Dreams of Sundance / Going Kaboom

Anyone who has ever met me in real life has probably experienced what I like to call, "The Excitable Ryan." Just like Tinkerbell, I often have the emotional capacity to only feel one emotion at one time. Not with every single feeling, mind you, but when I get excited about something? It's hard to feel anything else. This year, just before Christmas, there was one thing I was so excited about I could hardly think about anything else.

It was the thought of going to the one, the only Sundance Film Festival.

I've been a long and often quiet admirer for many years of Sundance. While working at the Nashua Public Library, I was exposed for the first time to the joys of independent cinema. Going to places like The Wilton Town Hall Theater and later Coolidge Corner in Boston only strengthened this newfound interest. While living in Boston, I had the opportunity to watch the IFC Television Channel, which I'll admit, sadly got kind of obsessed with. I would say about half the films on my Netflix list (when I still had it) were independents; I was clearly hooked.

Watchmen: Graphic Novel vs. Movie

Watchmen is one of the few graphic novels where the movie has done a better job. Nothing against Alan Moore, who wrote a pretty good story, but the movie does a better job at giving the readers the proper cliff notes to what the story is about. It also has a much better reason for our ultimate villain allowing humanity to unite- he really makes Doctor Manhattan the villain. That element wasn't in the graphic novel, and the gigantic-cloned-psychic-brain-alien thing that is used as the villain in the graphic novel is just... well, silly. Silk Spectre is a lot more likable in the movie version; in the novel, she was just sort of crazy yelling and complaining all the time. Her costume adaptation, which is only loosely based on the original design from the comic, is also just much nicer. Her comic costume is very dated. The movie was cast well, and giving us extended fight scenes upped the ante. I don't usually say "see the movie and read the book" but this is a good example of one time I probably should. Recommended. Go see it.