Superhero Filmmakers: Where's Our Watchmen?

A.O. Scott:

Speaking of acts of congress, “Watchmen” features this year’s hands-down winner of the bad movie sex award, superhero division: a moment of bliss that takes place on board Nite Owl’s nifty little airship, accompanied by Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” (By the way, can we please have a moratorium on the use of this song in movies? Yes, I too have heard there was a secret chord that David played, and blah blah blah, but I don’t want to hear it again. Do you?)

The sex may be laughable, but the violence is another matter. The infliction of pain is rendered in intimate and precise aural and visual detail, from the noise of cracking bones and the gushers of blood and saliva to the splattery deconstruction of entire bodies. But brutality is not merely part of Mr. Snyder’s repertory of effects; it is more like a cause, a principle, an ideology. And his commitment to violence brings into relief the shallow nihilism that has always lurked beneath the intellectual pretensions of “Watchmen.” The only action that makes sense in this world — the only sure basis for ethics or politics, the only expression of love or loyalty or conviction — is killing. And the dramatic conflict revealed, at long last, in the film’s climactic arguments is between a wholesale, idealistic approach to mass death and one that is more cynical and individualistic.

This idea is sickening but also, finally, unpersuasive, because it is rooted in a view of human behavior that is fundamentally immature, self-pitying and sentimental. Perhaps there is some pleasure to be found in regressing into this belligerent, adolescent state of mind. But maybe it’s better to grow up.

Watchmen Condoms

lol 163 mins, never seeing this

HOOS, it's not that he's saying comics OR television sucks, just that there's about three of each (Maus, Persepolis, Watchman/ Sopranos, The Wire, uhhhhh....) that always get pulled up as "SEE, THE MEDIUM IS IMPORTANT"; that's the fig leaf in question that distracts from the mountain of shit.
That said, I can't help but think that part of why watchfans are so reflexively 'nuh-uh!' about bad reviews for a film they haven't seen (even and maybe especially so when they're badly written) is that they come off as an indictment of comics and people who read them.
Watchmen is being held up as 'Adult Comics' and while that may have been somewhat true in '85, it's pretty much totally inaccurate now.

im so excited to never see this movie and hate it anyway

^^^ close to my position.

I was trying to describe the graphic novel to a couple friends who are pretty clueless about it and one of them was even unfamiliar with the term "graphic novel". I made the mistake of using the phrase "adult comics" and she immediately jumped to, "So it's like porn?".

i kinda didn't realize that this was co-written by Solid Snake.

I don't even like the original graphic novel. So with the trifecta of bad reviews from Anthony Lane, J. Hoberman and A.O. Scott (three critics I tend to read the most) I'm just gonna pass on the film in theaters. Maybe I'll Netflix it, or torrent it.

panned by mark kermode on radio 5 just now

damn, I trust Kermode.

Looks like one for the download.

MOVIE CRITICS AND ILX DISCOVER STURGEONS LAW FILM AT 11

that would probably be a bad film

i wouldn't say that about painting. i mean, sure, rembrandt lords over 99% of painting, but it's not like museums contain a thin layer of good painting over a vast sea of crap. there's a 1000 year tradition of amazing painting and there are always 100s if not 1000s of world class painters to learn about. is the same true of comic book movies - or even comics?

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, March 6, 2009 3:50 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya but painting is gay

pancakes, it's just an easy connection to make when you see what u think is a bad film of something that everyone thinks is a great book

Anyway, I'm hardly a professional film cricket, but a few quick thoughts:

-- Movie didn't seem anywhere near it's 163 minute running time to me. It could've easily been 10 minutes longer from where I sat. Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for long movies.

-- Most of the acting was just fine, esp. Morgan as the Comedian, Wilson, and Haley. Could've stood a little more humor from Crudup. Goode, despite my worries, does a pretty good job of "arrogant douchebag."

-- As far as the violence, I know it's a part of Snyder's whole aesthetic and he obviously loves it, but I get the idea here that he was TRYING to play at the same thing Cronenberg did in A History of Violence and failing. By all rights, movies like "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight" should be as full of gore as any Evil Dead movie; this superhero movie spares no punches in that regards.

-- Audience laughed like hell at the "Hallelujah" sex scene. LIKE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO. Why are critics treating it as if the music choice undermines what's supposed to be a serious, tender moment? I always thought it was funny in the comic and it's even funnier here. And flamethrower/ejaculation punchline actually works better here than in the comic.

-- New ending is just fine. I saw it with a couple of MAJOR fanboys, and they were fine with the internal logic of it.

-- I was actually disappointed by the elimination of a single line of dialogue from Veidt: "I wasn't actually sure that would work."

Haven't seen the film, have tickets for tonight.

finished the book last night.

Interesting thing that I never noticed before...the band GWAR got their name from the watchmen!...

the truck driving lesbian that always stops by the newsstand is hanging up a poster for a benefit show her girlfriend is putting on and it's for a org called Gay Women Against Rape...but the GWAR are in bold block letters.

anyway maybe that is common knowledge, or just a coincidence but seems real to me.

CNN reviewer annoyed

the 'visionary' tag really fuckin annoyed me too

would claw his visionary eyes out of his head with my bare hands if I could

"From the visionary eye-clawer of ILX"

the thing is, this is probably exactly how i envisioned a movie of watchmen when i was, y'know, 13 - i distinctly remember imagining the comic as a series of super badass slo-mo shots. but this is why nobody asks 13 year olds how to direct a movie.

