HARRY POTTER THE SECOND TIME AROUND

I watch certain movies repeatedly. And I don't mean just two or three times... like HUNDREDS of times.

Most of the time it's when I'm babbling on my blog or Facebook or working on a lesson - it's sort of a comfortable background noise. I don't have to pay attention, because I know every single line of dialogue, all the action in every scene, all the expressions on every actors face.

It's sort of like eating popcorn - it's sort of filling, but mindless, and really doesn't taste like much of anything, it just SMELLS so great.

So some movies - Aliens, Serenity, You've Got Mail, Jesse and Steven Go To Yale and Lose Their Virginity - just can get played over and over and over and over... and all the Harry Potter movies are, of course, in that same category.

But I am a HUGE JK Rowling fan - I love all of her H.P. books. So I am super critical of the movies when they stray AT ALL from the original plot.

Earlier this week, I took my daughter to go see HPATHBP. And sat there hating it more and more every step the director took away from the book.

So I got a chance for redemption this weekend - my husband wanted to see HPATHBP (and doesn't like to go to movies by himself anymore), we went, and I DID NOT THINK OF THE BOOK AT ALL.

And enjoyed it thoroughly.

NO MORE ADULTHOOD, PLEASE

My daughter and I went to see the sixth Harry Potter movie this afternoon, thinking, early Thursday, movie's been out for a while, should be a quiet matinee.

It wasn't packed, but it was more crowded than I expected.

I'm a HP purist. If J.R. Rowling wrote it, then that's how it is. I have little patience with the directors who drop some of the best scenes right out of the script and put in some of the stupidest lines.

So I wasn't exceptionally happy with HPATHBP - although I was surprised that some parts were absolutely perfect (the Inferi were great).

But it was fun to get lost in the wizarding world of Hogwarts, instead of worrying about how much you can honestly modify the aforementioned daughter's resume when she has been every-thing-except-fired from her fast food job, how long you can afford to pay her rent with no other income coming in, and how much can you pressure your back-living-at-home-and-not-attending-college-anymore son into possible sharing his sister's abode and thereby paying part of the rent.

Yeah, give me a wand and put me up against Voldemort - right now that sounds easier.