So I just saw Punching Stuff Until It Blows Up, er, I mean Man of Steel.

It was not good.

Standard Zach Snyder not good? Or a different flavor of not good? I need to know how angry Pete is going to be once he sees it. (Pete really likes Superman, and has been excited about the trailers for Man of Steel. I've told him to go see it on his own, because I don't really care about Supes, and that I have given up on Zach Snyder movies.)

Mainly it was just incredibly boring. There was no there there. The timeline is shaken up for no good reason other than telling it chronologically would have been even more boring. Trivial bits of backstory are repeated over and over and over again, and major pieces of information are glossed over or not mentioned at all. It's just a boring clunky badly told story.

One thing I will say in its favor - Lois Lane is done very well. I don't think this passes the Bechdel test, but the "Pulitzer Prize winning ditz" schtick from the last several Superman films is GONE. She is presented from the beginning as an actual competent journalist who doesn't need to ask her male boss how to spell shit. There is no scene where she's randomly in her underwear or a tight cocktail dress. She's frequently in need of rescue, but not more than the military guys she's surrounded by. So that was refreshing. But it doesn't make up for the fact that she's in a movie where you could fall asleep for an hour and not miss anything.

Mainly it was just incredibly boring. There was no there there.

So pretty much like every other Zach Snyder film? Good to know.

(The best thing from the Watchmen movie was the music video, and NOT just because it was MCR. Tho' that helped immensely.)

Tho' that helped immensely

Yes, it did.

I still love Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead, and I can watch The Watchmen slightly altered and hoot at its awfulness (because Jeffrey Dean Morgan! Carla Cugino!), but everything else he does really seems to suck.

She's frequently in need of rescue

Three decades of Superman comics readership leads me to believe this is Lois Lane's defining character trait, if not her entire raison d'être.

Three decades of Superman comics readership leads me to believe this is Lois Lane's defining character trait, if not her entire raison d'être.

Yeah, but at least in the Fleischer cartoons she wasn't afraid to pull out a tommygun and blast away at gangsters.

Though I have affection for the insane and insanely sexist Mort Weissinger era Lois.

Late to say that I really enjoyed the mooseelk convo but this bit...

Boom, scienced.

...was my favorite. I can just see P-C flicking his hand out like he's droppin. the mic.

I liked Watchmen just fine, though I came at it from the perspective that it was pretty much doomed from the get-go, so there you go.

I saw This is the End today and was suitably entertained! It's a pretty awesome premise, everybody does a good job of either playing an exaggerated version of their public persona or doing something COMPLETELY different. Of the smaller roles, Michael Cera is pretty awesome, as are Emma Watson and Mindy Kaling. (I don't think those are really casting spoiles at this point, but I was pleasantly surprised by their being in the movie so I'll leave that possibility for others).

The actual end-of-the-world stuff is pretty well done as well. It feels like it owes a lot to Shaun of the Dead in its ridiculosity, more so than, say, Zombieland. I liked it. The ending was pretty silly, but it worked for the movie.

All told, solid entertainment. If you detest Seth Rogen, don't see it. If you detest (or often detest) James Franco, you can still see it and probably enjoy it.

Watchmen was a fucking train wreck, but I wasn't bored by it, and I rather enjoyed 300.

Emma Watson is in trailers, Gris.