Harry Potter Movie Marathon
With the final Harry Potter movie due out in theaters on July 15, 2011, I’m planning a movie marathon with my friend Jim. We are going to watch all of the Harry Potter movies at home on Blu-ray before going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 in the theater. Yes, we are grown men. No, we don’t care what you think. Harry Potter is Cool Beans!
THE VOLDEMORT IS IN THE DETAILS
Great planning must take place to maximize our experience, so the adventure begins! Details to consider: movie lengths, food, sleep, food, break-time activites, food, 2D vs. 3D, and last but not least – food.
Movie Lengths
- 152 mins. – 2 hr 32 min – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
- 161 mins. – 2 hr 41 min – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- 142 mins. – 2 hr 22 min – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- 157 mins. – 2 hr 37 min – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- 139 mins. – 2 hr 19 min – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- 153 mins. – 2 hr 33 min – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- 146 mins. – 2 hr 26 min – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
- 130 mins. – 2 hr 10 min – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
- 1,180 mins. – TOTAL LENGTH – That’s 19 hours 40 minutes! – Holy Harry, Batman!
There are only 1,440 minutes in a day. Yeah, that sucks, I know. But rather than test the limits of our sanity and squeeze the first 7 movies (17.5 hours) into one day, we decided to spread our viewing out over three days. Here’s the plan:
- Thursday night: watch movies 1-2 (313 mins. = 5 hr 13 min)
- Friday all day: take a day of vacation to watch movies 3-6 (591 mins. = 9 hr 51 min)
- Saturday: watch movie 7:Part 1 in the morning, and finally a matinee of 7:Part 2 in the theater (276 mins. = 4 hr 36 min)
- We muggles shall endure!
2D or not 2D, that is the question
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Part 2 were both filmed in 2D. Apparently they began the process of a post-production 3D conversion of Part 1, but stopped in mid-conversion, citing quality and time constraints as the driving concern. I guess they didn’t want to rush the process and end up with another Clash of the Titans 3D stink-a-roo on their hands. With Part 2, however, they have had an entire year to perform the 3D conversion, so in theory the 3D effects should look pretty good. (The Green Lantern, for example, was a post-production 3D conversion, and it turned out WAY better than Clash.) That leaves us with having to choose between the 2-D and 3-D versions in the theater. Actually, the decision wasn’t that difficult for us to make. We are going to the 2D version. Why? The 3D version costs $4 more than the 2D version. All 7 of the other movies were in 2D, and they were awesome. Jim doesn’t wear glasses, so wearing the 3D glasses bothers him. I do wear glasses, and having to wear a second pair bothers me. I’ll gladly don the 3D glasses for a fully computer animated movie, but sometimes, going to see a good old-fashioned 2D movie can be refreshing these days.
Break-Time Acitivies
Possible break-time activities include: sleeping, eating, playing LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4, taking a walk, eating, going mountain troll hunting, and eating.
Food, Glorious Food
Food was always a big part of the Harry Potter universe. It’s big in my universe too, and I can’t think of a better way to make a connection with Harry and his friends while watching them take on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named than to eat foods that are inspired by the books and movies. I’m sure I’ll miss some obvious ones, but here is a list of the foods we plan to eat:
- Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor beans – I’ve had the ones made by Jelly Belly. Vomit made me want to vomit. I’ll stick to the standard Jelly Belly flavors, thank-you!
- Chocolate Frogs – OK, pretty much anything chocolate will do just fine. And Gummy Worms are similar, right?
- Butterbeer – check out these recipes. I’m thinking cream soda with a shot of butterscotch schnapps sounds good.
- What am I missing that we can imitate? Please leave comments below.
Harry Potter movies 1-7 on Blu-ray
By Vaughn & Max & Amy & Mark Papenhausen, June 19, 2011 @ 1:04 pm
1. Pumpkin Juice & Pumpkin Pasties
2. Lopsided Birthday Cake (a la Hagrid)
3. Treacle Tarts (Harry’s favorite)
4. Raspberry Jam (Dumbledore’s favorite, and his security question)
5. (according to Max) Chicken legs are served in just about every Harry Potter movie.
6. Google (ok we ran out of ideas but found this site…)
Also: found recipes and foods list at http://www.britta.com/hogwarts/recipes. NOTE: a butterscotch Schnapps-or-syrup) butter beer recipe is listed there too.
By Bald Brain, June 19, 2011 @ 2:15 pm
Sweet ideas! Literally!
I like that chicken is a frequent Harry food. A meal from BW3 is most definitely on the menu now. I don’t know what Treacle is, but an assortment of pastries and tarts from Panera will do just fine. Raspberry jam can be on the breakfast menu Friday and Saturday. Pumpkin juice is a tough one. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find pumpkin ice cream to make a milk shake.
By Jim Ferriman, June 19, 2011 @ 3:35 pm
Oohhh man, are we gonna have fun or what?
