The HBP Experience

[16 July 2009, Quezon City]

I learned a valuable lesson from the Transformers 2 ROTF – expect the worst movie experience with blockbuster movies. To avoid all the hassles and inconveniences, I signed up for Sure Seats two days ago and reserved my seat for the first screening of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince.

The middle seats are mostly taken. The best rows I-J-K are all filled up. Lucky that the L row still has a few available slots right in the middle. It’s a nearly perfect seat. The ticket for Cinema 7 costs Php190 with a Php20 additional reservation fee. Not bad. The catch however is I should claim the ticket 45 minutes before the screening time.

Half-Blood Prince Movie Showing Dates

Last night, a rare idea came to me. Out of the blue, I had the urge to watch the Half-Blood Prince premiere night. Having followed the movie franchise for years now, it’s quite a shame that I have yet to attend the premiere the entire time. Call me stingy, but I honestly don’t see a need for one. Premiere nights of foreign movies in Manila are nothing more than an advanced screening (that’s what i think). I may be ahead of the general public by a few hours by attending the premiere, but the hassle and the crowd is too much for me to bear. I’m not sure if there are freebies though. A life-size poster of the trio might change my mind.

New Half-Blood Prince Trailer

… and it’s official this time! My lucky day indeed… even if I’m still a little disoriented from lack of sleep. This is sure better than Coke to wake me up.

The trailer will be available in theaters on November 21st with the movie Twilight. Great! I now have two reasons for watching Twilight, both of them totally unrelated to the book/movie itself.

Links to Quicktime HD movie: Small | Medium | Large

ALERT: Spoiler Pics

Astronomy Tower. Battle scene.

Harry and Prof. Dumbledore near the cave where Voldemort keeps one of his horcruxes. (I miss the half-moon spectacles.)

More screencaps at Mugglenet.

HBP 2nd Teaser Trailer

A new Half-blood Prince International Teaser Trailer was released today at Trailer Addict. Below is a youtube version courtesy of ZFStudios.

“But I am the chosen one!” LOL!

Plot Diversion

Movies are known for not sticking to the book plot. It’s understandable, they are two different media. A movie pleasure’s appeal is on the visuals, fast-paced development of plot and characters. Meanwhile, book reading gives you a laid-back view of things, with twists and turns (subplots), as it is meant to be read for a while – at least longer than a 2-hour movie. So at the very least, movies are to stick to the main storyline.

I remember reading a comment: “Never judge a book by it’s movies!” I cannot agree more. [Lesson learned: Kids, don't cheat on your book report by watching the movie version.]

Now why am i here ranting over these obvious fact, you ask, when I am nothing but a moviegoer, not a writer nor a movie director, and my understanding of the art of moviemaking is the size of a pea?

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I was about to let it pass by not blogging about it (been in my drafts since the news broke out). See this news if you haven’t already. Two scenes i was looking forward to is not in the movie.

- No Hogwarts battle scene
- No burial of dumbledore

But i’ll stop here and spare myself of all the dragging. Coz’ however disappointed i am, I’ll still of course go see this movie.

Dragon Ball

To begin with, i didn’t know a “live” version of this extremely popular anime is in the works. So I was excited for a second, but honestly it looks like a cheap under-budgeted project to me (sorry!). And Goku is a teenager considered uncool and unpopular at school. Just by that, this is obviously not the DragonBall i know.

Well it will be cool to see Chow Yun Fat (as Master Roshi) and Emmy Rossum (as Bulma) though. For more on this, this site may be helpful.