Neil Patrick Harris (”Doogie Howser”) was never a favorite of mine, but since Josh Whedon, the guy behind “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” was behind his new web-only show, I thought I’d have a look at the popular-among-geeks “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”. The hype notwithstanding, the interesting thing about Whedon’s mini-series (just three episodes so far) is that it is entirely a web phenomenon.

The offbeat story of a bumbling super-villain and his rivalry over a cutie with pompous super-hero, Captain Hammer, played by Nathan Fillion, DHSAB is most notable as Whedon’s attempt to end run the corporate television system. One hopes it points toward the day when creative content will compete in an online marketplace where the stuff people embrace will make money—eliminating risk-averse intermediaries. Digital media may be a game-changer. This blog production could easily be done on a jvc camcorder. It makes me think, who needs a full dress television production company anymore?

Billed as a “comic opera,” it isn’t really quite funny enough and hardly resembles an opera (maybe a rock opera if you stretch it). The Who did the opera thing better though. And Doctor Who is a funnier and more intriguing doctor than Dr. Horrible.

The trailer for Watchmen hit the interwebs this week. You can find it on Trailer Addict.

I dunno, Zach Snyder has been a little hit or miss with me. I loved Dawn of the Dead, but hated 300. I love that he brought tension to DotD without making it a gorefest. But with 300, it was meandering and ultimately pointless. The slo-mo effect was cool at first, but it grew old on me very fast.

Nevertheless, I’m a quite intrigued by this trailer (altho, wasn’t the body exploding motif kinda repetitve?), since I am not familiar with the Watchmen graphic novel. This movie has been in production for over a year, so I’m thinking it’s all gonna be down to the effects. And since I’m sure they’re using something a bit more high tech than a sony hd camcorder, I’m sure the long wait is justified. And at least, Snyder has been releasing some nice tidbits on his video journals.

Watchmen arrives in theaters on March 6, 2009.

(source: /film)

Hancock opens this Wednesday, probably aiming to clean up on the 4th of July holiday.

Trailer Check:

The reviews so far are so-so, but I wanna hold out hope since it stars Will Smith & Jason Bateman. Will Smith has been on my good side ever since seeing I Am Legend, there’s no way I can turn a cold shoulder to him now.

The director, Peter Berg, did do a nice job on The Kingdom (also starring Bateman), but maybe the superhero comedy is simply a hard nut to crack? I can think of a few superhero comedies that sort of fell flat with the audience. There’s bad pacing (My Super Ex-Girlfriend) or the tone of the movie is too hard to follow (Spiderman 3).

Best of luck to Hancock, maybe Smith’s charisma can prove to be a profitable summer movie experience.

The Metropolitan Museuem of Art unveiled it’s latest exhibit this week: “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.”

The show has three areas of concentration: original costumes, fantasy costumes created by designers, and sportswear inspired by superheroes. The curators deliberately juxtaposed the movie costumes with the fashion designer creations. I think I need to plan a trip to NYC so I can see these outfits up close.

If NYC is too far for you, you can check out photos of the exhibit at DVICE.