It’s time once again to name the worst movies I had the misfortune of sitting through in 2009. There might be worse out there, but these are the ones I’ve seen. Enjoy, my friends, The Scott Condella shit-plate special. After all, I did this for you. Also, as a special gift, one of the entries will include multiple movies.

Only a fool or a madman would make the argument that if you watched and hated this film, you just didn’t get it, or that the arcane magic of postmodern criticism has produced this, the infallible key to unlocking its hidden secrets. No. What I’m suggesting is that appreciating The Spirit requires something of a temporary paradigm shift, in which it’s possible to enjoy something truly “visionary” — something fanciful, not presently workable, impractical, unreal, imaginary, purely idealistic and speculative — for its own sake. Something that may be the dream of a fool or a madman.

The remake singularity is coming. Within the next decade or so (if current trends are any indication), every film ever made will soon be in a state of constant re-imagining, with infinite remakes in production at any given time. Don’t like Renny Harlin’s explosion-centric take on Apocalypse Now? Well, try Len Wiseman’s explosion-centric take on Apocalypse Now. Or Tim Burton’s. Or Zack Snyder’s. Now, thanks to the ever-expanding proliferation of media, the same tired stories can be repackaged for you in any number of unappealing ways.
Traditionally, most remakes seem to …

Seriously, my world just turned upside down.
Early in the year I forced myself to sit through Christopher Nolan’s painful but much hyped follow-up to the dreadfully mediocre Batman Begins.  You know Christopher Nolan, the guy who made the brilliant and ambitious movie, Memento, following it with one of the decade’s smartest American movies, The Prestige.  As a Batman fan, sitting through The Dark Knight was a physically painful affair: dire, clichéd rubbish, an overly traditional man vs terrorist setup soaked to the brim in an unquestioning philosophy a mile or …

Huge lot of comics fans that we are, the Playtime Staff sat down for a roundtable on Zach Snyder’s Watchmen (2009). Matt Kessen, our resident Watchmen expert was tapped to conduct the discussion, especially in regards to how the film differed from Moore’s graphic novel. The following takes place over the the week before and after the film’s release. If you are interested in continuing the discussion, feel free to jump into the fray on the forum.

Page One: Quis custodiet ipsos custodis? The Pre-Game
Page Two: Why I Am Not Seeing …

A surprisingly sturdy, mildly provocative 105 minute movie is hiding somewhere in Watchmen’s gangly two and three-quarter hours running time. Dense with shockingly unnecessary exposition, this story about the nature of heroism and identity indulges in a great deal of introspective character study between bouts of flamboyant brutality and fleeting moments where director Zack Snyder’s technical prowess and filmmaking ambition coincide. As a messy, sprawling adaptation, the product of marketing, focus-testing, and the instincts of a young would-be visionary still learning his craft, the inchoate professionalism of the production serves the film’s gargantuan ambitions and readymade stature, rather than completely defeating it. From the perspective of the film’s own history, it is a miracle that it got made at all.

Few comic book properties being adapted into the medium of film draw as much fantard enthusiasm, skepticism, and scrutiny as does Watchmen, the beloved graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Gibbons about ex-costumed vigilantes searching for answers after one of their kind is murdered, only to discover that it is a small piece of something bigger and much more terrifying than they initially thought.  The book has long languished in the depths of development hell, with directors such as Terry Gilliam, Paul Greengrass, and Darren Aronofsky …