Of course I do own 3 copies of it. When I got back into comics in 2005, it was the first comic I bought but it fell to the wayside as I attempted to get caught up with the current stack of on-going comics. After Watchmen was announced as a movie, I had made a mental note to read it before 3/9/2009. As early reviews started coming in, I decided it was best to not read the book and wait until after the movie. As involved with comics as I am, I’ve managed to completely distance myself with knowing anything about the Watchmen as possible. Its something I’ve always wanted to read and have tried not to spoil it for myself. Up until seeing the movie 2 days ago, the only thing I knew about the Watchmen was that some people skip the pirate parts when reading it.

To get right to it, I loved Watchmen. The movie is smart, brutal, political and sexy. While it’s a long movie it never felt long and I attribute this to the brilliant story. The first hour of the movie I felt was the weakest part. Most of the setup falls victim to the task of bringing the comic book pages to life. I could tell the timeline was straight from a book, a comic book none the less, as things jumped around too much for a linear medium like cinema. Once the second hour started and scenes in the past started to feel more like flashbacks and storytelling devices, I got invested in the story and everything started to flow much smoother. I could also tell there a certain level of depth missing from the movie. I can’t really explain it and I guess I won’t really know for sure until I read it but it just felt like the movie was only scratching the surface. As far as the acting went, Rorschach’s performance is on par, if not better than Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. In the end, I think all the actors did a great job. I was a little cold to Dr Manhattan and Silk Specter when they were introduced but as their characters got fleshed out a little, they fell right into the part. Favorite part of the movie, “Hitler was a vegetarian.”

Watchmen as a movie was a complete success for me. In the end it made me want to go home and read the book which is the greatest thing the movie could have done. I just hope it will have the same effect on others. I plan on going to see the movie again once I’ve read the book to see if my thoughts has changed. My guess is I’m going to like the movie more as I’ll realize the movie is really just a companion piece.

I’m off the start reading the Watchmen.

Nullriver’s Connect360 was just updated to version 3.2 adding support for Divx and Xvid files. Connect360 allows Mac users to stream Music, Video and Photos to a Xbox360. You will need to have the Fall 2007 Dashboard update installed on your Xbox360 but once you do, you will be able to stream Divx and Xvid encoded AVI files directly to your TV (finally!). The program costs $20 but they offer a trial version on their webpage.

I recently went to go see 30 Days of Night. 30 Days of Night is based off a Steve Niles comic of the same name. My exposure to Steve Niles has been minimal at best. I recently picked up his Simon Dark #1 and enjoyed it but that’s about as much as I’ve read. I picked up the 30 Days of Night TPB a few months ago but never got around to reading it. With the movie coming out, I decided to sit down and read it beforehand.

30 Days of Night’s concept is genius. Vampires invade a town in Alaska that is in darkness for 30 days straight. Simple but brilliant. Unfortunately, the graphic novel fails to execute the idea with success. The store is plagued with pacing and other issues. The art is beautiful but at times its so abstract, its hard to follow what’s actually going on. There is also this odd subplot of a guy from New Orleans going to the town to get proof that Vampires exist. He gets there and dies in one panel. It did nothing to further the plot and I still have no idea why this was in there. The biggest problem with the book is its pacing. When I finished the book, the first words out of my mouth was “That’s it?â€?. The book left more like 30 Hours of Night. There is no sense of time and everything that happens feels like it happens in a very short amount of time. I didn’t hate the book but with everything you hear about it, I expected it to be at least good.

The movie adaption is based on the book’s plot for the most part. As with any book to movie adaption, parts are changed to fit the movie medium. I went to see the movie opening night with my girlfriend who’s into horror movies and she loved it. Me, not so much. I thought the movie was boring. I couldn’t wait for the movie to just get to the end. Like the graphic novel, I didn’t hate it but I didn’t like it. Plagued by the same pacing issues of the book and the lack of suspense, the movie was just a gory snoozefest. There were also a few plot changes from the book that made no sense. The first is they broke up Eben and Stella. Ok, that in itself doesn’t bother me but they never mention why they are broken up. If they had been together still, the movie would not have changed a single bit. Thankful they removed the New Orleans vampire hunter storyline as it was useless in the graphic novel and would have certainly been even more useless here. My biggest problem was again the pacing. They made it seem like the vampires sat on the roofs for 29 days in the freezing cold just waiting while the survivors moved from place to place every week or so. I didn’t care about the survivors, they were mostly nameless extras waiting to get mauled by a vampire and that’s what happened most of the time. There was one guy, Vampire Hunter Hadgid, that you actually felt a connection to but his anti-climatic death was just a kick in the balls.

