The Cinemark movie theater on Glades Road is usually filled with wheelchairs, canes and that awful smell of moth balls mixed with the Elizabeth Taylor line of cheap perfume. But on the eve of July 15 it was filled with broomsticks, wands and a Golden Snitch.
The theater is the usual hot spot for the older Boca community, but that was not the case at the premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth movie in the seven-movie series.
Alison Bermudez traveled all the way from Aventura, in Dade County, just to see the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince “because this is the place to be.” She was very excited to be there.
“Dumbledore is my favorite character because he has a lot of different sides to him,” she says.
Potter fans purchased their movie tickets days in advance and arrived at the theater two hours before the premiere in hopes of securing good seats. Harry Potter had lines of people wrapped around the movie theater and out the door.
Mary Tolly, a student at Saint Andrews High School, dressed as the Death Eater, in a long flowing black robe that made her look like the Grim Reaper. She was accompanied by her two classmates Juliane Miklos, who dressed as Dumbledore, in a long, flowing silver robe, and Baird Elam, who sported a preppy-looking schoolgirl outfit to emulate Hermione. Tolly was ecstatic to attend her very first Harry Potter premiere and prove her devotion by pulling the infamous Golden Snitch — a ball used in the wizard sport Quidditch — out of her robe.
FAU business major and junior George Reilly and his brother, Matt Reilly, a student at Gannon University in Pennsylvania, provided some comic relief and turned heads as they showed up at the premiere dressed in female wizard costumes. Both George and Matt explained that they ordered their costumes online and had them expedited just in time for the movie.
Victoria Ng, an alumna who majored in intercultural studies, sported a Harry Potter shirt along with fellow alumna Kim Kamuca. Before graduating, both took a six-week graduate-level summer course that not only required them to read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince but write a paper on it.
“Our professor taught us how to analyze the book and find traces of gender and race theories and reactions,” the two said.
Just after everyone felt like they had been standing there forever, the never-ending line of Potter fans began to move slowly as the ropes were opened and Cinemark employees began to rip ticket stubs of enthusiastic fans. It was showtime.
