directors cut

Watchmen (Director's Cut + BD-Live) [Blu-ray]
$35.99
I could start out with the line from Dave Mason's classic song: "There are no good guys, there are no bad guys, there's only you and me and we just disagree."

Most superhero movies deal with people who are basically moral and upright, where the villains are usually evil, and where the focus is on PG-13 rated action. This movie blurs the distinction between good and evil, where the heroes are no less violent (and in some cases no less murderous) than the villains. The result in fairly nihlistic, that there is really no meaning to everything. In another sense, it is existential, where we create our own meaning.

I am giving this five stars. Why? Because it is a well crafted story. It gives you opportunity to know the characters psychologically rather than the typical two dimensional stereotypes where the emphasis is on the action instead of on the person. (The recent Batman series comes closest to this, with honorable mention to the X-Men Trilogy.) It is a long movie, but that's because it doesn't rush the story.

There were many reasons I could have knocked it down. Some are purely subjective, such as the dark and bleak outlook of the movie. Some are due to feeling this being R-Rated movie with a lot of vile language, too graphic violence, and going all out on the nude scene with Nite Owl and Silk Spectre -- a lot of that seeming gratituous.

This is, as just said, an R-Rated movie. Teenagers don't need to see this movie. Personally, I think they don't need to be exposed to that hopeless a philosophy any more than to the sex and violence. In other words, I long for the days of the Batman TV series. But maybe Silk Spectre I was right -- the future looks darker and the past looks brighter. I just would like to do more to brighten the future.

Johnny The Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut
$19.95
Yes, this comic is full of gratuitous violence. It is an exercise in unrestrained id, an opportunity to give the viscious little monster inside us all a pat on the head and take it for an outing.

Full of biting zingers on social normalities and abnormalities, Johnny the Homicidial Maniac chronicles the life and adventures of Nny, a reclusive psycho who blends in disturbingly well with those around him. Nny keeps mostly to himself except for his bloody encounters with idiots, a-holes or both.

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac will neve be for everyone. The frank, tongue-in-cheek treatment of intense violence is only for those with a strong stomach and a cheerfully warped sense of humor. For those who fit that category, its a gem.

Kingdom of Heaven - The Director's Cut (Four-Disc Special Edition)
$34.98
I've got mixed feelings about Ridley Scott's Medieval epic Kingdom of Heaven. On the one hand, it's a great movie and I've probably watched it half a dozen times so far. On the other hand, it seems like just another Hollywood propaganda film loaded with the same old "progressive" drivel we've been hearing for decades now. In this case, the message is pretty simple: organized religion is bad; multiculturalism is good. Luckily, the movie's good enough to make it worth watching despite the propaganda.

Briefly, Kingdom of Heaven tells the story of Balian, a blacksmith in France who joins his crusader father in the Holy Land, seeking forgiveness for murdering a priest and redemption for his wife who committed suicide. Knighted by his dying father, Balian enters the service of Baldwin, the leper king of Jerusalem, and ends up defending the city from a siege by the Muslims under Saladin after Baldwin dies and the Templars start a war under the new king, the evil Guy of Lusignan.

The movie presents Catholics as greedy, scheming, hypocritical, cowardly and strategically inept war-mongers who justify their atrocities as the "will of God." Muslim leaders like Saladin, on the other hand, along with pure knights like Balian, are shown as noble, enlightened types struggling to sustain a multicultural "Kingdom of Heaven" in Jerusalem where everybody lives side by side in joyful harmony regardless of race, creed, religion, blah, blah, blah. As usual, the forces of enlightenment and tolerance are surrounded by the forces of darkness--the evil Templars in particular. The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon get a very bad rap in this flick.

Now, I'm no fan of the Catholic Church and I don't know enough about the Crusades (yet) to say if any of this is historically accurate, but I really doubt if Twelfth Century Jerusalem was ruled by politically-correct liberals and it's hard to believe that Saladin was all that interested in living in peace and harmony with the Christian invaders. The not-so-hidden message in Kingdom of Heaven is basically just your standard "progressive liberalism" and New World Order multiculturalism dressed up in Medieval armor. In this sense, the movie seems completely ahistorical, a good example of Hollywood projecting its values onto the past.

Having said all that, however, I've got to admit that I really like this flick. Ridley Scott's a good director and there are moments in Kingdom of Heaven which achieve a real suspension of disbelief. Balian's suicidal cavalry charge in front of Raynald's castle; the coronation of Guy of Lusignan; the opening scenes in France; the funeral of King Baldwin, the leper: All of these scenes have a Medieval feel about them which makes Kingdom of Heaven one of the better historical movies I've seen. Ridley Scott (as usual) gets carried away with CGI effects--the armies are bigger, the siege machines more powerful than they could ever have been in real life--but the battle scenes are well done for the most part, very violent and grisly at times. You can preach Tolerance all you like, but people come for the battles. Movie violence is the Twenty-First Century equivalent of the gladiatorial games and Kingdom of Heaven delivers lots of blood and action.

The movie didn't do as well as it should have when it first came out, mostly, I think, because people saw it as "pro-Muslim" or at least pushing a message of tolerance towards Muslims which ran counter to the official anti-Muslim propaganda pouring out of Washington and the mainstream media at the time. To make things worse, the theatrical release apparently cut a lot of material which developed the background and made the themes more clear. To be fair to Ridley Scott, the studios forced him to cut the original movie from 194 minutes down to two hours, so over an hour of footage is missing in the original release, which is the only version I've seen so far. In any case, it's worth checking out. Just be aware that many of the values expressed in Kingdom of Heaven have more to do with Twentieth Century Hollywood than Medieval Jerusalem.

Ancient World Review

Resident Evil: Director's Cut
$42.99
This is one of the greatest games of all times. No if, ands, or buts. This is the granddaddy of them all when it comes to survival horror. Yes, Alone in the Dark, Uninvited and Sweet Home came first, but they went nowhere. This is what kick started an entire genre.

I love this version of the game the best (even more than that ReMake) because it has 3 options for gameplay, original, beginner or arranged. Arranged is awesome as it "arranges" the locations of many items in the game. Much like the "2nd quest" on the first Zelda game.

The voice acting is legendary, the graphics just awesome and who can forget the live video at the beginning and ending of the game! (The girl who played Jill is absolutely beautiful.)

This game is hard. One bites puts you in orange caution if you're Jill, on arranged anyway. Ammunition is VERY limited at the start of the game. But that's what makes it so great. You can't run around blasting things. It's just wonderful!

There are many easter eggs or "little things" to find out in this game. (Look up a good walkthrough if you have trouble finding them.) These give the game a good bit of replay value.

I highly recommend this if you want a good game. In fact, they don't get much better.