Warren Ellis posted a link in his blog today to a site advertising ‘The Veidt Method’ by Adrian Veidt. Adrian Veidt is a fictional character from Alan Moore’s cult classic graphic Novel ‘Watchmen‘ which, after years of false starts is in the process of being turned into a movie directed by Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of The Dead). The movie has all the makings of a hit, even so I’m sure of course Moore will have nothing to do with it. The man is historic for having his works bastardized for film and removing his name from them.

The site in question, Mr. Ellis speculates that it may be tied to the movie release as viral marketing ARG (Alternate Reality Game, ala The Hanso Foundation and the TV show Lost). If he’s right it leaves much to be desired. Sure, the site makes mention of ‘Nova Express’ a fictional magazine from the Watchmen story and hawks the character’s ‘life changing methods,’ however the links are nonfunctional and even the mailing list box doesn’t work, it instead is a mailto link to ‘adrian@theveidtmethod.com‘. The site design is weak at best, I would imagine if Warner Brothers were to be getting into the viral game, they’d put a little more effort into it. A quick look at the HTML code reveals the site to be based off a free template webdesign credited to a ‘Joseph De Araujo‘. Lame.

Putting those things aside, the site still doesn’t make sense. For one, the Watchmen storyline takes place in an alternate reality, cold war era, 1985; a detail which is reportedly being retained for the movie. If that’s the case, a viral web ad campaign or ARG would be out of place. Especially seeing as how it’s not 1985 and the World Wide Web didn’t exist in it’s current form back then either.

The true telltale however is this: on the bottom left of the page there is a login link that brings up the following:

Real ARGs are never this sloppy. Suddenly it all makes a lot more sense. Looking a little harder one finds that the site is actually hosted at theonering.net: a Lord of the Rings fan site. Turns out, this isn’t their first attempt either, they’ve also been publishing a blogger website entitled ‘rorschach’s journal.‘ Some believe the guys at ‘theonering’ have been lobbying to try and get some deal with Warner Brothers to do viral marketing for the movie. My best guess is they hope to make another unofficial hub like theonering.net possibly based around Moore’s works or something. Since Lord of the Ring’s success they’ve sort of made a business out of movie fan sites apparently.

Conclusion: It’s nothing but a bunch of geeks with a hard on for the original comic book having some unofficial web fun and a letdown for us other geeks looking for something fun to dig though while we get hyped up looking forward to the movie.

To date the only official Watchmen teaser info can be found here. Go back to sleep Watchmen fans.

The Prestige was everything a good movie should be. It had everything: thrills, suspense, mystery, heartbreak, humor and romance.

Much applause for Chistopher Nolan who really put together a fine film. I was also floored by the excellent cast and the stellar performances all around.

2006 has been a great year for movies, I’m curious what the holiday season will bring.

I already put this on my del.ico.us but I figured it needed more attention because it was that damn good…. More rotoscoping and compositing! I’m sure you’re thrilled oh fictitious reader.

Special Effects house Buzz Imaging shows off how it made the effects used in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The clip showcases some incredible 3d modeling, rotoscoping and compositing work and makes it almost look easy. Don’t be fooled, this sort of thing takes days, weeks even months to get right. But it’s still incredible.

(Via Daring Fireball)

…unless I update it.

Fair enough I guess I’ll work on that. I’ll try to make this brief. I’ve been busy for the past few months, but things seem to be settling down for the moment which is good.  Work is good, back to school season is just ending so hopefully things might ease up, that’s about all I can say. I’m hoping for new products soon, but have no clue in truth. I plan to pick up a MacBook Pro whenever they put out a new version. My 12″ Powerbook’s AppleCare has just expired, and while it’s still running and treating me well, it’s time to move to something with a little more power, something that can run Aperture or actually interface with a video iPod. (12″ had USB 1.1)

So I’m back playing Halo 2 again, that game will not die for me I still enjoy it every bit as much as I did when I bought it. Oh that reminds me, I officially, after what… 4 months, have decided that my X-Box 360 was a completely worthwhile purchase. 3 reasons:

1. I finally used it as a DVD player and a messaging center at the same time. I have my old wired Apple Keyboard plugged into it. Being able to voice chat as VoIP or text message while watching a movie is incredible.
2. X-Box Live Arcade is finally actually worthwhile. I downloaded Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting and have been getting my butt whupped by strangers on the internet, while listening to music streaming from my PowerMac. (Thank you Connect 360)
3. Dead Rising. Nuff Said.

Other stuff….

So I’ve been keeping busy, not working on any major design projects at the moment, mostly studying new programs and trying to (re?)teach myself how to draw. That said, I have been working at getting MediaRebellion.com back up and running. I’m not sure what we’re going to use it for but I moved all the content over to Wordpress and as of yesterday two days ago I installed the Beta of phpBB 3 on the site which actually seems to be running REALLY smoothly, it’s leaps and bounds better than any other free message board system I’ve used.

I’m also now hosting / administrating the official message board for The Epoxies. Incase you havn’t checked them out, they are a new wave / punk band from Portland, Oregon that totally rocks, I highly recommend checking them out.

Canon put out a new version of the Rebel… I want it.