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Vatican Declares The Golden Compass Godless

They also said it was the "most anti-Christmas film possible."

And that's after the director stripped out all the religious references.

I guess the movie's pretty damned good, then. We should see it. As soon as it's on dvd. I continue to vow never to go the the movie theatre again.

The Vatican newspaper said "honest" viewers would find it "devoid of any particular emotion apart from a great chill."

That's how i feel when i think about our government.

I wish they hadn't started calling the first book Northern Lights instead of The Golden Compass, though. What's with that?


By min | December 19, 2007, 11:00 AM | Boooooks & Movies | Comments (15)| Link



Hobbit Movie Out of Limbo

Between lawsuits involving Peter Jackson and New Line over profits the director felt he'd been shorted and disputes over which studio controlled the rights, the prequel has been held up for a while. Apparently, that's all settled now.

They plan on making 2 Hobbit movies, though, and i don't see why. 3 LOTR books, 3 movies. 1 Hobbit book, 1 movie. I have to wait for the second movie before they fight Smaug? That's crap. Half of the book is singing. Oh god. I hope they're not going to sing in this movie. Have you seen the cartoon version? I fell asleep trying to watch it. Twice.

At the moment, Jackson is going to be executive producer, not the director. And "will be the creative font for the two films that he pitched to MGM." That's not necessarily a bad thing. Like how Joss Whedon didn't write the majority of the episodes in Buffy, but set up the direction the series should move in and it was good and there was continuity and character development. Except half of season 7 sucked. And i'm still bitter about what he did in Serenity. We should find him and punch him in the balls repeatedly. I hope Peter Jackson doesn't make the same mistake. Do you hear me Peter Jackson? I've got my eye on you!

So, yeah. The Hobbit. Live action. I hope they get Ian McKellen to play Gandalf. I like that Ian McKellen.


By min | December 19, 2007, 9:01 AM | Boooooks & Movies | Link



I guess that Watchmen movie is actually coming out, then?

Progressive Ruin:

Longtime readers of this site know my experience with this...movie-related comics tend to peak in sales just before the movie's release, before dropping down to pre-movie hype sales (or even lower) upon or shortly after the film's debut. It happened with V for Vendetta, the first Spider-Man movie, From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and so on. And, judging by customer demand, trade sales could have been bumped upwards by the Sin City and Hellboy movies, but since Dark Horse was incapable of supplying those books to the direct market during peak demand, that's all theoretical.

The Watchmen movie is the real test, however. The Watchmen graphic novel has been a consistent, constant seller for years. I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but I imagine it probably outsells several new graphic novels from Marvel and DC in any given month. It has a legendary status within the hobby, and at least some minor amount of recognition outside the hobby. I'm still reordering copies every week...and just when I think that there's no possibly way everyone hasn't read this book by now, I sell more copies.

Now, at this point there's little chance that this movie is going to sink without a trace. It's a big-budget superhero movie, and it's gonna get noticed by the general public. Sometime late next year, and especially early '09, we're gonna be sick of seeing that smiley-face-with-blood-splash symbol all over everything advertising this flick. So, this movie will almost certainly enter the public consciousness.

If the movie's good, the comic will become superfluous. "I've seen the movie...I don't need to read the comic." If the movie's bad, it'll be people in the store pointing at the book on the shelf and saying "Oh, yeah, Watchmen...that was a crap movie. Look, there's a comic based on it!" And then they'll laugh. (This is also known as the "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Effect.")

I exaggerate slightly, but not much. V for Vendetta still sells, for example, but not nearly at the numbers it used to. I expect something similar to happen to Watchmen. Hopefully the movie will be at least watchable, so I don't have the additional burden of trying to convince customers that, yes, this comic is good, no really, it's not like the movie. (This is known as the "Howard the Duck Effect.")


By fnord12 | December 12, 2007, 9:29 AM | Comics & Movies | Link



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