Interesting news this week regarding casting for 300 director Zack Snyder’s upcoming adaptation of Watchmen. If you haven’t heard: recent Academy Award nominee Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) is slated to portray the enigmatic vigilante Rorschach; Billy Crudup (Almost Famous) has been tagged for the role of the godlike Dr. Manhattan; relative unknown Matthew Goode (Match Point) takes on the pivotal role of Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias; Patrick Wilson (who also appeared in Little Children) will play the Nite Owl; Dean Morgan (Grey’s Anatomy) stars as the cigar-chomping Comedian; and statuesque actress Malin Akerman (Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, Entourage, the upcoming Invasion) steps into the stilettos of the comparatively plain Silk Spectre.  (more…)

Live Free or Die Hard
Len Wiseman, USA, 2007
Rating: 3.8

It’s been a pretty hectic couple of months. I was recently promoted to Editor in Chief at the weekly paper I’ve worked at for almost three years, and as you’ve no doubt noticed, Shaking Through has suffered as a result. I’m trying to get caught up with all the movies, books, comics and music I’ve experienced and meant to write about since May, but it’ll take awhile.

As busy as I’ve been, though, my average 13-plus hour day pales in comparison to the kind of overtime New York cop John McClane logs in the latest Die Hard installment. (How’s that for a segue?) (more…)

Good question.

It’s been a quiet few weeks here at Shaking Through World Headquarters for a number of reasons. The first and most important is that I recently changed jobs, leaping headfirst into a very demanding new role that has consumed pretty much every waking weekday hour (and quite a few weekends) since late May. The precious few free hours I’ve had have been spent with my wife, either catching up with each other or working to resolve a sticky home-repair situation.

Meanwhile, Laurence Station, my partner in Shaking Through, has had his own family issues to deal with, along with assorted things having to do with restoring his New Orleans home. Our frequent contributor The Gentleman has been around, doing whatever it is he does, and he’s even sent me a post or two for editing and posting on the site. But I just haven’t had the time.

Anyway, I’ve finally got a little breathing room: Some staffing issues have been resolved, and things are slowly settling down. I hope to be able to post content on a more consistent basis than has been the case lately; we’ll see how it goes. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience.

Transformers
Michael Bay, USA, 2007
Rating: 3.3

Let’s face it: Transformers is stupid. Always has been. Even during its heyday in the ‘80s, it was a hokey piece of pop-cultural flotsam designed to sell toys. The mythology, if you want to call it that, was/is bush league and amateurish. Sentient robots is one thing – call me a dork if you like, but I kind of like that idea. Sentient robots from a planet called Cybertron, who for some reason gather together under the banner of “Autobots” or “Decepticons” – sorry, but your average episode of Teletubbies is better thought-out than that.

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