Happy Brooklyn Day! When I was a kid, I used to get this day off from school. Although I’m still in Brooklyn, I don’t get it off anymore. Rats.

I saw “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” It was my favorite of all the books and, thus far, it is my favorite movie. I enjoyed Alfonso Cuaron’s direction. Rather than show us every single scene from the book (ala the first two films), he just focused on the main themes and showed what was needed to move the story along. What’s impressive is that even though the book was longer than the first two, its film version was shorter than each of the first two. Besides, my alltime favorite scene in all of the Harry Potter books is the confrontation inside the tree between Sirius Black, Lupin, Pettigrew, Snape, and the kids. It was as much fun to watch as it was to read. Now, with “Goblet of Fire” schedule to open in November 2005, the films are catching up to the books. I hope J.K. Rowling can write the last two quickly!