You didn't need to hear how great it is from me, but for those of you keeping score . . .

As of last night, I've seen The Dark Knight 3 times.

Also, as a sort of apology to everyone, I got caught up in some great end-convention conversations and forum threads but then I found out how hard it is to steal wi-fi on the shore. I'll catch up soon.

Did you see Wanted yet?

Why not?

Every film I see directed by Timur Bekmambetov makes me think "Fcuk The Matrix. Here's a crazy CGI action flick with characters you can actually CARE about!"

I expected to be disappointed. I was not. I was enthralled.

Minor quibble. Maybe a SPOILER for people who haven't paid attention to the trailer.

What is with the closing music? No slight against Mr. Giachinno, but this was an entirely new breed of monster movie. The 10 minutes of "Godzilla vs. The Martians: Steel Cage Match!" was out of place and upsetting to me. I'm sure it was what the director wanted, but it killed the closing mood for me. Maybe that's what it was meant to do. Lighten it up a bit. Well, he wrote the music well. It's just too bad it had to be there.

I've recently watched Videodrome and eXistenZ and been wondering what Cronenberg will do once he gets over this crime movie phase and goes back to techno-horror. Here is my suggestion.

MyLiveTube

In the unsettling near future, the replacement by the internet of other media (like newspaper and television) has lead to the creation of a Zeitgeist underground. Gleaners, as they are called, scan thousands of blogs, podcasts, videocasts, and other mass media submissions to collect data on cultural shifts and collective memes within the shared consciousness. This information is used by marketing firms, political lobbies and so on, the Neilsen ratings of everything from Lolcat macros to prospective wars. (Yes, this is already happening, but we need the set up for it to be a Hollywood film and pander to the LCD.)

ANYway, Our Confused Protagonist stumbles upon the ediTors. A rogue faction of gleaners who have found that they can control the zeitgeist with a little trimming here and there. A server goes down and everyone will vote for the other guy in the mayoral race, etc. Our Confused etc.'s Significant Other is fascinated by this practice and is drawn toward the faction, nearly pulling him in too, until The Purists grab him and make him come around to their way of thinking which is like the Star Trek prime directive.

OCP then participates in factional infighting and double dealing until the conflict explodes into chaos on the web. Possible confusing fun: OCP is labeled the most dangerous terrorist since John Wilkes Booth. Purists want to start a war, ediTors oppose it. Somebody crashes the internets.

Eventually the story ends with everyone confused about whether it really has ended.

In all honesty, I really do enjoy the techno-horror genre and the esteemed Mssr. Cronenberg. I kid because I love. I just find the disgustingly ill informed scripting of eXistenZ spoiled what could have been a marvelous concept. If only they had known anything about videogames made after 1989.

"Ouch I'm dead by a cloud of arrows. Thank the gods none of them hit anyone's face or crotch."

More examples of poor filmmaking that killed the movie for me:

"I've found the villagers!"

"Where? Oh. I see. They are all pinned to that gigantic tree about 40 feet away on a low rise in the middle of a featureless landscape."

"Yeah . . . We really ought to start turning our heads to the left more often."

Wow. 300 was not a good movie.

• The fight scenes lost their edge once we understood the formula of slo-mo, hit guy with shield, turn, slash, repeat.
• The music was utterly forgetable apart from the part where the electric guitar kicked in, and I remember that because when I heard it I tought "what the hell was that? An electric guitar?"
• The tacked on plot of the war at home consisted of cookie cutter characters and a story that was a foregone conclusion as soon as it started.
• I didn't care about who lived and who died.
• The battlefield changed size and shape to support the Spartan tactics (how accomidating.)
• Acting was SO EPIC that every word dripped with melodrama.
• Unnecessary narration interrupted scenes just as they started to move.
• Scenes were lifted from similar movies several times.
• The political message was unavoidable.
• Where were Xerxes ninja? He had everything else in his army, so why no ninja?
• Removing the slo-mo would have left a film barely feature length.
• Slo-mo is not exciting. At all. It kills momentum in a fight scene so that actually dramatic events (Boromir takes an arrow) are lost. What are you going to do? Slow it down more?

I may have enjoyed the movie if I saw it in a vacuum. Unhampered by politics, current events, race relations, my understanding of ancient warfare, and knowledge of actual historical events.

Oh, and I'm so glad they slipped in that shot at homos too.

If there is a God in Heaven and he loves all his children, Patrick McGoohan will play a short cameo as Number 1 in the forthcoming The Prisoner movie.

There are theories that he was all along. It would be fun to see if his appearance answers questions about the series, or asks more.

Be seeing you . . .

Why is my friends page not alive with this foolishness?

SoaP is easy to parody.

Saw X-Men III at a midnight screening. I'm really impressed. The film was so much better than any of the teasers and trailers. I almost want to go back to check if they were really what I saw. They handled lots of characters and some major events, the kind of things that will really upset some people, and it was done very well.

Not so great was the pacing of the first 1/2 of the film. Lots of little scenes crammed together with abrupt cuts. The pace relaxes into something more comfortable after that.

Fight scenes were excellent. The devilbunny said that this was the first time the X-Men on screen fought like the comic book X-men. Actual teamwork instead of splitting off into pairs; Storm vs. Toad, Wolverine vs. Sabertooth, etc. Now we get the fastball special, cover fire, and ruse attacks to line up the sneak attack. Like a real super team.

Stay past the credits. It's good for your soul.