heidi | (no subject)

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!

They changed the framing for the flashback scene, but the import is the same in terms of Harry's relationship with Snape. But the end with the Order showing up at the Ministry seems to imply that Snape went to tell them what had happend but took a strangely long time to do so, so unless you know the book you won't understand in HBP: The Movie why Harry's angry at Snape about it.

The Dueling Club scenes are brilliant, and they've made Matthew Lewis's Neville absolutely brilliant.

Iirc, the Voldemort-In-Armani bits are only in dream sequences.

The fight between the Order and the Death Eaters is brilliant, and as Dan said on the junket today, they made the adults' wand-and-magic movements so much more polished than the kids. We don't see the rooms in the Dept of Mysteries other than the prophecy room, which disapointed me, as I wanted to see Ron Attacked By Brains and the Baby-Headed Death Eater.

The relationship between Sirius and Harry is wonderful, and the Black Family Tree is brill (although I didn't see the mention of Ickle Regulus, alas).

But the actual Through the Veil scene isn't what I expected, although Remus holding Harry to keep him from following Sirius is *brilliant*. I think I wanted something as gut-punching as the Shrieking Shack scene, and it wasn't quite. I don't know how to explain why it didn't break me, but it didn't and I wanted it to.

The sets for all the scenes were amazing and evocative, and some of the changes for the film, like making Umbriedge's punishments more widely imposed, are things you wouldn't necessarily think would work because they're so different from the books - especially a scene where Fred & George are talking with, iirc, "Nigel", but in the context, they work.

And the way they've done the occlumancy and legilimency is perfect - and Daniel does some excellent acting in the Ministry scene.

The film has something for every shipper, btw. Well, other than the Michael Corner/Ginny fans, because they *totally cut out Ginny dating other boys* and have her mooning over Harry in an almost CoS fashion, which was just *huh*? They said they wanted to drop hints of her future romance with Harry, but honestly, there was more Harry/Luna. And there's a hint of one-sided Grawp-Hermione, but I'll leave it to you to guess who's crushing on whom.

Oh, and speaking of shipping.... can someone watch particularly for the scene at Grimmauld Place when Sirius first speaks to Harry? Was Remus's arm around Sirius's shoulder? Looked like it to me.....