Preparing To Watch The Watchmen

Today was a good day. It started out slow and kinda boring, but late in the afternoon, things turned around. And it's all because I went out and bought my ticket to see the midnight showing of Watchmen this coming Thursday night. It just shows how jazzed I am for the movie, since this is the first time I've ever bought a movie ticket this far in advance. I usually buy tickets for movies thirty to sixty minutes before the showing actually begins, but nearly a week ahead of time is something that probably won't happen again for a long while.

Now the notices posted in the theater state that the movie starts at one minute after midnight, while the tickets themselves say five minutes before midnight. Six minutes is no big deal, especially considering I'm going to try and be there plenty early anyway, but I just like things to be coordinated. Know what I mean? And like I said, it probably wouldn't hurt me to get to the theater a couple of hours ahead of time regardless. I've been reading news stories about the last few midnight screenings this theater has done. All of them had at least 650 people, if not more, show up, and people started lining up three or four hours before the movies started. While I'd probably end up being bored to death sitting around for so long in a theater lobby full of people with not much to do besides twiddle my thumbs, I really would like to find a good seat. It's a double-edged sword. And I won't be going to the movie alone, either, so I'll have to run things by my accompaniment. But when it all goes down, I'll make sure to have a report of it here.

You know, I used to pick on the rabid Twilight fans, the insane adolescent girls who went absolutely cuckoo-bananas because it got turned into a movie and just absolutely had to be there opening night and would sing the praises of the book to anyone who'd listen while generally getting on the nerves of everybody who didn't "get it." But then the Watchmen movie comes along and I went and turned into one of them. I'm sorry for ridiculing your annoying overenthusiasm, adolescent Twilight fans. I really am. I totally get it now.

Planning Ahead

I've been thinking about the future a lot lately. Considering where life has taken me over the last year or two, I kinda have to. But I've also been thinking about the future of more trivial, superficial things, specifically my old, original blog hosted by Tripod. Ever since I broke ground on the Blogger version of the MSX a few years ago, the Tripod version has been used to simulcast my Blogger posts and serve as the home for my "Sutton At The Movies" hobby. But the truth is that I only bother updating the simulcast once every few months, and once I run out of server space, I won't even have that to do anymore. And I'm not completely sure what I'd do once that happened.

I could always fork over the money for more server space, but that isn't exactly a viable option at the moment. And due to my admittedly limited HTML skills, I doubt you'll ever see SuttonAtTheMovies.com any time soon. My idea would probably be to just let the old Tripod site stand as "the Ghost of Blogging Past" once I completely run out of room, and put up a notice redirecting everyone over to the Blogger MSX. And as for S@TM, I'd more than likely open up a new blog devoted exclusively to my reviews. It would probably be a pain in the neck to archive the old reviews, but I could live with it.

As it stands right now, it'll be a while before I totally abandon the Tripod blog, even considering how much I neglect it now. It might be several months or even a year before I really have to start worrying about it. But it doesn't hurt to plan ahead, does it?

Nearing The Finish Line... Maybe

It's been a while since I last spoke about it, so I figure I might as well take the opportunity to participate in further discussion in regards to "Super Saturday 2." For you newcomers to the MSX, Super Saturday was a project I did a few years back, a cabal of reviews I did with a central theme: movies based on superheroes featured in the pages of DC and Marvel comic books, with Hellboy thrown in for good measure. I started working on a sequel back in June, and since then, I've been wondering just what the heck I'd gotten myself into. I usually take my time when writing reviews, I won't deny that, but for some reason, it feels like it's taking me forever to write these blasted things. Heck, it feels like it takes me up to two weeks before I'll stick some of these movies in my DVD player once I get them from Netflix. I'm usually better than that, but I don't know what my deal is lately. I'm so lame.

But I did finish up a new review on Sunday afternoon, which puts the stack of movies in my "To Do" list at three left. It might go up to six, depending on whether or not I get those others done before the time Punisher: War Zone, The Spirit, and Howard the Duck see their DVD releases next month. (And at the rate I'm going, I'll end up adding them to the "To Do" pile. I'm super-slow.) It might even be seven, depending on how things go in regards to Watchmen. I might end up saving Watchmen for the future, though. I had the idea to do "Super Saturday: The Alan Moore Edition," with reviews of From Hell, V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Constantine, with maybe Watchmen tagging along. Though considering Alan Moore's stance on the movies based on his work, the title would probably be "Super Saturday: The _____ _____ Edition" instead. Then again, the whole thing would probably be somewhere on down the road, since I haven't even finished on Super Saturday 2 yet. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes on that one.

So yeah, that's how things are going with the projects. I'm hoping to have Super Saturday 2 done within the next few weeks at best, and then I can get back to my old routine of doing reviews whenever I feel like it. I miss doing stuff like my reviews of Silent Night, Deadly Night and Jackass Number Two, just because I could work on them at my leisure without it feeling like a chore. But I'll be through with the ones on my plate soon enough. And whenever I finally finish it, I hope you readers enjoy it...