Not everything in the movie was bad though. I loved the art direction of the movie. There were some great scene in the movie and it really felt cold and dark the whole time. They movie was actually gory enough to make be cringe at a few scenes too. It’s too bad the story and pacing made it fall short. There were just too many WTF moments in the movie for me. Um, little girl shows up after 29 days like its time for Dora the Explorer and lunch? What?! or how about Eben basically committing suicide for no reason. He went to save Stella from a fiery death and the truck never blows up. All he needed to do was wait 10 more minutes for the sun to come up. Huh?

I’ll get right to it and say I’m not sure if I liked it. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it either. The two things that ruined it for me were the campy parts and Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane. This felt like more of Sam Raimi doing a Spider-Man movie than a Spider-Man movie directed by Sam Raimi. Anyone who has seen a Sam Raimi movie knows what I’m talking about.

The Good
I loved the Sandman in this. Thomas Haden Church did a brilliant job as the Sandman. He did a great job of bringing emotion to the character. The CGI effects that brought the Sandman to life were mind blowing. These were some of the best effects I’ve ever seen in a movie before.

Eric Forman as Venom?! That was my first reaction but I got to give it to him, he nailed it. I loved Topher Grace as Eddie Brock, tho it was weird hearing him speak as Venom.

Bruce Campbell. Nuff’ Said.

I loved Gwen Stacy in this movie. I one of those people that think Peter Parker would be better off in a world with Gwen Stacy than Mary Jane. My feelings are just amplified in Spider-Man 3. They should have killed off Mary Jane in the beginning and had Peter hook up with Gwen. Much better movie by 10 fold if that happened for me.

The Bad
I hated Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane in this. Didn’t care for her in the first one, was much better in the 2nd and I downright want her dead in 3. I could not see why they would be together in this movie. She cheats on him, she lies to him, doesn’t trust him, is jealous of him. Why they were in a relationship at all is a mystery. The Gwen Stacy scenes were so must better and would have loved to see a lot more Gwen and a hell of a lot less Mary Jane. I really hope shes off the next movie.

This movie is really weird in its comedic aspect. It was a lot of cheese and not a lot of wit. Spider-Man is all about the witty, smart-ass one liners and those are devoid in the movie. Instead we get a campy look at Spider-Man via Sam Raimi. Its one redeeming quality is that the campiness is felt throughout the movie and doesn’t veer from the path. I have to say Spider-Man 3 is what it is. For me in a movie with the emotional look at the Sandman and a terrifying look at revenge and hatred in Venom, the campy backdrop just feels out of place.

Unfortunately it seems that Marvel falls apart at number 3 with their franchises. First with X-Men 3 and now with Spider-Man 3. I don’t think either are bad movies, just missed potential. I think Spider-Man just fell into doing a lot of things OK instead of doing one thing good.

I got to finally see Pan’s Labyrinth over the weekend. Wow. Absolutely Brilliant.

First off, this is NOT a kids movie by any means and it definitely earned its R rating. Even using the word “dark fairy tale” to describe it leaves out something. Something like gothic horror feels more appropriate. While there are obviously some fantasy scenes, they feel so real and connected its hard to not take every part of this movie seriously. The movie is in spanish so its subtitled, and while some people are put off by foreign language films, I think it actually added to the film.

I’m not going to get into the plot of the movie because I think this is a movie you need to go out and see for yourself. Its only open in select cities right now but starting this Friday it will be released in a limited nationwide cities, then more theaters will be added on January 26th.

