The New Harry Potter Movie

MJ and I took in a matinee. We went and saw the new Harry Potter. It was the best movie of the set so far. Even though the Stathe wasn’t in it, they clearly filmed it somewhere near him. That’s the only explanation for the new levels of cool. They did a really good job of getting all the ideas of the Half-blood Prince story into the movie, which is impressive because it’s more than six hundred pages. They also did a really good job of making Hogwarts feel like a high school, since that’s what it is. I guess the fifth movie, Order of the Phoenix, wasn’t very good because I don’t remember anything about it. I think we own it, and we’ll probably watch it now that we’re all Harry Potter’d up. What’s shocking is how much all of the kids have grown up. They’re all in their twenties. That’s crazy. I watched part of the very first Harry Potter movie a couple of weeks ago and they hadn’t even reached puberty. Now they’re making shaving jokes. Everyone is also in love, which doesn’t quite work in the movie the same way it did in the book. In the book, Hermione is a plain little book worm. In the movie, Emma Watson is anything but plain, so the rivalries don’t quite come across as believable, but there’s nothing they can do about that. They also can’t make Daniel Radcliffe, Harry, and taller. He’s suffering from a severe case of Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman short guy syndrome. The fact that casting choices made eight years ago are presenting minor cosmetic anomalies are the only problems I have with the movie lets me know it was very good. MJ and I saw it in San Marco and we thought about stopping in Five Points on the way home to see it again. It’s a good thing I had to pee.