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Click an image to see it full-size. 
So
here in Australia, Greater Union cinemas have something called "Gold Class".
I believe they're soon to be introducing that particular chain in the US,
though you guys might have something similar already.
Basically, you pay triple what you normally would for a much smaller cinema (60 seats) with HUGE fully reclining chairs, grouped in pairs, with little tables. The cinema has its own attached bar and you can order food and drinks that come in at a point during the film that you specify. Anyway, we all decided the only way to see this film for the first time was Gold Class! $500 later and we had fifteen tickets. Don't boggle, they're $36 each. Not too much to pay individually! We managed to get together quite a big group for this - in total, we had fifteen people attend, with ten of us in costume! Not bad, eh? Considering that Sydney was totally lame-tastic and didn't have any sort of special event or even a midnight screening to mark the occasion, I thought that was a pretty terrific effort! In total we had: Harley Quinn (me, duh) Poison Ivy The Joker Femme!Joker The Riddler Zatanna Batgirl Nightwing Penguin Bruce Wayne A set of gorgeous head-shots of some of our brood...
And then there's mine...
heh heh!
Now, before I continue I should tell you that the release of this film has coincided with a little event known as 'World Youth Day'. Perhaps you've heard of it? About one billion zillion Catholics had converged on Sydney from all over the world and the Pope was visiting and patting koalas and stuff. The whole city had been crazy that week with pilgrims milling about and singing hymns in random spaces. This played more than a small part in the amount of attention we got on the night. It meant that the city was far busier than usual with bunches of tourists wandering the streets seeing the sights. As we emerged from the cab, a group of literally twenty Catholic teenagers descended on us, and exclaimed in unison "CAN WE HAVE A PHOTO?" I can only describe what we did next as 'held court' as the group fired off questions to us and insisted we pose repeatedly for photos. They then asked us where they could go bowling. Bowling? BOWLING? I suggested they go check out a strip club in Kings Cross instead.
We had other people to wait for, so we hung around outside and allowed ourselves to be adored. I've really only had this sort of experience at Mardi Gras before. One person asks for a photo, you say yes and pose. All of a sudden, everyone else around that one person makes a grab for their cameras and starts snapping off shots. Everytime you think everyone is finished, someone new passes by and jumps in. Then they want photos WITH you. Then they want photos of their friends with you. Then all their friends want photos with you with their cameras. Then they want photos with you and their kids. And so on. We were MOBBED, how else can I describe it? No one was expecting to see such a thing on a Thursday night in town, so people were thrilled. Listen, we're all attention-whores so please don't think we weren't enjoying this. We were LOVING it. We pandered. Yes, we did, shamelessly. We posed and preened and smiled and flirted and loved every second. Our other Joker arrived, as did our Nightwing, and the photo-taking re-intensified. Nightwing did a great job, considering he was surrounded pretty much by villains as our Batgirl, Zatanna and Bruce Wayne were late. He was a total ham, to the delight of the crowd, and took his mobbing well. People knew who pretty much everyone was - except me! Grrrr Aussies are so lame with their pop culture awareness! ;)
Finally, we couldn't wait any longer and had to go in so we could order our nibblies at the bar. The rest of our mob deigned to show up ;) and we managed to get a few group shots for ourselves before going into the actual theatre to await the exciting start of the film. EVERYONE looked really sensational, even if we had the skinniest and tallest Penguin imaginable! XD I'm really happy we had a Riddler there (onya Boris!) as it made me feel like we were paying a little tribute to Query.
Being in the Harley Costume
As for wearing the Harley costume - everytime I get into it, everything in me that's Harley just takes over. It's natural and effortless. It's like there's a freedom to be more of myself - I'm not one for faking who I am at any time, but I think there's a certain restraint we all exercise to some degree in society. Putting on the costume eliminates that. It also immediately makes me feel extremely submissive. But not in a general do anything for anyone kinda way. Just for the two Jokers. Even though I knew they were just my friends, dressed up, it just flicked a switch in my brain. I'm an uninhibited person anyway, and generally pretty perky and bouncy but there was also a certain permissiveness that came with the wearing of the costume, it allowed certain behaviours. XD It felt like a second skin - I love my Harley costume! A friend said to me afterwards she was watching me on the night thinking: "wow, she's not cosplaying Harley - she IS Harley!" Aw! :)
Finally - if you're interested in what I actually THINK of the movie itself - I've written about it at the following links. SPOILERS EVERYWHERE! Spoiler-Free Initial Thoughts Mistah J Moments I Loved (Spoilery) Criticisms (Spoilery) Ledjoker - Some Thoughts (Spoilery)
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