[Watch the Trailer in HD]

January – started using Mac OS X

February – built dedicated computer to run Mac OS X on

March – Starting using iTunes to manager my media

April – stopped using Bloglines, switched from Exchange to Google Mail and Google Calendar, bought a Jimi wallet

May – switched Layout, Skype is free for the rest of the year, started a new job, Macbook’s released, went to grand opening of Apple 5th Ave store, bought my Macbook

June – joined valleyshwag, MC360 released for XBMC, bought a Nintendo DS Lite, canceled my Final Fantasy XI account after 3 years

July – switched to Flock, Macbook got hit with discoloration, started running using the Nike+iPod kit, Macbook Random Reboots started

August – switched from del.icio.us to Shadows, started using OpenDNS, got hard to find Trauma Center and Phoenix Wright for the DS, new mc chris and Evanescence albums, bought the Timbuk2 blogger bag

September – started new full-time job, fall TV season starts, bought a Xbox360 after Guitar Hero 2 is announced with new controller, canceled my Myspace account

October – got tickets for macworld 2007, Xbox360 troubles, 300 trailer, Macbook RSS fixed, bought my first Blackberry, my Xbox360 has its own blog

November – interviewed for MacNewsWorld, Gears of War, Guitar Hero II and Elite Beat Agents all released on same day, turned 28, XBL Video Marketplace released, subscribed to Netflix and Gamefly, bought an HD DVD

December – Geekdrome dead, started reading comics again, finally found out what all the hype about Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars and Greys Anatomy was all about

Gearing up here for the holidays. Tomorrow is my last day off before Christmas and I plan on getting all my shopping done. Other than that, I’ve been on a major media rush for the past month.

I’ve started watching alot of TV shows. Finally started watching Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars, and Grey’s Anatomy. All which are better than the hype and I suggest you check them out in case your haven’t yet.

Recently subscribed to Netflix and been loving it. There HD-DVD selection is about as good as it gets and Blockbuster is giving away free rentals in exchange for the Netflix flaps you usually toss out. So its safe to say I’ve been getting my movie on lately too.

In addition to Netflix, I signed up for Gamefly too tho my experience has been no where as good as with Netflix. I’m currently playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance and its really fun so far. A must get for any Marvel Comics fan.

Speaking of Marvel, thanks to Geekdrome, god rest its soul, I’ve gotten back into reading comics. I’ve been stockpiling them for almost 2 years but could never find a good “in” to start. Enter Civil War, it seemed like the perfect story arc to jump back in. Major story arc and most major comic titles are involved, the perfect time start. I got alot of catching up to do before I’m current but its been a great story so far. I’m also reading all the titles involved so it will be a couple weeks until I’m caught up. I started with Road to Civil War and I’m about 30 issues in with about 35 left.

Hope everyone has a Happy Holiday.

Let do alittle experiment.

V for Vendetta HD DVD was in my Netflix queue and went into “Processing” at about 10:30 am today. At about the same time, I was checking out the new Video Marketplace on my 360 and one of the (only) HD movies they offer is V for Vendetta. I rented it from the Marketplace for $6 and it started to download. I tried to cancel my Netflix queue but it was too later as it was already in Processing. So both are on there way. Lets see which one makes it first.

Update 1:
At around 6pm tonight, I was around 7% for the download and V for Vendetta had already shipped from Netflix with an arrival date of 11/24.

Update 2:
Checked my download at 1am and my download has stopped. Not sure how long its been. There is no Active Download nor any movies in my Video section. So I’ve restarted my download.

Update 3:
Download died once again at around 3am last night. Restarted at about 3:45am. Woke up at 11am to find it had stopped again. Restarted right away. Currently at 3%. Download restarted at 0% at the 3am for whatever reason. No mail today due to Thanksgiving holiday.

Update 4:
Came home from Thanksgiving at around 2pm today to find I was logged out of Xbox Live and my download has stopped one again. Restarted download as soon as I logged back in. Download is currently at 8%. Mail came today but no Netflix packs. The race is still on.

Update 5:
Just got home from work at 2:44am and the download is still going. Woohoo! Maybe they are finally fixing the bandwidth issues at MS. File is only 27% tho. Mail should be here in about 8 hours.