Who has got the cure for the sit-at-home blues? Ask Dr Grabthar. Now with bigger, easier to read font!

Monday, December 05, 2005

[General] Weekends and Hooleys

Ok as you can see from the last post, I still have yet to master html tables but I am working on it.

How was your weekend? Mine was nice enough. We went to Chow twice in the space of twelve hours: first for cocktails on Friday night (Jane says Rosebuds are now her favourite) and then for Yum Cha (or as they call it Yum Chow) lunch. And we did a whole bunch of Christmas shopping.

On Saturday we saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I am personally not interested in reading children’s books BUT I am so into [good] children’s movies, which I am the first to admit that these are.

The film is good and fun. There is less emphasis on the background junk that was established in the first few films (moving paintings, celebrity ghosts, the tensions between muggle-bloods and those of “pure race”). Even Draco Malfoy is just an annoying dick.

However, the film wasn’t as “dark” and “scary” as some had made out. The kids were put in dangerous situations, but they have since the books started. Ron got a bit grumbly but that was about as dark as it got. I much preferred the Prisoner of Azkban. The best bits for me were Ron’s brothers Fred and George who often just show up for laughs.

[This paragraph contains a spoiler for those who haven’t read the book; the rest of the post is SPOILER free] The strangest bit was the ball scene in which two 18yr old boys take two 14year old girls as their dates. I just thought it was odd. When I was at school 18yr olds dating 14yr olds were weirdos.

[Spoilers over]

Perhaps it’s “darker” because they all have longer hair and are all starting to notice the opposite sex.Oh and once again, Alan Rickman is not given enough lines. By Grabthar's Hammer (and the sons of Wothan) he will be avenged.

We saw the film at the Empire which a new cinema in Island Bay. It’s one of these new small cinemas for adults only (no, not like that). Amy was impressed by the size of the screen considering the small size of the building. The crowd were all over thirty (except for us) and it looked like most of them (like us) had chosen 8.30pm on a Saturday for the lack of children in the theatre. There’s nothing worse than seeing a children’s film when the actual target demographic is in the audience. Also the seats are done in pairs like a row of loveseats. This makes them quite comfortable especially when sitting with ones’ partner and uncomfortable when sitting with anyone else.

Sunday we put up our Christmas decorations and went to the Thorndon Fair. The fair was a little windy but we came away with some stuff. But I’ll tell ya, putting up Christmas decorations while listening to a Christmas album will put you in the festive mood faster than anything I’ve ever come across.

So, over at the Monkey, Rogers is grifting the work of others, but for a good cause.

Tom is creating a Blog-Hooley for any Wellington-based bloggers and commentators who want to come along. Post your preferences on Tom’s blog and we’ll see where we end up.

And my new pastime is the Google Video of the Day blog and searching Google Video for random stuff.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, I went to see HP at the Empire too, although last Wednesday, when there were also no kids. It's a pretty cool little theatre. It certainly had a big screen in relation to its seating capacity, but its sound system was also quite impressive. Definitely one to go back to. And it's close to home, which is good.
The movie itself was definitely enjoyable - although I would put this one as second best of the series behind the Prisoner of Azkaban. Having said that, I thought Mike Newell did a pretty good job and there were quite a few shots in there I liked (like at the start of the film as they were cresting the hill at sunrise to get to the port key). There was just too much stuff in the Goblet of Fire to put into the one film, so although it was long it felt rushed. Apparently they had planned to make two films out of it, but decided not to. And I think when they say darker, they probably mean that little-ies would find some scenes a bit too much. And yes, Alan Rickman is not given anywhere near enough screentime, although I quite like Brendan Gleeson. They haven't lacked for quality actors in this series - Kenneth Brannagh's turn in the second one, I think, was a highlight.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and you do realise that learning about html tables is your first step towards the dark side. Soon you will be talking CSS, server-side includes and jawa...er, javascript and making peoples' ears bleed. Just thought you should know. (Yeah, you guessed correctly, not much is going on at work today...)

Andrew said...

Haydn,

I was in Motel and wandering through Chow last Friday night, so sorry if I breezed past without saying 'Hi' to you!

The Empire is a lovely little cinema. Not a Harry Potter fan, but my date and I had the entire cinema to ourselves when we went to see Visconti's 'The Leopard' there a few weeks ago (not surprising, some may say, but it's a great film). And those love seats are excellent. One of the new screens at the Paramount has them too.

Andrew said...

Doh!

Me=Andrew :)