2. Kath and I devoured most of Season Two of the Wire yesterday, taking a break in the afternoon to see Watchmen. I'm gonna give Watchmen a B-. It was incredibly faithful to the source material, almost too much so - the sex scene was a little bit over-the-top, and also reminded me that while I love Leonard Cohen as a lyricist/poet, I've never been a big fan of his actual music. I have to wonder what the movie is like for people who've never read the original comic; there were quite a few Watchmen noobs in the audience and for the most part they had no idea what the hell they were watching. Also: when we were coming out of the theater, we saw that there were quite a few families who'd taken their 6-year-old children to see it. Patton Oswalt had a great bit about how, because The Dark Knight was PG-13, there's going to be a generation of sociopathic killers in 20 years who had nightmares about Heath Ledger; I can't say that a 6-year-old kid is going to be traumatized in the same way from Watchmen, but, I mean, Jesus - there's profanity, graphic violence and naked boobies and supernatural peener, not to mention the complete and utter destruction of New York City; that's gotta be a lot for a little kid to take in, right?
3. Back to The Wire - holy shit. Season Two might not be as strong as Season One, but it's still pretty much ruined every other TV show out there for me. Perfectly cast, perfectly written, carefully plotted, great performances all around; it's funny and horrifying and sad and gripping and makes me absolutely terrified of going anywhere near Baltimore.