Oh yes, I did go see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban last night and it was fantastic. I'm an unabashed Harry Potter fan and I think Alfonso Cuarón is pretty awesome, so the midnight showing was a no-brainer for me.

I had planned to arrive at 11pm, but I figured I'd show up 15 minutes early just to be safe. Thankfully, my friend Zack had arrived at 10:30 because the line was already stretched down the block (by the time they let people in it was easily around the corner, pictured below). Upon arrival, I was disappointed by the lack of costumes. The best I got was a couple girls covered in Harry Potter stickers and wearing scarves. That's kinda lame people. This is the midnight showing. Get with it. Anyway, to my surprise they let people in at 11, which seemed ridiculously early and meant that a run to Walgreens for Junior Mints was out of the question. It also meant I would go on to buy a jumbo tub of popcorn and a jumbo soda, finish the majority of it and wake up horribly nauseated.

Once we got inside, it was a lot of waiting but tame. The movie started on time and all was well. I won't go into details yet, but I'll say that I loved the film. It was definitely the best of the three. I do have to share one small bit that doesn't give much away, because it was hilarious. Early in the film, people find out that Sirius Black might be coming to Hogwarts (the school Harry Potter attends). The only African-American student whose had speaking role in any of the three films says, "You think Black could get in here?" The audience picked up on this and started cracking up. I so want to believe that Cuarón did it on purporse.

The movie let out around 2:30 and I quickly headed home. On the way out, and Andy wil appreciate this, some kid said "I'm gonna download this first thing tomorrow." Crazy.

I may have only gotten 5 hours of sleep and woke up with a belly full of semi-digested popcorn, but it was well worth it. Midnight movies are awesome.

Another thought: At work, we have deemed my current state a "movie hangover." When asked if I would be eating popcorn anytime soon I informed them that I wouldn't eat it again. It reminded me of the times when my friends would swear off alcohol after a serious bender. Oh, and people have been telling me to drink lots of water. The fact that I've had way more movie hangovers than alcohol hangovers is entertaining to me.

One more thing (6/7/04): I forgot to mention that Ned saw it ad midnight too.