"An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted." - Arthur Miller

Monday, March 09, 2009

Links of the Day - Mostly Watchmen Edition

Watchmen Title Sequence - Probably the most imaginative and best use of a title sequence I have seen for movies in recent history. Worth a viewing even if not interested in seeing the movie.


Watchmen, The Studio Version - From IO9, a nice little example of how the studio process works. They essentially wanted an action happy, upbeat movie with a more explosive ending. Ironic considering most of the complaints about the movie seems to be focused on it being too faithful (except the squid) while not allowing the characters to "breathe". I noticed though that those that dislike the movie because of compromises made from the book are the exact same who hadn't read it in years. I read it the night before and to me memories are mudding the waters when people should try simply re-reading the book to refresh them.

Watchmen Box Office - The estimates said a $70M weekend and sadly the movie came short taking in an estimated $55.5M. That sounds good but with mostly average reviews and so-so word of mouth (I thought the movie was outstanding), the box office returns for the next few weeks will only go down. At this point overseas sales will make or break the movie as I am guessing the domestic gross for the movie will probably just touch $100M. The lesson, sadly, is a) fanboys don't make a movie a success and b) ignore the fanboys, pleasing them doesn't mean pleasing the mainstream audience.

Obama Ends Stem-Cell Ban - The idiotic ban on stem-cell research has finally ended. For some reason the right is under the impression that every stem-cell being used for research is somehow one less baby being born which is about the same as condemning women for having PMS since that is one less egg getting "flushed" away by nature. The cells are destroyed anyway, only now they might serve a purpose. What purpose? Who knows, that is the point of research. People forget that all the miracles of the last 100 hears often started with people just wondering if X was done to Y what would the result be? Despite Republican hatred of it, knowledge is a good thing and the quest to know more shouldn't be condemned.

Circuit City Closed - After 60 years the ex #2 retail chain has closed its final US store. The company should not have failed but bad upper management killed the chain and resulted in the loss of 34,000 jobs while the idiots that caused the downfall walked away with millions. If this is an example of the GOP's love of capitalism, suddenly socialism is starting to gain some luster.

Vatican: Rape OK - In a sign of just how backwards the Catholic faith and the Vatican is particular is, the church ok'ed the excommunication of a mother and doctors of a nine year old for aborting her rapists child. Now keep in mind, this is a nine year old. If that child had been forced to hold that possible baby to term, chances are close to zero of either surviving the experience. The mom and the doctors literally had a choice between death and death. Abort the fetus and the nine year old lives. Don't and both die. The Vatican, by upholding the excommunication, has in effect said it’s better that both die. Of course, the church declined to excommunicate the rapists (who impregnated another 11 year old victim). I guess in their lexicon, rape is fine, just don't get caught.

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