Today I received the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had the chance to set as my background on my MacBook.
My fiance, who after nearly two years is getting to know me too well made me this collage background with my favourite colour, and text from my favourite author.
I’ve included the background here for you if you are interested. Its encoded for 1280×800, but I think if I asked nice and enough and had enough demand, it could be found for other screen sizes.
Thank you fiance for making something beautiful, and thank you Neil Gaiman for providing inspiration.

Now that I’ve waited, or forgotten to review Watchmen for nearly three weeks, it has given me time to more accurately reflect on the movie. Hopefully this will eliminate any knee jerk reactions I would have had upon writing when I originally anticipated.
Having read the graphic novel in the fall of 2008, I had a decent idea of what to expect from this movie. My first reaction before seeing it was how misleading the advertising for this film really was. I honestly don’t believe Watchmen to be really action infused story by any means. There are action scenes, but not in the volume that one would be lead to believe. I’ve always viewed the story as a very complex murder mystery, that just so happens to involve Super Heros.
There really isn’t any way to review this movie without comparing it to the source material. But in a vague attempt, it does stand well without having prior knowledge of story, but I can definitely understand where people unfamiliar with it could be easily lost. This may explain the eight people that left the viewing I attended.
Adapting the source material must have been a difficult job, and one that would inevitably fall under very close scrutiny. The writers along with director Zach Snyder did an admirable job, and stayed as true to the original dialogue and progression of the story as they could. Admittedly they extended several scenes far longer than their graphic novel counterpart ran. This in particular hurt the pacing of the film in several places. Then once this pacing became an issue, it seems they tried to hold the scene in place with 80’s pop tunes, that just somehow didn’t quite fit.
The choice of not including a Giant Squid at the end of the film was probably a wise one, though after three hours, I get the feeling even the most casual audience wouldn’t have been too phased by its appearance, but setting up such a set piece would be difficult story wise.
There are several places where I wished material had not been cut and replaced with extensions of weaker scenes, but that was not my choice to make. I hope that there is some room for change as the film progresses from Theaters to Blu-ray and DVD. Next week marks the arrival of The Black Freighter, as a supplement story to the main Watchmen material. Reviews I have read so far indicate that is stands well on its own separate from the main feature, and does help show thematic similarities. The second feature on The Black Freighter is an interesting interpretation of what was a tell all autobiography in the graphic novel. On DVD is becomes a poorly filmed 80s expose all TV interview. This feature helps flesh out some characters that only make real appearances in passing.

I think to truly appreciate what Watchmen has to offer, there is a certain amount of dedication required. You have to want to enjoy this film, and surround yourself in the information that is available to you. Is the film perfect? No it is far from it. Is the film enjoyable? Definitely.