Last Thursday I made the probably unwise decision to see the live-action interpretation of Ghost In the Shell starring Scarlet Johannson at the local movie theater.  The terrible weather in the Bay Area aside (continual rain, Washington DC-like cold, gusts of wind up to 50 miles per hour), it's just not a good movie.  I was expecting a half-assed retelling of the original movie's story with additional Hollywood elements, and I wasn't disappointed in that respect.

tl;dr - Don't bother.  ScarJo's new movie is a bad cosplay that'll leave you feeling like you just took some pills a random person …

A heads-up from Lowmagnet brought a slim ray of sunshine to an otherwise unpleasant day: The novel Pattern Recognition by William Gibson is being made into a movie as of late 2006. Make of this what you will, it's listed in IMDB as being in active development, which could mean pretty much anything given how Hollywood works, but They've taken to Gibson's less popular stories (like New Rose Hotel), so there's an excellent chance that this movie will actually wind up being made (though probably not get a theatrical release).