Spoilers ahoy!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was watched, tonight, in possibly the most perfect environment; a 21+ theater where alcohol was served, and absolutely no children were admitted.

Not that even screaming children could have ruined the evening; this Harry Potter movie is significantly different than the first two, in that this one is good.

Oh, the first two were enjoyable enough. But being Return of the Empire fans -- back when that meant something, and people with dignity still talked about things like being Empire fans -- we prefer dark, brooding, excellent movies to ones with Ewoks. And by 'Ewoks' we mean 'Dobby.'

This movie is dark, brooding and downright scary, but for all that it's better than the first two put together. It's as if someone finally gave J.K. Rowling an editor, and cut out all the useless crap; there's only one Quidditch match in the entire movie, and it doesn't suffer. A lot of false leads and false scares are cut out, and it doesn't suffer. Class after class is cut out, and it doesn't suffer a bit.

Dawn French is featured as the Fat Lady, and my god, it doesn't suffer at all.

Daniel Radcliffe has grown up in to quite the little actor; this movie demands a lot more from him, and he excels at everything (except, we regret to point out, crying. He's not a great crier.). Emma Watson is excellent as well -- and darned cute. Rupert Grint is hilarious, and someday when he's hosting chat shows on the BBC we shall watch him fondly and remember him declaring "Spiders! Tap dancing!"

The movie isn't perfect; there's a bit of schmaltz added to the end, to make up for, probably, the fucking scary tone in the rest of it. And for all the spot on and excellent choices made to excise sections of the text, there is no excuse for leaving out an explanation of who made the marauder's map, why Harry saw a stag and thought it was his dad, or Sirus' letter of permission to go to Hogsmeade. A friend who'd never read the book was a little bit lost.

In the end, it doesn't matter; this is a horror movie for kids, and it's brilliantly well done. For the first time Hogwarts is as scary, and crazy and real as it is in the books, and we couldn't be happier.
Comments-[ comments.]
# Posted by Rachel on 9:43 PM

"The first records we did with them were very urban, what they normally do," Carter said. "And then we said, 'Why don't we just try to do something different?' We listened to, like, a Peter Gabriel record and we wrote, all of us collectively, wrote a song with them that was just, like, pushing the envelope."

John Kerry's top 20 Vice Presidential Candidates

17. Ashton Kutcher, actor, California
Pro: Could "punk" Bush campaign with crazy pranks, make them think their president plane got stoled, and then he could yell "Punk'd!" and it would be funny
Con: Sucks