Some random but related thoughts about movies

I saw The Matrix for the first time tonight. It isn't as good as everyone says it is.

Last week, I bought the DVD of Clerks and watched it for the first time since I saw it in the theater when it was released. It isn't nearly as good as I remembered it to be.

I have never seen the film version of Gone With the Wind, although I have read the novel twice. I have promised myself that the first time I see the movie, it will be in a theater on a large screen, as God intended it to be seen. However, in the past five years, I have passed up two such opportunities.

I am vaguely concerned that, while I believe myself to have a very rich and vivid imagination, it does not easily withstand assaults by the mass media and the ubiquity of hype. I have carefully avoided any press coverage of the inevitable movie adaptation of the Harry Potter novels, and I have resigned myself to not seeing the movie for several years, if ever. I have a very clear and infinitely detailed picture in my mind of how Hogwart's School appears. I can see the awkward Harry, the bookish Hermoine and the freckled, impetuous Ron as I imagine the author herself imagines them. If I glimpse the child actors the media has lionized as "perfect" for the respective roles, or if I am made privvy to the details of locations that will stand in for the sites in the books, I fear that my imaginings will dissipate like morning fog and with them, my enjoyment of the books will vanish as well.