My father-in-law saw "Watchmen" about five hours earlier than we did, and he thought it was too slow, had only two well developed characters, and insulted the military by oversimplifying top-level strategy. He also wasn't keen on Richard Nixon's increased importance; he felt that none of Nixon's scenes added anything except to reinforce the ( Read more... )

I saw "30 Days of Night" this weekend, and I realized just how long it has been since I saw a really scary movie in the theater. "30 Days" is not an exploration of the nature of evil, nor a cathartic journey through a symbolic hell by which we conquer our natural fears. It's vampires killin' dudes, and dudes killin' vampires. It's much more like ( Read more... )

I finally ordered a copy of the HP Lovecraft Society's Call of Cthulhu, a short film that looks very promising. These things really have to be done by fans to be done right. I've seen a regrettable number of Lovecraft adaptations, all of which suffered for being modernized--as well as being plain Hollywood crap without even the virtue of camp ( Read more... )