Descent of the Crystal Watchmen

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
If anyone knows the current location of George W. Lucas I will pay you handsomely for an opportunity to stab him in the eye. I don't know where my unbridled enthusiasm for this film came from, but at some point I lost track of the reality that is Lucas post the Last Crusade. I cringed in my seat as my childhood memories of Indy flicks were white washed with bad CGI and unbelievable plot points.

After the abomination that was episodes one through three, I expected this kind of crap from Lucas. Not from Spielberg though. The man has made more amazing films than you can count on your fingers and piggies. A.I. and War of the Worlds weren't smash hits in any way, shape or form, but they weren't terrible. Crystal Skull is piping hot garbage though. I have tried my best to not spoil the plot for any who hold out hope, but I would strongly recommend skipping this film altogether.

The Descent (plot)
Most horror films are not even horror these days, they are a new genre dubbed torcher pr0n by some media. Your saws, hostels and turistas of the world are all the rage with the kids. I was too scared to watch horror films growing up and by the time they didn't bother me too much the genre had moved on to films that should be NC-17 and above. There are still the classics though and that rare film that bucks the torcher pr0n yoke in favor of a good scare and a story.

Descent is that rare film that hearkens back to horror classics. It builds palpable tension through its environment and camera work and only plays off of gore and blood in doses that are bearable early in the film. Later, after the long awaited monster reveal (the best I have ever seen) the blood and guts are amped to ten as a great juxtaposition to the first half of the show.

Watchmen (plot)
This is a book I was told was a right of passage for comic fans. It was with that preface that I struggled to finish it. I can tell the writing was ground breaking for the time, but to my fresh eyes it seems a bit verbose and long winded. I'm sure that compared to the golden and silver age comics pre-1986 this work seemed like a maturing of the media.

I still think it is good, but unlike the other books I have read recently I could put this one down and did on many occasions to take a break from it. At one point I put it on hold for two days while I read Kraven's Last Hunt and when I got new game magazines I would set it aside as well. Thankfully it picked up near the end, but by that point I was skipping the two to three pages of text between each comic.