight scene between wizards ever, not that there have been many. It was so well shot and so well done and oh my god, there was this part where Voldemort shatters all these windows and the glass comes raining down, and then he shoots it all at Dumbledore, who turns it all into sand. Wow. Just wow.

There were a few cheesy bits, but none that were all that bad.

Oh, and Dumbledore wasn't out of character in this one! Yay!

Oh man. Overall, this movie was excellent, definitely the best of the Potter movies. Good enough that I'm considering going again.

Score: 9 out of 10

The only reason I didn't post this yesterday was because right after the movie some really stupid drama went down. I'll spare you the details, but pretty much, Liz and I got in a fight, and I was subsequently in a bad mood all day yesterday.

My mom got home today. She's spent the last week and a half in Maine with my grandparents.

I'm finally sort of getting back into writing! I've been looking a lot at Penta, picking at it a little. But nothing worth really barking about.

I did watch a few episodes of Sousei no Aquarion. Oh my god, we've gotta show this next year in ASIC. This is an anime that really needs to be watched in groups and mysted like hell. There is just too much in it that can be taken so wrong. But aside from that it's a fun show with a great soundtrack and a pretty good storyline, so it won't be so bad that they give it the boot.