nin @shoreline amphitheater

NIN is playing at the Shoreline in Mountain View, CA on 22 May 2009. My dad said he was going to try to get tickets and the presales aren't sold out as of this post so I think I have a good chance of going. It sounds like it would be awesome because I saw them in winter 2006 and they were great. Also, I've liked their latest releases and live footage AND really wanted to see them during their last North American tour but missed them.

tumblr update

Going to use tumblr to post photos and other things and blogger to post blogs.

switching to tumblr

I am now going to be posting to my blog at tumblr because I like it a little more than blogger. I will keep this blog up and have my tumblr import its posts if I ever use it again.

Subscribe to my blog @ http://jasonschwartz.tumblr.com/

News feeds

Since Nick introduced me to RSS last year, I have been regularly reading various blogs and other feeds. I just thought that I would let everyone know that I do (almost) regularly share posts that I like and you can subscribe to that here or just check my blog.

Domestic violence

I have never condoned domestic violence and never will. That being said, I've been hearing a lot about this whole "alleged" Chris Brown and Rhianna situation. So Chris Brown "allegedly" abused Rhianna? If this is true, I'm with everyone else. But, come on! Has anyone been looking at what is being said? First of all, everything is "alleged". He "allegedly" did this and "allegedly" did that. I haven't seen any pictures of Rhianna with bruises or other injuries. I haven't seen any official statements. All that I have heard and seen is accusations. And now guess what? They're writing a duet. They're writing a book, too. I don't want to be Mr. Super Skeptical, but at the moment, I am. I smell bullshit. And I don't like it.

Watchmen Re-Hash

I saw the film Watchmen by Zach Snyder three days ago (last Saturday, March 7) and immediately gave it a pretty harsh, negative review. At first, I really didn't know what to think. I very, very much enjoyed the movie. After a half an hour or so I started to think I liked it okay but then after a talk with my dad, who also saw the movie (but didn't read the book first), I decided I really didn't like the movie for a number of reasons. As of now, I have spoken with multiple people I know who have seen the movie and at least half of them haven't read the book (while a good amount still had). Finally, after a few interesting discussions on the book and the movie (and re-reading portions of the book and movie art book) with my good friend who first showed me the book, I have decided that I like the movie much more than I originally thought.

There are a good amount of problems with this movie (mostly, I will now say, with the portions left out of the movie) but there are also a lot of great things. Snyder decided to almost directly translate the scenes he shot from the book instead of taking the books general story and themes, tones, etc. and making that into a movie. I'm not really sure what I think of this as I have no idea how the latter would have turned out. However, I have realized that the performances of Rorschach by Jackie Earle Haley and Dr. Manhattan by Billy Crudup were actually outstanding. Also, the fight sequences were alright considering I re-read the fights in the book and found that they were quite similar, contrary to my earlier belief.

Besides for this, I am still in between loving this and being really happy about it and disliking it for obvious reasons. Every time I hear a good review I go, "Oh yeah! It was awesome because of all that." And then every time I hear a bad review I go, "Oh yeah... He did do that." So I just don't know. I don't want to praise it or trash it. Some parts were good, some parts were bad. Some actors were great, some okay, some were terrible. Some details that are included make it amazing and some are just too much. One thing that I really believe is that at least Rorschach's history should have been included more and possibly more emphasis on the Keane Act. So, anyway, whether you read the book or not you should probably go see it. But if you can, definitely read the book first! It is 100% better than the movie.

Watchmen 2009

I love the Watchmen. It is definitely one of my favorite books ever. But.. I strongly disliked this movie. Honestly, there are just a few major problems that ruin the whole thing. First, it tries to be too many things. The book wasn't an action movie. The insertion of these dramatic fighting sequences, that for the most part hardly even took place in the original work, completely trash the story's integrity. Second, the story is not intact. In the movie, the direct plot line of the book is made into a motion picture. None of the details are present. So many things happen that make no sense to the viewer because details were left out of the adaptation. Things that are shown to have great meaning are really just shallow pieces of garbage compared to the strong deepness of the writing. Third, the movie just can't portray the darkness of the book (especially, Snyder's direction). Watching Rorschach kill the murderer's dogs and then kill the owner and seeing the rape scene and watching Rorschach pour the oil on the man's face just looks stupid in the movie. The graphic violence doesn't come across as dark or moving or anything like that. The real, true darkness of the book lies in the words. The actual events are what scars your mind and makes you think and re-read what just happened. Fourth, the acting is terrible. Aside from a few choice actors all of the acting in the film is cheesy and stupid. I know it is hard to adapt comic book style dialogue and movement to film but these actors do not do it justice at all. Also, before I move a little more in depth, (old) Sally's make-up was terrible.

Now I will just say a few things I felt about this movie and its production. Zach Snyder is a great director. I loved his Dawn of the Dead remake and 300. When the production started for this, for some reason, I thought he was the perfect director for the job. Now that I've seen it, I know better. He is a dramatic, action-movie, 300 adapting, CG kind of guy. I'm not going to call him big-budget Hollywood just yet because I think he is going on to make much smaller movies currently. However, this is a big-budget movie and that is a main reason that it is so bad. The action scenes don't fit. The story is too shallow (similar to the Lord of the Rings adaptations). If Darren Aronofsky had actually made this (as he was earlier alleged) it may have been much better. Aronofsky has style, like Snyder, but he doesn't have to have over the top action scenes. He doesn't need huge amounts of CGI. This movie could have been a much more story-oriented intellectual film instead of a Blockbuster Hollywood action movie like it turned out to be.

I have so much to say about this but really not that many people read this blog and those who do probably didn't even read the small amount I did write. Overall, I was disappointed. But now that I think of it, I don't know what I expected. It just all makes sense now. Big budget = corporate input = action scenes and story cuts.

Plus, no tentacle monster? Come on!