Gage and I went to see Harry Potter again tonight, and we sat through it twice - obsessive behavior does not run in my family! - and I have decided that I like it much, much much more than I did last week. I think when I first saw it I was expecting a cinema experience unto itself, and this is not, it is the Chamber of Secrets and assumes that you know everything that happened in the first movie, and that put me off last week. But since Gage and I had discussed possible plot holes we watched it this time with a different eye and I realized that it is a brilliant piece of story telling, perhaps too sumptuous to take it all in the first time. There are some brilliant touches in the movie, the continuity is excellent for a movie with all these special effects, and the movie is really, really a well made film. So we enjoyed it tremendously. I am also amazed at how well it really stays true to the characters, there is n ot a false moment for any of them.
I also picked up something I totally missed the first time - homage to Rocky Horror Picture Show! The actor who plays Lucius Malfoy (Draco's father) did a incredible take off on Tim Curry's Frank n Furter in the first scene when we meet him - and then sure enough the actor who plays Furth (spelling) did an amazing take off on Riff (a riff on Riff?) and then a few minutes later Kenneth Branaugh utters the immortal line, "Great Scott!" So I was loving it! The homage to RHPS was too good and in a movie this well crafted, obviously intentional, and on top of it all, it real works to set the characters - next time I see it I will bring toilet tissue to throw when the Great Scott! line comes up again! The joys of seeing a movie over and over is picking up on stuff like this, and actually it was a fairly cheap evening as seeing two shows kept us from shopping, which means I did not lay out $29.95 for a new Game Boy Advance cartridge, and $4.25 for Yu-gi-oh cards, and $1.29 for an ice cream cone, and $20 for a regular toy and then another $15 for a toy for Brady, my other grandson (who spends far too much time with his other grandparents and not with me) so that when I drop Gage off, we have something for Brady too. And why do I tell few Brady stories? Because I so seldom get him. Far too much time with the other grandparents, and besides, when he and I are together our only activity is I hold him and I say, "I hope I don't drop you" and then I drop him and catch him and he laughs like crazy and says, 'do it again" and after about 20 minutes of that I am all sweaty and exhausted and he says, "do it again" and I let his other grandparents take him before I collapse from exhaustion. Gage has fallen asleep to Harry Potter The Sorcerers Apprentice on the DVD and time for bed for me... a sweet evening because he said, Poppa, do you know what I did after you left last Saturday and I said no and he says, I cried because I didn't you to leave. Now after someone tells me that, I will sit through Harry Potter with him forever! thank you for indulging me. Telling my Gage stories gives me a chance to re-live the memories and get them written down on the same night they happened. Thank you. Vince
