I went to see Up in 3D tonight, one day earlier than expected due to a rare burst of spontaneity, and it was wicked awesome, but I will write more about that (and the other animated films I have seen/will see this week) another time.

What I really wanted to say was – the Barbican cinema, which is where we saw it, is 2 storeys underground and has no reception.

I can’t be the only one who thinks this is a genius way of terminating phone-pest behaviour during movies? Because it really bothers me. Texting and that buzzy vibrating noise are massive annoyances (let’s not even get started on actual phone ringing, and worse still, people picking it up and going “I’m in a movie!!” in what they think is a hushed tone but actually isn’t). I just think that unless you are a massively important VIP, in which case you can afford a private viewing of said film, there is no reason why anyone needs to use their phone during a movie.

So why is it not more common to just build cinemas with no reception? Singapore, take note!

there are some songs that just start your morning off with a euphoric bang. bon jovi’s “you give love a bad name” is one of them. so is, as i discovered this morning, matchbox twenty’s “real world”, which plastered a silly grin on my face as i walked to the tube station and which i am sure made me an object of ridicule to passersby, embarrassment fortunately offset by the said induced euphoria.

i ache everywhere (no, there is no explanation, i just ache despite a marked lack of physical exertion of late), i am really tired, i have an unprecedented amount of work to do, there are unforeseen snags with stuff, i have not left the office on time once in the past few weeks, monday promises to be a crazy busy day and i still can’t find anyone to take my extra proms ticket for monday night… not to mention i am perversely continuing to sleep deprive myself by wasting time online when i could be sleeping. why, why do i do this?

but! on the bright side there have been several pieces of good news from friends lately (yays all around), some good-ish news for myself, and teasingly tentative summer weather beckons this weekend. oh BBC, you and your vague, non-committal “sunny intervals”. you’ll probably change your mind in the morning too, as well as throughout the day, fickle and heartless as you are.

anyway, to all, i am very well, i know i owe multiple people emails/messages/chat time (i think the victorians had the right idea about setting aside a letter-writing time everyday for personal correspondence; it really piles up), but i haven’t forgotten and hope to catch up soon… “hope” being the operative word! the work and jobhunt and other annoying offline obligations never seem to end.

oh and the trailer for tim burton’s alice is really weird. i have decided to drop the idea altogether that it is an “alice film” and instead think of it as an entirely new fantasy world and characters which bear some vague, very distant resemblance to carroll’s – i am sure it will be a fabulous film but let it be said it has very little similarity to alice! it’s almost as egregious a departure as ella enchanted was, the latter being worse only because it made the pretense of being like the book while alice has the saving grace of being a sequel.

Given that I left the cinema practically slack-jawed in awe, and almost the whole of the film in some kind of rapture, this may not be tremendously objective… but I’ll try my best.

On the whole, I really, really liked HBP. I thought it was the best of the movies so far, and in order to assess this opinion I went home and re-watched PoA, my previous favourite, to see how they stacked up against each other. I definitely need to see HBP again before giving a definitive conclusion, but at this point I have to say that, given PoA had such a strong book as its base and HBP doesn’t, it is remarkable how good the latter movie is. And I think it is as good as, if not better, than the PoA movie.

I should preface this with a caveat that I’ve only read HBP once, when it first came out. I can’t remember a lot of things about the book, so missing things and niggly details didn’t bug me so much. And I did not go in expecting it to be anything like the book. If you do, you WILL be disappointed! If you’re prepared for something that departs significantly but still manages to capture the essence of the book and stands in its own right as a cracking good movie, you’ll enjoy it a lot more. Detailed review of things I liked and didn’t like below!

WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS.

DO NOT READ!

…if you haven’t seen the film and don’t want to be spoiled. It’s safely cut for everyone reading this here directly, but if you’re reading this in Google Reader, beware.