Feeling better and all movied up

[sammywol]

Well I am feeling almost human. The insides are still confined to a chicken soup, toast, and 7Up diet but monotonous though it is it seems to be helping. I feel stronger, less mucous intensive and waaaay less shaky

Comments

[purpletigron]

Hooray for getting out of the house.

Very interested in your observations about upset children - and guardians who don't appear to know them well. Was there not a certification which the cinema should have been enforcing?

[sammywol]

The film is PG here, which I would seriously argue with. They say kids are growing up much faster these days and see more violence and horror that we did but I would draw the line at at least 8 for this movie and there were children of around 6 there and some of the tearful ones looked older. I suppose the problem is that the higher certifications usually only cut off at 12 and upwards which is a bit limiting.

Lots of disney movies have harrowing parts in them and are aimed at young kids. I still remember going to see 'The Lion King' in the cinema and having all the squealing kids fall horribly and totally quiet after Simba's Dad gets trampled to death onscreen. However, they don't end on the harrowing note. This film ends in defeat, horror, grief and death and the certainty of coming conflict, not a comforting note for a kids' movie really. It's going to be more and more of an issue too as the films go on.

[mylescorcoran]

I'm glad you enjoyed your night out. I agree with you that film certifications and lax parents are giving some kids a right hard time at the cinema. I'd err on the side of caution and not bring young children (under 10 or so) to any of the Potter films, unless personal experience suggested that a particular kids was made of hard stuff.

156 minutes running time is long, though DD and I managed okay in your absence. Has LotR made everyone more tolerant of numb bums and long films? Is it just another manifestation of the fat fantasy trilogy, more-is-better meme that's got its claws in so many publishers today?

[sammywol]

I think LoTR is to blame alright. I don't think it is that audiences are more tolerant but backers are now no longer allergic to a longer running time. Just imagine what Tim Burton could have done with Batman for example if he had been able to get a backer to aggree to even a 2 hour movie. They didn't, wouldn't, couldn't back then - just no way. Bet they would now.

[mylescorcoran]

Batman (1989) runs to 126 minutes unfortunately. Never let a pedant loose on the Web.

[mylescorcoran]

Wow! That surprises me. i remember reading interviews with Tim Burton at the time Batman was in the making and he was bitching a lot about how he had to keep cutting and cutting his original script until he basically wrote a new one to be short enough for the bosses. Perhaps once he got it past them he surreptitiously added some bits on again.

[missmurchison]

I was wondering if this would be the first HP film I wouldn't bother seeing in the theater, but I'm being lured in. Maybe I can drag family to see it over Christmas. My younger daughter has already seen it and added her voice of approval.

I remember Frances de la Tour in "Rising Damp" and they must have made her look older, because she was fairly spring chickenish in "Flickers." If that was her.

[sammywol]

To be fair I have come across a lot of reviews from people who hated it. I'd say if you read the book you would like it. I have no idea if it is even comprehensible to anyone who has not. Plus it is a bit like a action movie, seeing those special effects on the big screen is pretty cool and there are special effects in practically every scene.

(Poor Neville's buck teeth though are a bit intimidating on the big screen - Boy I hope that that is a prosthesis!)

[enigmaticblues]

I'm glad you managed to get out of the house and that you enjoyed the movie. I've talked to a few people who really didn't like it, which was a bit disconcerting, given how much I did. And so I'm right there with you on the whole thing. I didn't miss SPEW at all either.

We went to a later showing, so there weren't many children, but I'm always amazed at what folks will let their kids see. My parents were terribly strict about that sort of thing.

[sammywol]

My parents were strict too. When my father was small, he was taken to see 'Bambi' (first release - Wow! that's old) and he had to be taken out of the cinema screaming after Bambi's mother got shot, so he was very careful about what I was taken to (and eternally suspicious of Disney).

[enigmaticblues]

When my dad would take me to a scary movie (I can remember "Return of the Jedi" at 3 and one of the Indiana Jones movies at an older age) his hand would go right over my eyes if he thought we'd hit a part I couldn't handle. Over all, though, I didn't get to choose my movies until I was old enough to see R-rated, at 17.

[sammywol]

The readiness of the hand indicates a certain ammount of research too. Good on your Dad!

Of course my parents dealt with the teenage years problem by moving to a different country and 35 miles from the nearest 2 screen cinema. By the time I had heard of a movie I wanted to see it would have gone from the screen and I'd have to wait for it to cycle round on TV. Teenage socializing tended to revolve around the summertime discos run by the local Young Farmers Association, although they were pretty R rated themselves.