‘s and I went to see Harry Potter III this afternoon at the Buckhead backlot. Our good buddy Sarah Robinson babysitted for us, in exchange for Stacey taking her to see Spider-Man 2 yesterday.

There was only one showing today of HP at Buckhead, which was supposed to be at 3:50pm, according to the website. When we got there, the marquee said 4:00pm. No biggie.

But we didn’t get into the theater until 4:40pm or so. There were dozens of us crowded in the little hallway, and kids running wilder and wilder by the minute. Management gave us all free sodas. When the doors finally opened, about 7 people came out, carrying a half finished birthday cake. Apparently we’d all been inconvenienced by a rental. boooo!

The movie eventually started up, and the waitress took our order for a pizza. (We went to Buckhead Backlot so we could combine dinner and a movie, and not overly inconvenience our babysitter) The sound was mediocre, but the movie was great! The best of the three yet, though Stacey’s least favorite book of the series. A good director seems to help.

One thing that I didn’t like, and this may have been more because of the way the book was written, but Malfoy just had no menace to him whatsoever. Partially because they had to let his hair down over his forehead to cover up zits, but also.. who runs away crying in fear because a girl punches him, especially a mudblood girl? Where was the fiery vengeful anger at being wronged?

Anyway, at the climactic point where Harry waves his wand to cast the Big, Bad Spell that fights off the dementors for good, the film stops. Some woman behind us said. “Man, that was some spell.”

10 minutes later, they got it going again, but it was a slow wind up that totally stole the thunder of the Big Spell.

Still, there’s nothing like a good flick to rejuvenate the parent-within.