I haven’t watched any Harry Potter movies in a couple/few years (except for Half-Blood Prince, which I saw last year). The weather is cool, and it’s quiet. Why not watch all of the films?
Last night I watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (had to use the PAL deck for that), and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I’ve got Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban playing now.
Prisoner of Azkaban was, I thought, the best job of filmmaking among them. The first two were short enough that they could adapt them pretty much completely faithfully, which made for good films, but doesn’t really reflect on the director. The third one, though, they had to make a lot of cuts to fit it in, but they did it cleverly and artfully. And by the fourth one, they were just cutting so much that it wasn’t even worth bothering any more.
I’d say Azkaban and Half-blood Prince are more or less tied for the best ones.
The Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite of the films by far. It does the best job of storytelling and has the best visual style of the bunch. It also helps that the main characters have matured enough at that point to be more relatable, and the actors portraying them have matured enough to be better actors.
PoA is my favorite in the series; book and movie. Half-Blood Prince runs a very close second… the book, not the movie. The movie was terribly disappointing.
I’m currently rereading Deathly Hallows, before the movie comes out in November.
I know there’s no way they can incorporate the entire book into a movie; but it is disappointing when you’re looking forward to seeing a certain storyline and then it isn’t even mentioned.
Funny, I went on a Potter tear over the last two weeks and reread all seven books, finishing the Deathly Hallows at around 2AM this morning. And while I realize the series has flaws, going through it again reminded me of what an amazing job Rowling did, in particular the way she pulled together a lot of loose questions at the very end. It’s really an impressive accomplishment.
I’m watching Order of the Phoenix (or ‘Po-ho-nix’, as I like to say). The funny thing about this story is that a VP at a former employer was exactly like Dolores Umbridge. Or should I say, when I read about Dolores Umbridge this VP was the first person to come to mind. Seriously. Everyone hated her, except for her toadies.