Get this man in a Tim Burton film

Did the NYPD target me for a joke?

Last night I was walking from the subway to my apartment in Brooklyn, something I obviously do every night and have done every night for over a year now. I had my phone out and was 'Tweeting' as the kids call it, and this car cop is driving alongside me as does the 'beep beep' thing. You know, not the actual horn, but when they have the mini-siren kind of sound. Not sure if that makes any sense, but it was that.

Anyway, I thought nothing of it and kept walking. I wasn't doing anything wrong. Then they did it again and I look over and they're beckoning me to come over to the car. I walk over and there were two cops. The conversation that ensued between the cop in the passenger seat and I can be seen after the jump.

I’d Really Like to See…The ’Watchmen’ Not Suck

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.



Editor's Note: This blog contains SPOILERS about the "Watchmen" comic and film.

If you know me and/or follow this feature on the site, you should be well aware that I’m a pretty big comic book geek. It only seems inevitable that I should have something to say about this week’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s "Watchmen." Now I wouldn’t say that the book introduced me to comics or changed the way I look at them, and I may not even consider "Watchmen" my favorite thing by Alan Moore (seriously, check out his work on "Swamp Thing"), but it’s an absolute masterpiece no matter whether you're judging it as a graphic novel or standard novel (it's still one of the few graphic novels to be included on Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels of All Time).

Moore managed to add a level of maturity and moral complexity to superheroes that was not close to being matched until about 20 years later and he did it all while simultaneously incorporating the Golden and Silver Ages of comics and showing us how the medium has evolved in the Modern Age.

For the uninitiated, "Watchmen" follows a group of former masked vigilantes in an alternate version of our own reality (one which sees the recently re-elected Richard Nixon serving his third term as president in 1985). When one of their own is murdered, the heroes' investigation into the motives behind his death and a suspected plot to rid the world of all of the former avengers uncovers a conspiracy with much larger ramifications. That said, the novel takes full advantage of the comic medium and is a perfectly singular, self-contained work. In addition to the main story, Moore includes “source material” (articles and books written by or about characters in the universe) at the end of each chapter and the comic-within-a-comic "Tales from the Black Freighter" to add further layers to the story, characterization, and general themes of the piece. As one can imagine, these extra quirks to the book along with the generally massive scope of the story can make the film difficult to adapt from page to screen.

Random bits

Last time I posted something, I was having big dreams of writing all kinds of entries on here about various items. Obviously, that never happened, so find a combination of all these things after the jump.

I’d Really Like to See…Green Lantern Done Right on the Big Screen

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.

Sequels, prequels, and remakes are the most prominent tools Hollywood has employed to make sure they don't have to think of anything original to do for the next 10 or 12 years. With the recent success of Iron Man and Christopher Nolan's resurrection of the Batman franchise, they can now add comic book films to their arsenal of tools to stifle originality. Still, just because something is adapted from source material doesn't mean it can't be good (once again, Nolan) and some of the upcoming comic book adaptations have potential to be really good.

Recent Interweb newsers are indicating that the next film from the DC Universe to be fast tracked at Warner Brothers may very well be Green Lantern, and why shouldn't it be? Green Lantern's history is just as storied and rich as either Batman's or Superman's and if nothing else, he's worth mentioning for his continuous penchant for pissing off the Caped Crusader with his ability to overcome great fear - the primary weapon of the Dark Knight. Rumor has it that Martin Campbell of Casino Royale fame is attached to direct a script from Eli Stone’s Marc Guggenheim. 

I have been delinquent

It's true, I've been neglecting the blog here. It may have something to do with buying Mario Kart Wii. For the sake of having everything in one place, I've written two blogs for Zoom In since my last post, and I'll probably write something else on here soon about how much I love The Wrestler and something making fun of the Friday the 13th remake.

But in the meantime, here is a bit about how the moviegoing experience and how we watch films in general has changed over the decades, and here I write about how Kristen Wiig should be in a romantic comedy (and how that genre's crappy in general). Seriously - imagine Virginia Horsen treking the globe in a hot air balloon trying to find her dream lover. It's romantic, right?