The Harry Potter Theater Experience

The Harry Potter Theater Experience

Cleaned the apartment most of the day. So much damn dirt.

Took a break, looked to see what was playing at the movie theater. Of what was playing here in town, there were only a couple of things that I was interested in seeing and I haven't already seen.

The Terminal looks alright, and I've heard from a couple of people that it was enjoyable. But it looks like one I can wait for to come out at the movie store.

So I went with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Short review? I liked it, and I liked it quite a bit more than the previous two Harry Potter movies. This one's darker, by a measure.

I especially liked the combination of grandeur and creepiness that Hogwarts carries in this movie. The Hogwarts of this movie is closer to what I imagined when I read the books. It simultaneously seems more spry, yet less of the fairy-tale like place it seems to have been in the first couple of movies. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, or even distracting from the first couple of movies. But in this movie, Hogwarts seems alive. It's a character itself. I enjoyed watching the background in a lot of shots.

And can I make a brief comment about the bringing of babies into theaters? Folks, please stop deluding yourself. The rest of us hear the baby crying, too.

Let me say this, too. I've not spent a lot of my life around infants. So a lot of what goes on with them is conceptual for me. I've read about it in books, seen it in movies and on TV, heard about it from people. But I haven't had a lot of proximity with the little tiny humans. When I am around one, I am often surprised by what goes on.

The lady behind me had a baby. Not all that old. I heard her burping the baby. And the baby spit up. I know this, because it was so loud, I almost thought the lady herself had thrown up behind me. When I realized the baby had spit up, I wondered if it was a baby she'd been feeding, or a bear.

Also, I know this because the lady announced to one of the kids with her "The baby's spit up, I'm going to clean up."

"You're going to miss the good part," says the kid.

The kid has seen the movie, and performed the service to his friends of telling them to watch when a good part was coming up. You know, for those of them (and us) who generally have trouble paying attention to the huge screen taking up some 60-75% of our field of vision.

Also, I accidentally tripped a kid with the size 14 kayaks I call feet. I was just sitting normally in the row on a cross-aisle, and a kid comes walking through with a parent, and trips on my feet.

I apologized, but the mother said "Don't worry...he should have been watching where he was going."

And then we gave each other high fives.

And then she tripped the kid again as he was going up the stairs, and said "Did you have a nice trip, Gerald Ford? I'll see you next fall!" And she kind of punch/pushed him in the back, and stepped on him as she went to find a seat higher up.