heidi | Jul. 10th, 2007

I'm sitting in a departure lounge at LAX and I'm exhausted.

It's been a wonderful weekend and I can't even begin to figure out where to start in writing it up. So I'll start with the bizarre, move to the overwhelming, sum up OotP, wibble, squee and finish charging my iPod for the flight home.

I miss

robertstandring,

zorb and

mudblood428 so much - we made for a terrific team this weekend and they were brilliant with questions and setup and we had a great time seeing so many fellow fans. The people at WB said this was one of the largest premiere crowds at Mann's Chinese ever, which is amazing.

SpellCast video from the red carpet will be up sometime tomorrow - we had uploading issues in the hotel today - but look for questions to the cast about wizarding rock, Rupert's t-shirt, and amusement park rides.

I freaked Dan out very badly.

Greg Grunberg is probably the friendliest person in the universe, and was giddy about taking his sons to the film - and watching them play on the games at the party afterward.

And Rupert Grint totally bested me at *hit the phoenix into the cauldron*. Six tries and I couldn't get it in, but he tries once and in it flew. Magic, I guess?

The bartenders in LA aren't particularly proficient at mojitos, but they make great cosmos - and

longtimegone,

jlh,

slytherincess and

wordplay would be amused to know that I had one cigarette with a cosmo last night. They will not be surprised to know that it was my fifth cosmo.

Masi Oka really is a big a capella geek and fanboyed my ex-roommate when I mentioned Penn's offthebeat to him -

priscillie, are they still around?

Robert Pattison was there last night and just as, er, enlightened as reportedly he'd been at GoF activities.

sue_tlc and I had a lovely chat with Michael Goldenberg about predictions for Book 7. While he and some of the others involved have hints about Book 7, none of them have read it, so it was amazing to hear their thoughts about what they want to see, and where they think she'll go. And gah, we can count on two hands now the number of days until we go of to the book parties. Meep.

And the lead theorizer on the red carpet was definitely Jeff Foxworthy, who's obviously read the books a tonne, and who had a lot to say regarding Snape and horcruxes. The guy who plays Lloyd on Entourage was also very into predictions. Rachel Harris, otoh? Notsomuch.

Along with Spellcast's Rob,

bekkio, Spinnserscast's Kim and Jeff & Geri from HPANA, we had a lovely time tonight at the Imax debut - along with Chris Rankin, who's continually one of the nicest guys I know (and he's also an excellent baby-minder and Crowded House fan). I had to head to the airport so I didn't get to see the IMAX 3D bits but it's sure to be amazing.

And my thoughts on the film?

Ok. PoA is still my favorite, but this is a wonderful film, although I'm not sure it works as a standalone. You need to have seen at least either 1 or 2, plus 3 and 4 - or read them (ideally) - for it to make sense, imho. They (thankfully) don't spend any time making sure you know who any of the characters are. If you don't, you need to be with someone who does.

I loved Imelda as Umbridge. She was brilliant and phenomenal and absolutely spot on throughout. And I thought Evanna Lynch was an adorable Luna. She was born to play this part. Natalie Teena was adorable as Tonks and they do great things with her hair!

( Anything else I say is spoilery for the film, which differs from the book in certain ways... )