Monkey vs. The Midnight Screening

I am attempting to keep myself awake.  Unlike my lovely hubby who has lots of leave saved up, I do not.  Which means that in about 2 hours I have to start getting ready for work.   Arg.  But my sleep deprivation is worth it.

Continuous cups of tea are helping too.

Upon our arrival at the movie theater for the midnight screening of the Half Blood Prince, Damian and I were confronted with a wall of teenagers the line. It was only 8:45 pm. 

We looked at each other, went to the ticket kiosk, picked up our tickets, and then promptly turned around and went into the nearby Barnes and Noble.   We had our tickets; I was not worried about getting in to see the film.  And the thought of standing next to squealing teenage girls made my head pound.  (I was NEVER like that, I swear to god I was never like that!!!  Dammit I wasn’t, okay!)

We returned at 9:30 pm, when the mall closed.  That’s right we picked Tyson’s Corner.   The teenagers (and tweens) had quadrupled since we first arrived.  And when AMC let the first batch into the movie theater there was much screaming.  [Note-to-self: If attempting to see the seventh and eighth films at midnight, bring copious amounts of earplugs.]

What was such a shock to me was the average age and gender of those in line with us.  It was overwhelmingly female; and the only other adults that I saw were parents chaperoning their kids. At least there were not any discernable groups of adults. My powers of observation were slightly hampered by it being WAY past my bedtime.  Ahem.  Where was I?

The wait outside the theater was actually significantly more bearable then the wait inside.  Once we were seated (in the second row mind you, because said tweens and teens were douches and saved whole freaking rows) AMC started their horrid cycle of trivia.  Followed then by the “pre-show” which consisted of 1 minute of actual information and about 25 minutes of commercials.  If I saw the one commercial about the guy drooling over the corvette I was going to scream. 

The film was supposed to start at 12:01 am.  However, the opening sequence didn’t roll until about 12:35 am.  This was due to the AMC folks ensuring that everyone had a seat (I give them kudos for that); and the projector breaking. 

That’s right. The fucking projector broke during the previews.  I had to physically restrain Damian, as the picture cut out not once but three times.  It was becoming ominous, and I had a sinking suspicion that AMC would stop the screening and tell us to come back another day.  Thankfully, my suspicion was dead wrong.  We finally made it through the previews, and the film started.

Almost 3 hours later we exited the theater, somewhat dazed because of the closeness of the screen, and definitely tired.  Just like the book it was an emotional roller coaster.

I’ll post my thoughts on the film separately, so as not to spoil it for those who have yet to see the film.