By Bald Brain, June 22, 2011 @ 9:05 pm
The butterbeer recipe has been tested. A bottle of IBC Cream Soda and a shot (OK, more like a double-shot, ya caught me) of DeKuyper Buttershots makes for a PERFECT butterbeer recipe. (shhhhh, that may be the Buttershots speaking at the moment)
By Bald Brain, June 24, 2011 @ 8:40 pm
I found this article on drinking games, the first of which is based on Harry Potter movies. How perfect!
http://blastr.com/2011/06/celebrate-the-start-of-su.php
By Bald Brain, July 15, 2011 @ 12:09 pm
Viewing progress update: we finished the first two movies on Thursday night. Started around 6 and finished at midnight. We finished Azkaban on Friday morning around 11am. Taking a break now to prepare lunch and start watching Goblet.
By Bald Brain, July 15, 2011 @ 3:16 pm
Viewing progress update: finished Goblet at 3pm. Starting Order of the Phoenix now at 3:15.
By Bald Brain, July 15, 2011 @ 6:06 pm
Viewing progress update: just finished watching Order at 5:45. Getting dinner from BW3: 12 traditional wings in honor of all the chicken legs they have in the movies.
By Bald Brain, July 15, 2011 @ 9:34 pm
Viewing progress update: we finished watching Half-Blood at 9:30. I enjoyed a glass of butter beer. MMMMM. Delicious! We are going for Deathly Hallows Part 1 tonight! Can’t wait until tomorrow.
By Bald Brain, July 16, 2011 @ 12:19 am
Viewing progress update: we finished watching Deathly Hallows Part 1 at 12:15am. Can’t wait for Part 2 in the morning.
By Bald Brain, July 16, 2011 @ 10:30 am
Viewing progress update: Sitting in the theater for the 10:30am matinee at the Rave. Good seats in the middle. Big crowd. I like that for the reactions and energy in the room.
By Bald Brain, July 16, 2011 @ 8:22 pm
Final viewing progress update: Deathly Hallows Part 2 was EXCELLENT! I liked it even more than Part 1. Don’t get me wrong, Part 1 was great. It gave the three young adults a chance to really act. They grew into terrific actors over the course of the 8 movies.
But where Part 1 was mostly drama with the three lead actors on the run and an occasional action scene thrown in to shake things up, Part 2 had mostly action with just enough personal drama to remind us how much we learned to love these characters over the years. I could watch Part 2 over and over again. Action movies are great for that. Part 1 almost doesn’t belong in the series, it’s so different. It deserves critical acclaim, but it’s just not the kind of movie that I can repeatedly watch.
It was so much fun to watch all 8 movies over the course of three days. It helped me to appreciate how well the entire story was planned by Rowling, and how much work it must have taken to bring them all to the theater. Think about how they were able to get all the same actors back over the course of all 8 movies. So often personality conflicts and contract disputes ruin the continuity of a series, but not Harry Potter. The loss of Richard Harris as Dumbledore after Chamber of Secrets was unfortunate, but Michael Gambon grew on me, and I had no problem with his take on the character by the end of the series. My favorite character was Snape, greatly due to the brilliant acting of Alan Rickman, but also because his character was the most complex of all the characters in the stories, and Deathly Hallows Part 2 made that very clear.
My favorite of all the Harry Potter movies was the third installment: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Perhaps it was the directing style of Alfonso Cuarón. It’s a shame he only directed one movie in the series, although I’m sure many would disagree. What I liked most about Prisoner was the introduction of smart humor and the darker feeling compared to the first two. It wasn’t the darkest of the movies, but it was a great transition from the lightness of the first two movies to the truly adult nature of the rest of the series.
By Jim Ferriman, July 18, 2011 @ 11:33 am
Okay, so this post is a little late but I feel compelled to give my input. After watching all eight movies with Kevin over the weekend, I must say that I too have a grand appreciation for what Rowling did and how the movies were produced. It was truly amazing to watch the development of characters (both by writing and acting) as well as the story. By the end, I felt like these are real people and real places with real abilities! Oh, and did I mention how entertaining the movies were? I like them all. I think that Deathly Hallows Part 1 was my least favorite as far as action and entertainment but one of the best in acting and preparing the characters for the finale. My favorite movies were in the middle (3 through 5) with Deathly Hallows Part 2 a close second to that group). While I’m sure I’ll have that curiosity of wondering about the character’s lives outside of the movies (what happened in between having children? how did they put Hogwarts back together again? how powerful are their children? and etc.), I’m glad the series is over … and that it ended well. Thanks again Kevin for hosting the weekend. Let me know if we need to do this again with another series!
By Pigwidgeon, September 30, 2011 @ 5:14 pm
I was planning on having a Harry Potter Movie Marathon with my friends over winter break. These ideas have really helped in my planning!
Other ideas you could add would be for the invitations to the party:
•Maurauder’s Map
•Hogwarts First-years greetings
•Howler (get a card where you can record your own voice, and decorate it to be magical-like).
Thanks, hope everyone has fun with their Wizarding – and Muggle – fiestas!