Unless you count LGBT film festivals, Serenity was my last big event showing too. Sadly, also my last date with a hot newly-out-of-the-closet Venezuelan guy that I was really into at the time.

Though at least he provided validation before giving me the brushoff — saying that the end confused him because he'd been sure throughout the whole movie that Simon was gay (and he'd never seen Firefly!).

Speaking of HP, somebody just linked this clip on IO9 of Daniel Radcliffe on Ricky Gervais' show Extras that is just so freakin' funny.

He and Diana Rigg made quite to comedy duo in that.

I haven't heard good things, unfortunately, but I'm trying to stay stoked regardless.

Jessica, I may be speaking only for myself, but I am traveling and will not see the movie until Sunday, so I would appreciate any information (esp negative, so I can be more comfortable in my delaying the viewing of this movie) about the movie. I plan to listen to the audiobook (I may not make it through the WHOLE thing) in preparation for the film, which is pure folly since I hated the previous movie and how much it departed from the book.

GL trailer. I'm so irrational on this front, and so excited.

Just got back from taking Mal to see Megamind. It's pretty cute. I suspect I enjoyed it more than Mal did. It's deconstructing the Superman mythos, pokes a little fun at Objectivism, references Donkey Kong, and is soundtracked with my era of music.

Mal doesn't even know the Superman story (being more into Batman and Iron Man) and didn't wear his glasses for most of the movie (so I guess he saw two superimposed blurry movies), but he wants a Minion fish.

We finally made it to see RED tonight. That was fun! And Helen Mirren with a gun? Hotter than the SUN.

Also, I still think Julian McMahon would be a perfect Bruce Wayne.

I went to the midnight showing of HP6... I was working summer stock theater and about 90% of the company went together. It was glorious.

I don't even know when I'll get a chance to see the new one, which breaks my heart. I need to learn to apparate so I can spend the evening in a state where I know people so I can go to the movies!

In fact, between living in China and moving a bunch, I'm fairly certain HP6 was the last movie I saw in theaters, which is mind-blowing. I do have really horribly sensitive ears and so going to the movies is a real effort for me, but... wow.

I MUST find some way to get to HP7!!

Did we know that John Cusack is playing Edgar Allen Poe in an upcoming film?

Okay, well it wasn't nearly as bad as my boss had reported. It helps that I'm a fan of the universe, but not to the point where I've reread the book since it came out. I think I remembered just enough of the plot to follow the movie - if I hadn't read the book at all I would have been totally lost - but not in so much detail that I cared what had been changed.

(And from what I remember of the book, I would have changed much much more. Like enough to condense this into one movie. If you need a pee break at any point, just go whenever the three kids are sitting around a room looking forlorn and not talking. And don't worry if you don't have to go the first time this happens, you'll have another chance in about 5 minutes. Rinse, repeat.)

I think that people who have not read the books will not enjoy this one unless they've rewatched all the previous films VERY recently. This is a movie in desperate need of a "previously on" or Star-Wars style crawl to let the audience know what's going on and who the hell everyone is. There's also a ton of new mythology to be introduced, and if they couldn't get through it in 2+ hours here, I'm not confident it's going to make any sense in part 2.

Overall, the problems with the film are the same as the problems with the book - narratively, it's just kind of a mess. But it's an enjoyable mess, and it's always nice to spend time in this universe however clunky the storytelling.