...or else.

Happy Friday The 13th!

Today is a special occasion here at the MSX. No, it isn't some kind of anniversary or milestone or anything like that. Instead, yours truly is celebrating that special day known as Friday the 13th. As someone who has been a fan of horror movies since grade school, Friday the 13th is always kind of a big day to me. Not as big as Halloween, but still. It's kind of a bummer that Friday the 13th is starting to lose part of its notoriety, especially since most cable channels don't really show the Friday the 13th movies anymore. Sure, Chiller is showing a marathon of Friday the 13th: The Series, but the day belongs to Jason, not some two-bit TV show that nobody remembers. Back when USA Up All Night and MonsterVision were in my regular viewing regimen, they would air two or three of them on every Friday the 13th. But alas, those days were years ago. Yeah, I own them all on DVD, but it just isn't the same.

Actually, I take that back. I own them all but one. And that brings me to my main topic of discussion for this post. Not only is today another Friday the 13th, but it's another notch in the belt of Jason Voorhees, thanks to today's release of the remake of Friday the 13th. And naturally, I had to make sure I saw it tonight. Normally, I'd wait until Saturday or Sunday to see a movie, but seeing Friday the 13th on Saturday the 14th or Sunday the 15th just doesn't feel right. You have to see Friday the 13th on Friday the 13th. Some people might not get it, but I do, and that's what matters to me.

It was a pain in the neck to see this thing, though. With my dad along for the ride, I had planned on seeing the 7:30 showing at the theater over in Danville. But just my luck, every single showing had sold out. Yeah, happy Friday the 13th, alright. But I was absolutely committed to seeing the movie, it was decided that we would start Plan B: go to the theater over in Bardstown. So we piled back in the car and headed on our way to Bardstown, which wouldn't have been too bad if we'd started from home instead of Danville. But it's an hour's drive from Danville to Bardstown, so we ended up being on the road for all of ninety minutes just to see a movie. And since Bardstown's 7:30 showing had sold out too, so we were stuck waiting around until 10:00. So there was ninety minutes of driving and another ninety minutes of sitting around. Throw in another 35 minutes or so to come home, and I didn't get home until around 12:30 in the morning. (Yeah, I changed the date and time on this post so I could have it up on Friday night instead of Saturday morning. What're you gonna do about it, huh?)

Anyway, about the movie. I actually liked it, a lot. I thought it was a lot of fun, and totally worth the seven-dollar ticket price. I didn't feel let down or disappointed in the slightest. The movie plays up all of the franchise's stereotypes - sex, drugs, rock and roll, and an unstoppable killing machine - without becoming a crappy parody of Hatchet, which I felt made the movie a lot more entertaining. And folks, the new Jason is awesome. I know every Friday the 13th fan out there will sing the praises of Kane Hodder until the end of days, but Derek Mears did a fantastic job behind the mask. If and when they make a sequel, I hope they bring him back.

The rest of the cast all play the clichéd one-dimensional character constructs, but they all do the work that's asked of them and I can't complain about them. The kills are really well done, and I especially liked how writers Damien Shannon and Mark Swift have created a remake that also works as something of a sequel. Not only is it a good starting point for new fans to the series, but you could honestly watch the original Friday the 13th from 1980 and the remake back to back, and the remake would actually serve as an effective Friday the 13th, Part 2. Something like that could be used to rope in the anti-remake crowd, I guess.

But for what it's worth, I'm all for the Friday the 13th remake. I doubt my opinion will be a deciding factor in whether or not you'll be seeing it, since you probably already have your mind made up one way or the other by now. But I'll definitely give it my seal of approval with three and a half stars and a thumbs up. And here's hoping that we don't have to wait another five and a half years to see good ol' Jason again.

Note To Self: Never Kidnap Liam Neeson's Daughter

Howdy, folks, and welcome to the month of February here at the the MSX. Yes, I know we're already a week deep into the month, but humor me, okay?

Anyway, I headed out to the theater this afternoon, as is my wont. The movie of choice: Taken. I wasn't really for sure if I wanted to see Taken theatrically, but my dad wanted to. And since my dad isn't usually the kind of guy to choose the movie when he and I go see one together, I figured I'd tag along. I'm glad I did too, because it actually turned out to be a pretty entertaining movie.

The movie's plot is incredibly simple: Liam Neeson's daughter is kidnapped and sold into a prostitution ring, so he flies to Paris and kicks the crap out of everything and everyone between him and his daughter's safety. It's relatively light on story and character development and heavy on action, but I can't really say I expected anything from a movie written by the guys who gave us the Transporter trilogy. But as a pure action thriller, Taken is thoroughly entertaining. Liam Neeson is really good in the role, which doesn't require much out him outside of looking really pissed and beating people up. And the action, though struggling through the somewhat shaky cinematography, is really exciting. Taken is a perfectly serviceable action movie that's definitely worth checking out. So on my Five-Star Sutton Scale, I'll give it three and a half stars and a thumbs-up.

And now to play the waiting game until Friday the 13th comes out...