It's almost a monthly ritual for me, heading into the city, spending too much money on DVDs, and then heading to see a movie.
For those curious, the DVDs I spent too much money on this month are a couple of straight-to-DVD movies. First up, I had to get the latest DC Universe animated film, Wonder Woman. It's been getting some fantastic reviews, so I'm looking forward to watching it soon. And, I also got the fourth and final Futurama DTV film, Into the Wild Green Yonder. I love the first Futurama DTV film, felt the next two kind of wavered, but the reviews for the fourth one is that it's almost as good as the first one.
As with all DTV films of mine, look for reviews in this here blog in the days ahead.
But that's not all! I also had to pick up some new CDs to rip and load into my MP3 player. Snapped up Lily Allen's new one, It's Not Me, It's You. I do so love Lily Allen. She's got the kind of voice that haunts me.
I also had to pick up the debut album from The Lonely Island, Indredibad. For those too lazy to click the link to Wikipedia, The Lonely Island is a comedy troupe that includes Saturday Night Live cast member Andy Samberg and SNL writers Akiva Shaffer and Jorma Taccone. They are the trio responsible for most of the SNL digital shorts. If it's a rap video, it's these guys, so this album is made up of pretty much all the comedic rap songs they've done for SNL. There's some funny stuff here, so once I heard it was out, I knew I had to snatch it up.
To get all this new media, I wound up spending a lot more money than I intended to. I tend to feel less guilty about spending a lot if I buy at least one thing that I really need. Good thing I needed socks.
So...Watchmen.
Needless to say, Watchmen has been quite the experience these past few years. Not gonna lie...I'd never heard of Watchmen until I met my best friend in college and he started re-introducing me to comics. Even then, I never went down to the library and checked out a copy. Instead, I turned to the Internet (which I was just discovering at the time) and started reading about Watchmen. Armed with plot synopses and critical analysis, I was able to keep up a conversation with my best friend.
(In an amusing side-note, by best friend's girlfriend at the time was a great follower of the works Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Again, I did a lot of extensive research on their projects so I'd be able to maintain a conversation with her. One night, after an extensive debate about the merits of Cannibal!: The Musical, I shattered her world when I revealed that I had never actually seen the film...just read a lot about it. Finally got around to seeing it last year...it was pretty good.)
Anyway, as this decade went on, I still never got around to reading Watchmen, but still I read just about every article and synopsis and guide that could I find. That's right, rather than immerse myself in the book itself, I immersed myself in the Coles notes. When the release date of the film was announced, that became my ticking clock to finally read the book.
Signed it out of the library a month ago. Finished reading it three days ago.
Needless to say, it was an interesting reading experience, too. I'd read a few chapters, then go online and watch the film's trailer again, or some of the viral videos that were released to promote the film, and everything started falling into context. "Oh, that's what that scene is...I still don't understand that. Maybe it'll be explained in the next chapter."
I can honestly say that I've never walked into a film knowing more about it beforehand that I ever have before.
I found the film to be really, really good. It was as faithful as it could possibly be.
However....
I had the same problem with it that I had with that other Alan Moore adaptation, V for Vendetta. In order to get it down to a marketable running length, they had to cut out so many subplots and character moments and universe developing bits of coolness. It's almost like, well, reading a synopses.
Don't get me wrong, it's still a fantastic film, but the book just has the opportunity to flesh things out a little more.
I'm feeling generous today, so I'll go ahead and give it my highest rating of four nibs. A complete review will be coming in the next couple of days.
Oh, and just a little observation about my favourite fast food place, Wendy's. They've finally started doing something that I've wanted fast food places to do for a long time.
And that is, you can now choose the size of your fries and drink with a combo meal.
A "small combo" comes with small drink and fries, a "medium combo" comes with...well, you get it.
However, I would recommend ordering the small, as I went with the medium, and discovered that what they now call medium was once called large.
Oh, and one last thing. When watching Watchmen today, I tried something new.
I now have my Twitter account set up so I can tweet using text messaging from my cellphone. I was posting my off-the-cuff comments while I was watching the end credits!
So, follow me on Twitter for the next time I see a movie!
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