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I’ve been reading the Watchmen comic books, since there’s a movie coming out soon.  I saw the trailer during “The Dark Knight” last weekend, and had no idea who any of the characters were. Apparently, I took a hit to my geek cred because I’ve never read the series, which collectively is regarded as one of the best graphic novels ever.  Time Magazine even recognized it as one of the “100 Best English-Language Novels”.  Not bad for a comic book!

I’m about three issues into the twelve, and it’s an interesting story.  Watchmen may have been the first title to delve into the human flaws that exist in people, especially costumed avengers (a common practice among today’s anti-heroes in comics).   If masked adventurers protected the public, wouldn’t it be possible that one or two would be alcoholics or sociopathic killers?  Watchmen goes into these details, across two generations of heroes, while contrasting them against the changing times of America over the decades.

I especially like the metafiction that accompanies each chapter.   The first three end with printed excerpts from the memoirs of the first “Nite Owl”, previously retired. His book, “Under the Hood“, is a tell-all of the personal lives of his crime-fighting group, the “Minutemen”, which disbanded in 1947.  He describes his childhood and upbringing, then his break into crime-fighting outside of the law.  This helps to flesh out the character beyond the confines of the plot of the comic.

“Under the Hood“, fictional in real life but non-fictional in the Watchmen universe, also outlines how the political climate of America changed over time.  It goes from loving costumed heroes in the 40’s to loathing them as vigilantes in the 50’s, how it loops back again to the point where new crime-fighters appear in the 60’s.  And then back again when declining public sentiment causes the government to outlaw them in 1977.  Oh, and America won the Vietnam war and Nixon served five terms as president.

Now that I’m caught up on the back story, I’m looking forward to seeing the Watchmen movie when it comes out in March of 2009.  I’m also looking forward to finishing the series.  I’ve always enjoyed comic books, so I’m surprised that I’ve never read this one.  Probably because it was a DC title and the characters were not included in an ongoing canon (that would make them easy for me to skip).  Similar to “300″, I’d like to see how they adapt this comic to the big screen, and by that I mean IMAX.

Everybody in the world saw the new ”Iron Man” movie before I did, and it was unanimously decided that it was great.  Normally, I wouldn’t go to see a movie at a theater, because I hate theaters, but I was persuaded by the chorus of excellent reviews from my peers.  And it turns out that we were both right: Iron Man is a great movie, and there is no reason good enough to attend a movie theater. 

I know that I’ve given up movie theaters, but I recently saw a couple of trailers that make me want to change my mind. Both “Cloverfield” and “Aliens Versus Predator 2: Requiem” are due out soon, and they both look really good. Normally, if I hear about a movie that I would like to see, I will wait for the DVD to come out and watch it at home on my big screen TV, but I might break down and at least see “Cloverfield” at the movie theater. It looks like “Cloverfield” needs to be seen on a huge screen, in all its glory, for the full effect. Hopefully it will come out on IMAX.

The original trailer for “Cloverfield” was placed before the Transformers movie, but they didn’t reveal the title. J.J. Abrams has kept the lid closed tightly on this one, so curiosity is pushing people towards it. From what I can tell, it’s a mix between “The Blair Witch Project” and “Godzilla“. The entire movie is filmed on a video camera by a small group of friends as they escape the path of a giant monster that attacks New York (hurling around Statue of Liberty heads). The teaser trailer is on YouTube, but the full trailer, in high-resolution, can be found on the official web site.

I was really excited when the first “Aliens Versus Predator” came out in 2004, since I was a big fan of the comic book series by Dark Horse (back in my late teens). However, this film was so awful that not even the appearance of Bishop’s great-grand-daddy could save it (and Lance Henriksen is awesome). AvP was hamstrung by a PG-13 rating and a low budget, so much so that fans thought a sequel would never happen. Luckily, we were wrong. An R-rated sequel is due out soon, and “Aliens Versus Predator 2: Requiem” is so gruesome that you have to validate your age before you can view some of the trailers. I’m pretty sure that this movie will redeem the franchise and allow for a third movie.

Chrissy and I finally got out to Portage to see the fifth Harry Potter movie. We saw it on the IMAX screen, so the last twenty minutes were in 3D. I had been looking forward to seeing it since long before it was released. Chrissy had not read the fifth book, but I had listened to the books-on-tape version from the library when it first came out. We both really enjoyed it, but I couldn’t help but notice differences between the books and the movies again.

There were a few bits that were completely missing from the book. In the book, Hermione forms the house-elf liberation front, known as SPEW. I never liked this subplot, so I didn’t mind it being cut from the movie. The fifth year Quidditch season saw Harry booted off the team, so I guess they decided that Quidditch wasn’t necessary in the movie. However, this is where both Ron and Ginny really get a chance to shine, so it was too bad that it had to go. In fact, I don’t think that Ginny got one line in the movie, although she got an appreciable amount of screen time. There was a Centuar teacher in there somewhere, although I seem to remember that being a tiny subplot. Lastly, Hagrid’s visit to the giants was nowhere to be seen.

Even though the movie was already two and a half hours long, they did try to fit things in where they could. Some things that played a bigger part in the book were at least mentioned in the movie, possibly for continuity’s sake (these are seen in books six and seven). For example, the book goes into detail about how the painting of Sirius Black’s mother perpetually complains about “mudbloods in her house”. They showed the painting briefly while introducing Kreature, though she was under a sheet (Kreature was polishing her frame). Also in the Black House, you see “Andromeda” stricken from the family tree, but they don’t explain that she left to marry Ted Tonks, a muggle (and sire Nymphadora Tonks).

Percival Weasly had a forceful split from the family, choosing to side with the Ministry of Magic, which was a huge problem in the book. In the movie, they didn’t touch on this at all, although Percy did show up with Fudge to arrest Dumbledore (they didn’t name him, so you would just have to recognize him from previous movies). Another subplot from the book was when Harry sees that his father wasn’t such a nice guy back in the day, in that he would torment Snape for no reason. The movie shows James torturing Snape, but they gloss over it as an excuse for Snape to cancel Harry’s Occulemency lessons. I’ll be looking forward to see if they fill in these gaps by releasing an “extended cut” on DVD this Christmas.

The last twenty minutes were in 3D. It wasn’t like the shows at Disneryworld, however, where things fly off the screen and you’re sort of reaching out into the air to touch them. Instead, this form of 3D was more like a ViewMaster, with the screen being layered into a distinct backbround, middleground and foreground. It was a very interesting effect in the Department of Mysteries, with towers of shelves crashing from the background to the foreground. I would have liked to see some spells flying off the screen towards me, but it wasn’t that kind of 3D. It was still worth the added expense of seeing the IMAX version, though.

Swavek and I went to see Frank Miller’s 300 today. We saw it at the IMAX in Portage, and I was blown away by the sound system. We got there early, so the previews and commercials were cycling through on the upper half of the screen with the audio on a regular sound system. We saw the Spiderman 3 trailer and the Harry Porter trailer — neat, but nothing that I hadn’t seen before.

Then the lights turned down, and the Spiderman 3 trailer started playing on the full screen. The screen was so huge that I couldn’t see anything around me except the movie. Then the IMAX speakers kicked in, and suddenly I couldn’t hear anything around me except the movie. It was awesome. Kerasotes should have built an IMAX in Schererville.

The movie was great, but I felt a little guilty afterwards because it was the first time that I had left Chrissy alone with Aiden (aside from business trips). Here I was, enjoying myself with my friend, eating Culvers (the best fast-food burger ever), and Chrissy was at home with the boy. I bought her a “love you” card and some Dove chocolate eggs on the way home.