NIGHTWATCH: dark meat or light?

site | trailer
I finally screened NIGHTWATCH tonight for the first time. It's like a supernatural successor to THE MATRIX. Heck, in my head, it pretty much happens inside the Matrix anyways.

In case you can't tell, that means I LIKE IT. =)

A very stylish and entertaining Russian slice of the ages-old battle between good and evil, hidden from most of humanity's eyes. Some people are born different. They're gifted/cursed with abilities that human beings do not possess. They might be able to heal others, transform into animals, or see visions of the future. These talents often remain latent until revealed under stress, like having to save one's child from a cave-in, or instinctively fighting off a vampire attack, y'know, the usual. These gifted individuals are known as the Others. They include sorcerers, vampires, shapeshifters, and seers. They are divided into two camps, the Light and the Dark, which roughly correspond to good and evil. Governed by an ancient truce, each side follows certain rules of coexistence in the modern world. Each side also polices the other, to enforce those rules. The Dark Others check the Light with the Daywatch, and the Light Others check the Dark with their Nightwatch.

Now, throw into this precarious balance the prophecied coming of an Other of supreme power. Once someone discovers s/he is an Other, s/he must ultimately choose whether to follow the Light or the Dark. In early 21st century Russia, the signs seem right for the coming of this supreme Other, and the Nightwatch is desperate to find him before the Daywatch, and at the same time check the ever-more-reckless behavior of the Dark.

Pretty nifty set-up, no?

I don't want to spoil anything with too much detail. Maybe I'll do a spoilery ramble in a next post for anyone who's seen it already or read the book—an EXcellent read, by the way, and the movie is a pretty clever adaptation, I must say.

The small-scale action sequences are well done and shot. There are a couple of scenes on the scale of army-vs-army that are about quick cuts and flashes of violence that with a "little" tweaking could've been made more readable, but that may be my action snobbery at odds with editing for pace and tension that the film calls for. I just feel that screentime given over to foggy melees could be better spent delivering some directed, choreographed, or even narrative combat and action.

Call me crazy.

Once an Other is "triggered," s/he becomes aware of, and with training, can access, another layer of reality, a sort of parallel dimension that exists in the same space, but follows laws different from those of physics, has its own native ecosystem, and allows adept Others to travel and operate through it to avoid obstacles of the "normal" world. The book describes the experience for a reader's imagination, but the movie uses some great visuals and some clever rule-adaptation to show you its version of how it works.

Thanks, Jess, for setting me up with this movie Goodness. =)

I've had the dvd in my hands for a few weeks now, but only tonight made room for it. When I got home this evening, my sister was around, but after an episode of THE OFFICE, was on her way out to meet up with Rowan and some friends of his. So, with another big Friday night of nada planned, I figured it would be a perfect opp to screen my NIGHTWATCH. I could make myself some dinner (and kill off the last of the Thanksgiving turkey leftovers in a bachelor's fried rice special), turn out all the lights, fire up the dvd player and pump the movie out in 16-by-9 on the phatscreen. Wheee! =)

Well, when I hit the kitchen, I found not enough rice left in the cooker for a proper dindins, so, I scooped out the remainder and set up the cooker for a new batch. This meant waiting a while before making my dinner and then moviewatching, so I took advantage of the time to finally crack open the old Philips TV...
Fun! It was just as I'd found in many a comment and complaint online about the TV—the fuse was blown.

I popped it out and replaced it with one from the 4-pack I bought at Radio Shack a couple weeks back, closed the set back up, plugged it in, and hey, Joe, whaddyaknow? It works! Man! Found something helpful in the tubes of the interweb! Who'da thunk it? And help from the words of sympathetic strangers who all encountered the same problem. This is just the kind of situation where networking and accumulated experience works as a real and true effective tool and resource. Eat it, Philips! Nyeah! : P

Of course, from what I've read, that fuse will burn out at some point, too. It'll be a vicious cycle. Still, not a terrible scenario for a decent second TV. And, also based on the comments online, I was one of the very fortunate ones whose set actually operated without fail for almost 2 years. Most people who posted told tales of televisional mortality occuring within weeks of their purchase. Someone had scanned many of the postings and found a high correlation between this kind of failure and sets that were bought or shipped in November 2004. Add me and my tube to that column.

Just what to do with the revived set... Well, I've formulated a plan this week. Unfortunately, it involves forsaking my replayTV in the living room, bleah. Basically, I'm gonna suck it up and get a comcast DVR for the living room TV, then move the comcast non-DVR tuner to a second TV in the black-n-white room. This will provide the signal for one of my replayTV boxes. Then I'll set up my other replayTV box on the small TV in my bedroom, and through that, networked to the other (I'll hafta look into buying a wireless bridge to get it on the network), I'll be able to watch replayTV recorded shows in my room.

I'm sure Joe, Jeff, or even Dan could explain to me how this set up is at least a decade behind what I could do with some combination of Macs and an Xbox, but what can I say? I'm old-fashioned. =)

Keep on keepin on~

p.s. I do believe the proper title is NIGHT WATCH, but I couldn't help jamming the words together while 2am typing. It's the first in a trilogy and I've seen that DAY WATCH is supposed to be on its way to the states. I will NOT miss that one on the big screen—this one would've been gorgeous in a theater. Foo.