Watchmen Doesn't Work For Me

Zack Snyder's Watchmen looks visually amazing but the characters are thin and the underlying dystopian vision lacks the impactful nuance of Blade Runner.  Maybe I am just not in the mood right now for a film that paints people essentially as heartless bugs.  Are we capable as a species of mindless acts of selfish violence?  Yes, but I don't need a 3 hour film to remind me of this.  That's what CNN does most nights and I avoid that too.  What I crave and films like Blade Runner, The Martix and 28 Days Later deliver is the dystopian vision coupled with characters that reflect humanities potential.  Not because I can't handle the darkness but because total darkness is no more real than a vision where everything is sweetness and light. 

As The Economic Crisis Deepens...

This will be my last post on the draining bathtub that is our economy for awhile. The Atlantic Online has a long but super interesting article that thinks through what the current realignment might mean. A real contrast to the media obsession with the day to day market drops and scandals of the week. It puts this crash in a historical context and asks some intriguing questions. I am not sure if it gets all the answers right but I am glad someone is starting to ask the right questions.

Just Like That

Back in November I predicted that in 2009 the market would close out at 6,800.  I did not expect my prediction to come to pass the first week of March 2009.  I had that dire prediction penciled in for the end of the year.  I will stop predicting and instead begin burying bars of gold in the yard and stockpiling crackers and water as the end times are near.  I kid... I kid.  Look if the stocks have to fall let's just get this over with and see what happens. 
Invisible hand of the market please don't move the market back up to 7,200 for a couple of weeks only to drop it to 5,000 right before the 4th of July weekend.  It messes with people and we have been messed with enough.  Take it down as low as it needs to go and then begin the long slow climb up to something approaching the actual value for goods and services.  Is that too much to ask?

Top 25 Active Film Directors List

EW.com (like AFI before them) loves their lists.
Check out their list of the 25 Greatest Active Film Directors.
25 Greatest Active Film Directors

I can't fault their top 10. Actually I can only find two in the whole list of 25 that really bug me.
Call me crazy but Tim Burton at #13 and Sam Raimi at #15 both seem too high.  Tim Burton is an exceptional Art Director/DP but his inability to consistently build stories as stunning as his visuals should push him lower down the list.  Raimi is solid but I'd bump him entirely for Kevin Smith.  I am reserving judgment on Zack Snyder until I see Watchmen. 
Firstshowing.net has a nice discussion about the list in the comments and manages to put the list all on one page.

(Caution: The EW write up is one of those annoying page view generating 25 pages for 25 directors things that makes EW look like they don't understand the internet.)