[21:57] HELLA like DYING: christ almighty its the goddamn justice league of america
[21:57] eviliraqi: holy farkin sh*t its the watchmen. scram boys.
[21:58] eviliraqi: *teleports chuthulu in from another dimension*
[21:58] HELLA like DYING: lol
[21:59] eviliraqi: heh. so u see. i did it like ten minutes ago.
[21:59] HELLA like DYING: pardon me gents but you won't be needing these *removes guns from all henchmen at superspeed* where you're going
[21:59] HELLA like DYING: INT: Prison
[21:59] eviliraqi: lol
[21:59] HELLA like DYING: Henchman 1: Aww nuts those goddamned watchmen!
[21:59] eviliraqi: *kicks the ground with hands in pocket, a small cloud of dust settles*
[21:59] eviliraqi: those rat fink watchment
[22:00] HELLA like DYING: lol
[22:02] eviliraqi: so u see gents...heh....i did it fifteen minutes ago...
[22:02] eviliraqi: did what ozymandias?
[22:02] eviliraqi: ozymandias: heh...u know....
[22:02] eviliraqi: CAMERA cuts to nite owls face, he is making the http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/4235/9fdaeae5af109b0913b2284fc1.jpg face
[22:02] eviliraqi: CAMERA cuts to ozymandias' face, he is making the http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/4235/9fdaeae5af109b0913b2284fc1.jpg face
[22:03] eviliraqi: Fin.

― cankles, Friday, July 18, 2008 7:09 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this was slept on imo

Will pull together more thoughts for the blog later today but some quick responses here:

Love the way a film which panders so much to the torture porn crowd (lovingly extended sequences of arms being angle-ground off, heads being hatcheted, child's leg being eaten by dogs, rape attempt in slow-motion, etc) attempts to have cake/eat it with bullshit about importance of humanity, etc, etc.

Dialogue/narration which worked on the page REALLY REALLY doesn't work coming out of actors' mouths. Especially not these actors.

Agreed on both these points. Haley and Crudup were the best but even Haley was defeated with the journal entries, which came across as very "Captain's log, stardate etc."

New ending is just fine. I saw it with a couple of MAJOR fanboys, and they were fine with the internal logic of it.

There's a lot about the ending that's pretty lame, but the overarching conceit in terms of who the fall guy is instead of the alien isn't totally out there given what Ozymandias is trying to accomplish. Still, less impressive than I figured.

NYT now listing best selling graphic novels in hardcover, trade and manga; cites Watchmen as reason for doing this?
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/introducing-the-new-york-times-graphic-books-best-seller-lists/

DC's printed/sold a huge amount of the omnibus edition over the last nine months so it's not too surprising they're using that as a hook to hang this on.

Oh, Naruto, will you ever learn?

Repeated about eight times on that list.

but the overarching conceit in terms of who the fall guy is instead of the alien isn't totally out there given what Ozymandias is trying to accomplish

but... how do you reconcile the fact that there's no point in the world's powers joining forces against Dr. Manhattan? Like, why would the mutual threat of Dr. Manhattan solve anything at all?

^^^ ding ding ding

how do you reconcile the fact that there's no point in the world's powers joining forces against Dr. Manhattan?

Well, granted, they wouldn't be nearly as effective against Dr. Manhattan as they would against random dimension-hopping teleporting gigantic psychic vagina squids.

i'm okay with changing that, because the original concept (join forces against aliens = world peace) didnt make sense either, especially for something the 'world's smartest man' would come up with. i imagine that was kinda the point, rly

Also, movie-Ozymandias destroys more than just NY, making his fall guy a more global threat -- and, within the logic of the story, more of a unifying force -- than just NY-smashing space vagina.

seems to me that the more likely result of a God-like figure attacking the world would be everybody surrendering immediately

or is that essentially what happens in the film

Moore intends the jury to be out on whether Ozzy's plan is going to work long term.

that too

Also, movie-Ozymandias destroys more than just NY, making his fall guy a more global threat -- and, within the logic of the story, more of a unifying force

That plus he's a known quantity. Left hanging, though, would be this possible reaction from the rest of the world to the US after the immediate climbdown:

"Hey you clowns, YOU trained him to be the ultimate weapon. Fuck you."

Never thought I'd see Lee Iacocca get his brains blown out in a movie.

Talked to the daughter, who went to a midnight show last night...I think I'm going to skip this after all.

Never thought I'd see Lee Iacocca get his brains blown out in a movie.

?

Lee Iacocca, or rather an actor portraying him, gets his brains blown out in this movie.

so I gather. but um, why? don't remember that being in Cnyder's "bible".

Dr Manhattan does it. That's what he's framed for.

The whole movie is secretly an anti-bailout manifesto.

(It's an addition to the assassin-attacks-Veidt scene.)

why kill a secretary when you can kill Lee Iacocca!

The inclusion of a *lot* more real-world people/analogues in this film -- Iacocca, John McLaughlin, Pat Buchanan, Eleanor Cliff, down to brief cameos by Warhol, Bowie, Jagger, even the Village People -- prompted this in Matt Maxwell's (very spot-on) review:

This leads to the various traversals of the uncanny valley in WATCHMEN, or at least the ones I noted. The Nixon makeup looked fine televised, when you’re seeing a screen inside the movie, but when you’re seeing him au chair as it were (yes, I know more than a little French, I too went to college) his face flattened and rubberized. Kissinger not so much. Though this goes to the insertion of other real-world celebrities of the time, John McLaughlin and Lee Iacocca spring right to mind.

They were simply bad ideas. Instead of rooting this in a fictional world, I’m immediately drawn back into “oh, that’s right, we’re in a fictional world that wants to convince us of its real-worldness.” We get to jump back and forth over the uncanny valley, hooray. Perhaps in text or with the separation of the comics page, these ideas would work, but the execution of film left a lot to be desired.

man, i dunno about seeing this now.