Saturday, November 16, 2002

Hairy Porter

Last night we went to see Harry Potter, well, I say last night, we actually saw the 5.45 showing. 5.45 is well before bed time for the 5-12 target demographic this film is clearly aimed at. Walking into the cinema was like walking into a pack of rabid Muppets, or the scene from Gremlins when the little monsters infest the town’s cinema - they were hanging from the ceiling and tearing down the curtains.

Nobby did his patented Cinema blag, we were allocated Row B (at Star Wars we had Row A), seats so close to the screen it burns your retinas, so close, if you started looking at the left hand side of the screen, the film was finished before you got to the right, so close I was in danger of having an image of Ron Weasley etched on my eyeballs forever more. But with Nobby's Cinema Blag you simply tell the ushers that the seats are terrible and can we have better ones, they instantly lead you to the best seats in the house, the middle of the middle. It's like some kind of Jedi mind trick.

Its a great film, Much Better Than The Last One (™ every reviewer in the world), like in the first one a lot of detail is taken out, but its done to clarify the story, Quidditch, for example, is merely a side issue. You actually leave the Cinema tying up the loose ends going "Oh yeah, that's why such-and-such did that".

Watching it with the 5-12 demographic provided added dimensions to the experience. The predictive commentary is slightly annoying: -

'Hrrrrrmmmmmmiiiiinnnnneeeeee!' drifts across the cinema like a callow wind.

Here's Hermione

Errrrrrooooollllllll!

Oh, here's Errol.

"This is a great bit"

Cue: a great bit.

But they live it, they laugh like drains at the funny bits, scream at the scary bits and applaud at the end, and there should be no other way of watching it. Vic insisted we stay until after the credits for the added bit... make sure you do too, it's great.

0 comments:

Newer Post Older Post Home

Blogger Template by Blogcrowds