Texting Teens & HP

So a while back a group of us went to go see the new Harry Potter movie. I found it enjoyable enough, especially the end fight which was very fulfilling effects wise. Unfortunately, the beginning hour or so of the movie was not a pleasant experience due to one specific event. About 15 minutes into the movie, some girls down in the first row of the theater began texting to their friends. Normally I wouldn’t find this too troublesome, but the combination that they were treating texting like IM, continued this practice for at least 20 minutes, and were doing it in the front row in a perfectly dark theater, it really started to frustrate me. I began debating if I should go talk to the courtesy desk, walk down and confront them, or just yell at them. Eventually I just yelled down “SHUT YOUR PHONE!” which was immediately proceeded by someone higher up in the theater yelling “Yea, shut your f***ing phone!!” (I decided not to curse at them as this was technically a kids movie). The girls quickly and embarrassingly closed their phones which was followed by applause from multiple audience members. I was very satisfied with myself. I’m hoping that texting in theaters doesn’t become more common since most people think when told to silence you cell phones that just means your ring tone, but they fail to realize that having a small bright light in a pitch black theater is just as annoying. Interestingly enough, for this particular movie, after the trailers, the movie started right up with no AMC intro or Cell Phone PSA, which maybe the girls were too stupid to realize that if they’re not told to do so they don’t need to.

On a plus note, I have now become addicted to seeing moives via a DLP projector. We first saw Pirates 3 via DLP, and now HP5. I can really notice a quality difference which adds tremendously to my enjoyment of paying 8 bucks to see a movie in a theater environment.

I have finished the last of the Harry Potter books as of last night. While I find the conclusion satisfying, there are a few things in this book and the series itself, that will prevent me from calling it Great. I won’t go into them in detail now, since there are still a lot of people left who still need to read the 7th book. I will just conclude with a quote from Tycho @ Penny-Arcade which pretty much expresses how I feel and have felt about the Harry Potter series.

I finished the last Harry Potter yesterday, but I couldn’t actually tell you what happened in it. It’s been like that for several books now, starting with The Order of the Phoenix, where I grip the book with hunger and aggression and consume it without ever tasting the meal. I have a sense of being satisfied, but it is murky, and distant, the way an anaconda must feel one week after eating a jaguar. What is most important is that the wait, that long famine, has come to a close.