Seems I'm not the only one...

As blue-eyed Benjamin would say, "Make with the click, ya crum-bum!"

http://io9.com/5169627/

Question of the day

Why the hell doesn't the blogspot text editor work properly? I get extra spaces betwen paragraphs, or no spaces. Just like in Outlook.

It's not like text editors haven't been around since the early days of computing! Grrr.

Apparently, Doctor Manhattan Can't Keep it Up

As per Variety, Watchmen's drop from its opening weekend is looking to be 67%. This doesn't surprise me. Watchmen seems to be a film only a fan of the graphic novel could love (or, in my case, admire for its ambition if not its execution). Everyone else, it seems, could care less.

Hopefully, the studios will back off on their rush to make every superhero movie "dark". I've been reading how, in the wake of The Dark Knight's success, the studios want to make Superman (Superman!) and the Fantastic Four darker. This only works when the character can naturally bear that interpretation, such as Batman. That said, I wasn't overly impressed with The Dark Knight. I'm not saying there shouldn't be grim superhero films, or that superhero films need to be childish; but are any properties less dark than Superman or The Fantastic Four?! You want to make a dark superhero movie about an indestructible, flying man with x-ray and heat vision? Fine. Just don't call it Superman. The Thing shouts "It's Clobberin' Time!" not "It's dismemberin' time!" or "It's knifin' time!"

Each superhero film should be its own thing, with its own sensibilities. If you homogenize these things and apply current trends, it's going to be the law of diminishing returns. We've seen that countless times in Hollywood. Every time something hits, we get a dozen knock-offs until the trends sputters out. (Shark movies, anyone? Breakdancing movies, anyone? Matrix-style fighting movies, anyone?) For my money the best superhero films are Iron Man, Spider-Man 2 (except the ridiculous bit where he takes of his mask and a subway car full of citizens agrees to keep his identity secret), Superman 2 (dated effects, corny as hell, but still fun) and The Invincibles (why no sequel?!)

Fingers crossed that the relatively poor performance of Watchmen will put at least a couple of nails into the coffin of the dark superhero film.

Who Tweets the Watchmen?

I’m not on Twitter (and probably never will be), but thought I’d try my hand at the format (140-characters or less per entry) and write my initial impressions of Watchmen:

* Too short. Should have been a 12-part HBO mini-series.

* Opening sequence: awesome. Hi, Warhol, Bowie, and Jagger! Fun subversion of iconic sailor-kiss photo.

* So ordinary, non-powered folks can punch through granite countertops, can they?

* Jackie Earle Haley is very, very good.

* Nite Owl looks WAY too much like Chevy Chase, ca. 1979. Distracts.

* Holy F, Malin Akerman is a terrible actress.

* Holy F, Mathew Goode is a terrible actor.

* Thanks for explaining The Doomsday Clock to me like I’m a complete fucking idiot.

* Adrian can see poison capsules in people’s mouths from five feet away! Other characters strangely not at all suspicious.

* Person who did old-age makeup effects obviously doesn’t know his craft. Doesn’t help that actors don’t act old.

* Hey! Where’d Hollis Mason go?!

* Cartoon violence and realistic violence don’t mix if your film has no sense of irony.

* I would have had my name taken off this film, too, Alan. Dave Gibbons on crack if he thinks this mess is good.

* Bad use of back-catalogue music to set emotional tone. Hire better actors!

* Adrian says he’s not a cartoon villain. No one told Matthew Goode that.

* Sex scene: pointless. Unsexy.

* Destruction of a big chunk of New York strangely unmoving. Bodies conveniently disintegrated.

* Small-scale brutal violence okay with director; large-scale not so much.

* Silk Spectre and Nite Owl kill people. What the F?!

* Three hours of life lost to this mess.

* Critics say "faithful" to original. Haven't read original, obviously.

* No more Alan Moore stories will be turned into Hollywood pap. Hooray!