Potter Directors

I was talking with someone (I can't remember who) the other day about the Potter movies and their directors. I was under the false impression that all 5 had different directors, so I went and looked it up.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - David Yates
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Mike Newell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Alfonso Cuaron
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Chris Columbus
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Chris Columbus

Though I've enjoyed the movies immensely, I think #1 and #5 have been the best. I really liked Chris Columbus's style and respect to the original story in Sorcerer's Stone. That ran over into #2, which I also liked, but I didn't think it was as good as Stone. Prisoner was a departure from Columbus's style which I didn't like so much. I was not happy to see the kids put in jeans and T-shirts, and that kind of turned me off to this movie. I know that Emma was pushing for that, but let me just say phoo to that. I LOVED the ending credits made to look like the [Warning! Book 7 spoilers] Marauder's Map though. Goblet was, I think, the most disappointing of the films to date. Soooo much was taken out and changed for the film version, and the highest affront to me is changing the near-perfect tales that JKR has produced. Movie 4 sped through the book, leaving out tons of great backstory, changing details to meet the desires of the movie-makers, and just generally leaving me with a feeling that it was more for the money than the storytelling.
I just have to say thank god for David Yates. This guy must have worked with Chris Columbus or something, because to me the old magic of movie #1 was back with Order of the Phoenix. I'm am so, so, so happy to see that he's also on board for the 2008 release of Half-Blood Prince. I expect fully that it will be as good as Order's movie. (The Half-Blood Prince movie will release Nov 18th, 2008, according to FilmSpot, but the 21st according to IMDB. Suffice it to say that I'll be happily sitting in a midnight show sometime in Nov of next year.) (On IMDB, the "buzz" over the HBP movie has increased 900% since last week. Oooh!)

So, while I may complain a little about the execution of the movies, I do own all the DVDs and have enjoyed each several times. I'm so very happy that #1 was great (because hey, it's the first!) and that #5 was great (since that's my favorite of the books.)