The ABC Family Channel was showing the first three Harry Potter movies this weekend. I've seen the first two a number of times on TV over the years but this is the first time I've seen Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on TV. As I thought at the time, it's clearly the best of the movie versions. And it's more than just a result of the book being meatier than the previous ones. Even a cursory examination shows that Alfonso Cuarón created an actual world that Harry and the other characters seemed to live in, compared to the shallow, un-imaginative backdrop that Chris Columbus created. I only saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire one time in the theaters but it was clear the Mike Newall was trying to be more in the Cuarón rather than Columbus mode. Good for him.