Walking out of Watchmen

I went to see Watchmen last night, and walked out after an hour – which was gutting, because I was really looking forward to seeing it. But either my memory of the graphic novel is faulty or the film just didn’t work, because at no point after the clever opening credits was I even vaguely interested. Bored, annoyed, embarrassed that I’d persuaded Mrs Bigmouth to go, yes. Interested, no.

Part of the problem, I’m sure, is that I’ve been spoilt by films such as The Dark Knight. Watchmen’s “What if superheroes were real?” thing is no longer a novelty (I know it got there a long time ago, but it’s an old idea in movies now), but where Dark Knight made an effort to do something with the source material Watchmen felt like a shot by shot recreation of the comic. And for me, that didn’t work. Rorshasch’s voiceover sounded hackneyed and adolescent, which I don’t recall it being in the book (then again, I was a lot younger when I read it, so maybe it is). The dialogue was terrible. And as for the acting and direction: wooden and liking the violence a wee bit too much respectively. It felt like I was watching The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy having a wank.

Did you go to see Watchmen? What did you make of it?

Techradar Tuesday: Half-Life 2 The Movie, and a shopping list for Microsoft

The days run away like horses over the hill…

Is Half-Life 2 the future of indie movie-making?

The potential is mind-boggling, but let’s be honest: we’re not quite there yet. The constant fast-cutting in Escape from City 17 can’t disguise the fact that some of the in-game footage doesn’t quite gel with the real footage, the Combine Citadel looks like it’s been glued into the background with Pritt Stick and we’re pretty sure that none of the $500 budget was spent on the script.

Overall, though, it works – and to our eyes it’s no worse than the CGI in the most recent Hulk movie, which cost $150 million to make and still looked like it had been thrown together on a ZX Spectrum by an angry toddler.

Six companies Microsoft should buy:

Microsoft isn’t short of cash, and it recently – and unsuccessfully – offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion.

The idea was to catch up with Google, but the big G isn’t the only firm doing well in areas where Microsoft isn’t. So perhaps Microsoft should widen its net.

From video and music to shopping and social networks, we think these six firms should be on Microsoft’s shopping list.

Fighting piracy by shooting yourself in the foot, #3124

Ars Technica:

High Definition Content Protection (HDCP)—you can’t live with it, but you practically can’t buy an HD-capable device anymore without it. While HDCP is typically used in devices like Blu-ray players, HDTVs, HDMI-enabled notebooks, and even the Apple TV in order to keep DRMed content encrypted between points A and B, it appears that Apple’s new aluminum MacBook (and presumably the MacBook Pro) are using it to protect iTunes Store media as well.

Engadget:

the problem comes in when you realize that the new unibody machines don’t offer a VGA / VGA-to-component output, meaning that you have to connect it to an HDCP-compliant display if you want to see anything. We know, one word in particular keeps coming to mind to describe this fiasco: awesome.

As one Engadget commenter puts it:

Seriously, if you pirate it, it JUST WORKS. No need to spend extra to comply with DRM/HDCP crap.

Four things I learnt on the internet today

“The success of an anti-piracy campaign is measured in the number of hours it buys before the digital dam breaks” and 38 hours is considered a success. The LA Times on attempts to prevent fanboys watching camcorder copies of The Dark Knight.

The crackdown on file sharing may be bad news for people who don’t file share. “…service gets worse as you wait in a queue wondering why your broadband has gone down, while the 50 people in front of you all have perfectly functional internet connections but are wondering if a lawyer is going to show up at their door.” Charles Arthur on the possible consequences of anti-P2P letters.

Apple’s PR strategy is hurting its share price. “Apple, on the other hand, has had stellar financials, huge hit products, and massive growth sales for all its product lines. With those results you would expect Apple to outperform Microsoft.” Comment by Ian Betteridge on Dan Lyons’ post about Apple share prices.

Caffeine is self-regulating and works almost instantly. “Women generally metabolize caffeine faster than men. Smokers process it twice as quickly as nonsmokers do. Women taking birth-control pills metabolize it at perhaps one-third the rate that women not on the Pill do. Asians may do so more slowly than people of other races.” NY Magazine on the wonders of caffeine (via Metafilter).

Three things about The Dark Knight and one thing about a burger van

• If you’re going to see The Dark Knight, try and get to an IMAX cinema. Some of the scenes are jaw-dropping on that there giant projecto-screen.
• Even though it’s too long and tries a bit too hard to make parallels with current events, it’s still enormously exciting.
• I can’t believe it’s been given a 12A certificate (that is, kids of any age can see it with an adult present).
• The wee burger van on the road into the Glasgow Science Centre is brilliant.

Watchmen trailer

Available now on Apple.com. Looks remarkably like the graphic novel.

Seven-word DVD review: Jesus Camp (documentary)

Makes you want to punch a nun.

Supplemental review: could do without the doomy music. What’s on-screen is scary enough, so the music’s just annoying.

Mrs Bigmouth’s seven-word DVD review: Cloverfield

Like watching someone else play a videogame.

Blame Canada

Oh, for crying out loud.

OTTAWA – The federal government is secretly negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws which could make the information on Canadian iPods, laptop computers or other personal electronic devices illegal and greatly increase the difficulty of travelling with such devices.

…Called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the new plan would see Canada join other countries, including the United States and members of the European Union, to form an international coalition against copyright infringement.

…The deal would create a international regulator that could turn border guards and other public security personnel into copyright police. The security officials would be charged with checking laptops, iPods and even cellular phones for content that “infringes” on copyright laws, such as ripped CDs and movies.

The guards would also be responsible for determining what is infringing content and what is not.

The agreement proposes any content that may have been copied from a DVD or digital video recorder would be open for scrutiny by officials – even if the content was copied legally.

As Jerry Sadowitz memorably put it: “moose-fuckers!”

Apple and music: good point, well made

Mark Mulligan of Jupiter Research has written a short post about iTunes movies and what it means for music, and he makes an excellent point about music industry attempts to marginalise Apple:

The labels already effectively killed off true-tone ring tones as a vibrant music format by demanding license fees that compelled mobile content providers to build their own IP (cf Crazy Frog) or simply promote more profitable mobile content such as games. Result? Declining ring tone sales.

Though digital music downloads are less exposed, it’s a dangerous game antagonizing the company which has done far more than any other to drive the digital music market and currently accounts for the vast majority of it. The labels want to weaken Apple’s position, but Apple now has bigger fish to fry.