Watchmen Worth the Wait!
Watchmen. For many years uttering that single title sent shivers down comic readers’s backs. It is considered by many as being one of if not the best comic. I rate it in my top 5, along with Sandman, The Killing Joke, V for Vendetta and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. For years Hollywood and comic book fans alike stated that Watchmen could never be made into a movie. In steps Zack Snyder, the director of another comic based movie (300), takes the Watchmen story and gives us a movie that’s as worthy of praise as the book its based on.
One of the reasons that like 300, Watchmen really works is that it very seldomly deviates from the comic that its based on. Heck, the first 20-30 minutes of the movie is a scene for scene, dialogue for dialogue copy of the first few chapters of the book. This is the closest a movie has come for capturing not only the characters from a comic book, but the story and the atmosphere as well. As far as comic book to celluloid is concerned, Watchmen does it even better than The Dark Knight or 300. As expected, some subplots were removed due to time contraints (IE: Almost all the newspaper booth stuff, and most of the Janey Slater stuff was cut back). The ending itself is mostly different, but it still conveys the same theme, atmosphere, intentions and feelings as the book. I’m not quite sure why Snyder decided to deviate so much from the original story for the ending, but it does not make it bad in any way, shape or form.
[rant]A quick sidenote: If you’re a parent, Watchmen is not Spiderman or X-Men. This movie barely missed getting an NC-17 rating in the US. This is purely an adult movie in theme and execution. In ways its even darker than The Dark Knight. If the adult nature of the story isn’t enough to keep your younglings at home, also know that there’s very graphic violence, a graphic rape scene, nudity and sexual activity, with a tiny bit of swearing tossed in. If you can’t get a babysitter, don’t go see this movie with your brats in tow. I consider myself liberal, and I would still not suggest this movie to anyone under the age of 15-16. [rant off]
I won’t get into the story of Watchmen. If you’re never read it, head on over to Wikipedia and read a very good summary as to Watchmen is all about. Although the way the movie was made, you don’t really need to know anything about Watchmen in order to enjoy it. If you have read this masterpiece, then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
I give Watchmen a 9 out of 10Â 
Luc "Sandman" G. 
Finally, a world war movie that shows the Canadian point of view. A powerful film about the sacrifice made by Canadian soldiers during World War I. Written by and starring Paul Gross (of Due South fame), who based the story on war stories shared by his grandfather who fought at Passchendaele.
This 5th season of Lost is starting off on the right foot. The 3rd and 4th season sometimes seemed to lack direction but the ship has been steered back on course. Inhabitants of the island are now travelling back and forth through time, having an adverse effect on some of the survivors. Some members of the Oceanic Six realize that they have to find a way back to the island. That their destiny is to be on the island and not back with regular civilisation.
Craig Hartsburgh was fired from the head coach position of the Ottawa Senators earlier this week after a big loss against the Washington Capitals. He was replaced by Cory Clouston, the head coach of the Sens’ farm team in Binghamton. Though I feel the problems are a lot deeper than the coaching, it was obvious that Hartsburgh could not find a way to inspire his players. He was a good coach, just not for this team at this time. His defensive minded system did not gel with the offensively-built Senators. I’m reserving judgement on Clouston until he’s had 5-6 games under his belt, but so far the team is playing with a lot more passion and heart. Lets just hope they keep it up.
A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Blizzard offering me a free 10 day trial of the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King. This offer couldn’t have come at a better time. I was already itching to try it, and having given up smoking I wanted to do something to occupy my time. It was great to catch up with people in the game that I had last spoken to over a year ago when I quit playing.
I’m on day 14 of quitting smoking. The cravings still come and go, but less often and with less intensity. Every day I’m breaking more habits where I smoked in certain situations. It hasn’t been easy, but at this point I figure that there’s no point to have suffered for these 2 weeks and take up smoking again.
Last week the OC Transpo strike that’s paralyzed the city since early December finally came to an end. Both the city and the union agreed to go to binding arbitration. Funny how they both agree to that just as the Federal government was ready to introduce a back to work bill and just before Obama’s visit to our capital. By going to arbitration both sides save face and can state that they didn’t give in to their demands. 
Daniel Craig is back in the 22nd installment of the James Bond series, Quantum of Solace. The story is an action packed tale of revenge, resolution and just plain kicking ass.
A quick review since time seems to be a luxury I don’t have lately….
Last night my wife and I joined some friends for a showing of Star Wars: 
Throughout the entire movie I felt like I was watching a 90 minute long videogame cutscene. The animation itself, especially the humanoid animation, was very bad. Characters looked like they were floating/gliding when walking, the speech movements were way off and the walking movement was awkward. However, the rendering was well done, the backgrounds were for the most part beautiful, and the chalk like textures were very well done for a computer animated flick.
My friend had a theory regarding the prequels and Clone Wars. He theorizes that George Lucas is purposely out to destroy Star Wars so that no one will even want to touch that universe once he retires from filmmaking. After seeing Clone Wars that theory seems more and more probable. What was also frustrating is that parts of the movie showed tiny twinkles of potential, but every time that happened some very cheesy dialogue or plot point would rear its ugly head and totally annihilate it.