Who is Northwest Smith? Northwest Smith is an entirely fictional character, who still manages to make it to the local mega-plex, video store, or On Demand section of his local cable outlet to check out flix that are of interest to him.

From the Desk of N.W. Smith
Movie/Video Reviews

07/04/05: Went to the local cyclopian mega-plex to see Batman Begins today, and enjoyed the film immensely. Jumped a little too suddenly into the story-line (I thought the projectionist had accidentally queued the second reel right after the opening credits). But I found the gritty realism and bow to exploring the psychology of Batman to complement each other very well; and when things did start going over the top towards the end of the movie, Batman's physical heroics and daring-do came off being a lot more realistic and plausible because of it. I also liked the fact that they subtly emphasized that Batman's real "superpower" was his ability as a detective. The fight-scenes could have been a filmed better: although they conveyed Batman's status as a kick-ass street-fighter against common thugs and better trained henchmen, the action was very claustraphobic and a bit muddled.

The best part of the afternoon, though, was when M'Lady and I had dinner at the meg-plex's restaurant, and a couple in their 70s who'd seen the film at the same screening as we did asked what we thought about it. Turns out they'd been reading comics like Batman from the literal beginning of the genre, back in the late 1930's! M'Lady was just humoring me about coming along for the show (she classifies comic books and derived media with cigarettes and caffience as a form of socially permissable substance abuse), but even she got into a very lively discussion of how comics and other media's attempts to adapt them have evolved over three-quarters of a century.