i had said i would do it

Friends who have gotten together on the first showing of all the other Harry Potter movies wanted to do it again. Which was last night. At twelve am, or a few minutes just past it.

So I said yes, I was in. I planned to take off from work this morning -- and so went last night to see a two hour thirty or forty minute movie in the middle of the night. The bass line of "Once in Royal David's City" was going through my head -- Christmas Eve is the only other time I am out at that time of night. The theater was packed with mostly high school students. I assumed I would be asleep within thirty minutes anyway.

But the students were especially polite, , many of them dressed in Potter costumes. Their comments and asides were smart and funny, and mostly they were very attentive to the movie. Given their probable coming of age with the books, they had a special connection to it.

The movie was well done, probably the best in the filmed series. I never once nodded. The long opening scene that in the book takes way too long -- the world cup of quidditch -- is well done, and it goes by quickly. Alan Rickman is particularly good, and he only has a few scenes. Ralph Finnes is appropriately evil, but who thought he wouldn't be? And I continue to find Michael Gabon to be a much better Dumbledore than the late Richard Harris, something all my friends disagree with me about.