I actually think Judas is one of the most fascinating characters in the Bible. How much of his betrayal was free will and how much of it was demon-possession (it's said that "Satan entered him") or God's sovereignty? As a Christian, I find the matter of Judas to be one of the most challenging aspects of my faith in a…

@Mrs Gods Instant Pancakes: No, I don't buy it. Even in the graphic novel, it's hinted at that Rorschach was indeed a badass. Remember when Nite Owl II is reminiscing about working with him in the old days? Here's a quote:

DOUBLE INDEMNITY and HEAT
Specifically, Walter Neff. Dude is absolutely reprehensible, but damn if I don't spend the entire movie rooting for him to get away with it.

Ooh, good one with Rorschach. He's pretty much the only character in "Watchmen" other than Ozymandias who commits to a set of principles and sticks to them. He's such a badass that it's easy to forget that those principles shape him into a fascist, xenophobic, violent psychopath.

Seriously, I was surprised no one brought up Vito or Michael Corleone. I didn't get too attached to Michael once he took up the mantle, but I was rooting for Vito the entire film.

Alcoholics are funny … until they die!
I can't wait for the "RIP Mark E. Smith" newswire so I can read the comments from all these chortling hipsters bemoaning the alcoholism that killed him.

I'm more of a fan of TOL than TZ, mostly because TZ's twist endings get gimmicky after a while. That said, TOL had its share of fairly ridiculous, MST3K-worthy camp, with episodes like "The Brain of Colonel Barham" (the disembodied brain can shoot lightning bolts!) and "The Zanti Misfits" (evil space ants that have…

Another one of EQUILIBRIUM's crimes? Killing off Sean Bean in the first ten minutes of the film.

On balance, I think Kung Fu Hustle is a better-made film than Shaolin Soccer. Its story is tighter, the humor (while sparser) is more consistent, the martial arts choreography is cooler, and Stephen Chow's direction is more confident.

Not a fan of a little movie called "Raging Bull," are we, drdarkeny?

@Eliezer: I see where you're coming from, but I suspect we define "moralizing" differently. If a film doesn't glorify revenge, does that mean it's moralizing? Not for me. Certainly "Oldboy" makes the point that revenge warps and destroys, but that's not moralizing: it's truth-telling. For me, moralizing in movies…

I'm surprised "Oldboy" hasn't come up more in this thread. It's pretty balls-to-the-wall with its revenge story, and it doesn't moralize that much (that I can think of). It provokes contemplation more than finger-wagging.

That Ebert review really is … not amazing, exactly, but remarkable in how palpable his boredom is. It's as if he said, "Screw it, there's no way I'm spending more than 15 minutes of the life I have left on reviewing this piece of crap."

Carrot Top and Ke$ha.

"Writer-director"?
John Curran didn't write this. Angus MacLachlan, of JUNEBUG fame, just informed me that he's writing you out of his will.

Maybe it's unfair of me to compare David Sedaris to a genius like David Foster Wallace, but I think DFW's nonfiction helps highlight why I'm not a huge fan of Sedaris. In DFW's nonfiction ("A Supposedly Fun Thing" foremost among it), the autobiography seems genuine and unvarnished — you never doubt for a second that…

Agreed. The LotR trilogy turned out as well as it did because it was basically a labor of love for Jackson. This movie sounds like it could be his "Spider-Man 3." And I say that as a fan of both Tolkien and Jackson.

Would you say that it was … fucking distracting?

2 Jew 2 Munich

HipsterDBag: People got their underwear all in a twist when "The Fountain" came out and they couldn't figure it out in five minutes. Pretty much every criticism of "The Fountain" could also be leveled at "2001: A Space Odyssey," not that Aronofsky's detractors would ever admit it.