Happy New Year, all...what a way to start the year ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I")

I went to see the most recent Harry Potter film with the family today (since our Cleveland trip got canceled at the very last minute due to illness there). 

We went to the Bowtie Cinemas in Hartford since younger daughter had won two free passes because of her perfect attendance record in middle school.  The theatre has a terrible ad campaign:

Bowties: a gift on nobody's Christmas list.

Bowties Cinemas Gift Certificates: a gift on everyone's Christmas list.

Well, I hate to break it to 'em, but I had bowties on my Christmas list and received THREE of 'em.  (Last time I'm going there to see a movie.)

So, this was my first (and probably last) HP film, and one of the rare first-run films I've seen in a real live theatre in a long time. 

Some thoughts:

a) I don't want to watch commercials I can see on TV at the theatre, and I certainly don't want to see commercials for TV shows at the theatre!  What's wrong with ads for the concessions, film previews, and maybe the odd piece of movie trivia?  That's all you need before the movie. 

b) Boy, are those wizards noisy. (You'd think, if they have figured out how to travel so effortlessly and puts spells on people to turn them into someone else, that they could also reduce the noise involved too.  Oy.)

c) the whole film seems to concern how bad a necklace can make its wearer feel and how the best way to prevent that feeling is not to wear it;

d) where the hell was that Dobie/Doobie/Doogie character earlier?  He sure waited a long time to show up and save the day; 

e) that important scene in the forest seems to be a mixture of "Bambi" and "The Sword in the Stone";

f) I kept waiting for that deep-voiced lion to show up;

g) Hermione kept reminding me of Mary Louise Parker;

h) flushing oneself down a toilet seems to send the wrong message, no?

i) the most memorable line during the film was not in the film itself but by the younger daughter when she made an allusion to Ferris Bueller's Day Off (another film I saw for the first time this weekend...and another film the popularity of which baffles me!)   Noticing the blank yet pained expression on my face during the movie, she turned and said: "Dad, you look like Cameron."

j) I am REALLY glad my daughters enjoyed this film, but I'm pretty sure I can do without what I'm told will be an all-out war in Deathly Hallows Part II.  The anticipated decibel level alone will be enough to keep me away, and a nose-less Ralph Fiennes isn't a big enough draw to lure me back.

k) Now, if Hermione grows up and starts a marijuana business, well, THEN we might have something.