Harry Potter

It's been a long time since I read any of the Harry Potter books or watched any of the Harry Potter movies.  I have definitely read all the books (and frankly could do with re-reading them sometime soon), but I am extremely unsure whether I've watched all the movies.  But then beginning on New Year's Day, and continuing into today, HBO decided to air every single movie one after the other.  So now I've got 8 movies on my DVR that I need to get through.  Obviously, they are incomparable to the books - but I am going to get through them because I like to get immersed in the joy of the Harry Potter universe (even if the films get decidedly darker in the later stages!).  I just finished the first one: Harry Potter and (cue sad Americanization) the Sorcerer's Stone.  Jeez, my immediate thoughts from watching were how weirdly young the kids looked in it, and how many of the older cast are now sadly deceased (a special RIP to Alan Rickman's melodious voice).  I had to look it up, and the film came out in 2001 - which doesn't seem that long ago, but really was.  I mean, 17 years ago I had absolutely no inkling that the US was in my future.