Speaking of trippy and weird, I caught some of Beetlejuice yesterday. I forgot how bizarre that movie is.

"This thing reads like stereo instructions!"

The commentary on Fellowship of the Ring, with all the hobbits together so Dominic Mongahan and Billy Boyd can jump all over Sean Astin when Astin starts getting preachy are wonderful.

would be hard as hell to duplicate effectively on the screen

I'll adamantly and ignorantly disagree. It's called editing. Using shorter segments. Mixed together.

But I'm sure they figured that the stupid masses couldn't follow something like that, so it all becomes one big huge unedited, overblown scene, losing all it's tantalizing characteristics. It's not that I was head over heels in-awe of the written story, but I did enjoy it, and I did snicker and cringe through most of the movie.

Having a complementary score instead of a blaring, soundtrack that was not at all well integrated might have helped with the tone as well. But they went all ACTION! rather than the hypnotic metronome of the slowly unfurling story of the page.

::sits with Juliebird::

so Dominic Mongahan and Billy Boyd can jump all over Sean Astin when Astin starts getting preachy are wonderful.

I wished someone had done that to Gimli. Pretentious bore.

Anything with Viggo I of course found absolutely fascinating and helped to raise my loathing of the movies to mild dislike.

ION, saw a trailer for Wolverine: Origins and my gods that looks awful! I hope the CGI wasn't finished, but I think they had every single crazy James Bond/XXX over-the-top stunt they could squeeze in, with lots of silly posing and requisite (and multiple) dying woman flopping deadly in Logan's arms.

I'm so there.

The commentary on Fellowship of the Ring, with all the hobbits together so Dominic Mongahan and Billy Boyd can jump all over Sean Astin when Astin starts getting preachy are wonderful.

God, yes. Fellowship's much more fun - with the others, the contrast between the Dom'n'Billeh bits and the Sean'n'Lijah bits is stark as you like.

The FotR DVD is why I bought a DVD player.

Watchmen question: Okay, was it supposed to be a surprise that the Comedian was Laurie's dad?

There was a picture of her on his nightstand. It was VERY noticeable. I couldn't believe this was a big reveal. I didn't get it in the context of the movie.

The FotR DVD is why I bought a DVD player.

I sometimes watch it just for that commentary and the Making Of feature with Elijah wandering around being cute.

le nubian, I had read it, and The Boy had not, so after we saw it, I asked him if it was a big reveal. He said that he hadn't really paid close attention to all the little details that seem obvious in retrospect, but he also said that, when the actual reveal was, uh, revealed, he wasn't surprised at it, either.

Relatedly, I can't remember if anyone has posted this yet (or if I had, for that matter): Mad Magazine's parody of Watchmen.

le nub, yes, and that's exactly what I was talking about upthread about the narrative structure being out of order and failing.