The Prisoner of Azerbaijan (!) ;pfinally had time to see harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban yesterday evening. i read the book somewhere over asia in january 2002. i was on a plane 🙂 , immediately continuing off where chamber pretty much left off. yes. it was a rather pathetic attempt at a potter marathon. hey. i had to keep up. book number four was already in paperback! after buying the books at whsmiths, i looked around and found it rather peculiar to see every other passenger at LHR, including the woman in the seat next to me on the plane, reading harry potter.

i couldn’t exactly remember much of the book. i knew it had dementors and the first emergence of sirius black. cuaron’s vision of j.k. rowling‘s third instalment of the series was dark. in many sense of the word. invokes the thought of empire strikes back when i first saw it in 1979! ain’t that sunny like columbus’ two earlier versions. grey overcast skies. a tim burton-cum-batman kind of gothic feel to the hallowed halls of hogwarts. quidditch in a thunderstorm. a meaner mutha of a whomping willow. yeah!

the kids have grown up (and before harry sprouts facial hair to look like hagrid, they’d better hurry up with the later sequels!). gone is the hogwarts public school-esque preppiness. the unkempt comprehensive look is the order of the day (*someone’s feeling a little elitist this afternoon*). michael gambon does a good dumbledore although i preferred the late richard harris’ portrayal of the headmaster. with all the recent deaths of great actors recently, i digress, i’m glad george lucas had finished principal photography for episode iii! i thought gary oldman was simply class, and an apt choice for sirius. really looking forward to the sequels now.

by the by, in one of the earlier sequences of the movie, in the leaky couldron, i thought i saw ian brown of the stone roses! if it was him, cool cameo!

the next book is apparently called harry potter and the half blood prince. call me an overgrown kid, but i can’t wait!