Charles Portis holed up in a fishing shack to write. Some go to Norway. Some to the mountains. I can't get a fucking break.
I went to the Westford Starbucks, but there wasn't a single empty chair. Closest nearby was Chelmford. They are selling some of the Clover drinks on special there. Best cup I've ever had.
But, as luck would have it, there aren't a lot of seats. I sat down and almost immediately some douchbag with a cellphone sat next to me. Even with the noise cancelling headphones I can't drown him out.
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Hey, that's magic! Whenever I blog about annoying people in coffee shops, they get up and leave! It's happened three times. So long, db!
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Anthony Lane's review of the Watchmen is worth reading. To paraphrase and boil it down: No one over 25 will enjoy its adolescent violence, and no one under 18 ought to see it. Good stuff.
Lane makes a point I agree with: comic books and comic adaptations only become unintentionally silly when they leave out the comic from the comics.
The critic also takes a stab at how teenage male rebellion has an odd tendency to see fascism everywhere and to unintentionally mirror it. Thus, we have so many films geared to this audience in which the enemy is a Big Brotherish government. The good guys fight back by acting like monomaniacal or sociopathic seventeen year old skinheads.
Since I am not above seeing the occasional, qualified, necessity of violence and aggression to solve conflicts -- and even reluctantly cede the value of conflict itself and the problems of merely avoiding it qua conflict -- I can't buy entirely into Lane's point. At the same time, it seems worth of serious consideration.
I haven't seen the Watchmen, but when Lane states "the film winds up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon" I couldn't help but to think of Coraline, another recent film in which the unconscious message is directly at odds with the conscious. Yes, I know. Films don't have "messages." They do and they don't. Emphasis on "they do." A topic for another day.
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I don't see enough contemporary movies to claim to see a pattern here, but it's worth noting. After seeing the trailer for the new Terminator, it makes me think: part of Lane's argument, if I read him correctly, manifests itself when violent fantasy films take as their theme not the nuanced, complicated problems of individuals, but of the whole human race.
Even great philosophers, such as Nietszsche, are at their most intolerable when they attempt to see problems in such broad, elastic nets: humanity as a cause? Be cautious with those who take it up, it seems.
Particularly when they wear rubber suits and shoot lightning from their eyes.
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OK damnit! I had an entire diatribe written out and it got eaten! To summarize, when Lane says "the film winds up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon" its OBVIOUS that this asshat has no idea what he's talking about.
ReplyDeleteThat point, IS the point! And the comic presents it in a mature, subtle, and complex enough manner. It's very masterfully done in the original, and THAT's why everyone ALREADY AGREES that the book is one of the greatest graphic novels ever (it's certainly not because of the artwork!). The ending is not "clean" or traditional and actually I think a lot of people who aren't familiar with the comic are going to walk away either disappointed or not knowing how to feel.
A trend that is recent and noticeable enough, is certain filmmaker's (like this one) willingness to make SHOT FOR SHOT recreations of comics in live action. They did it for Sin City and 300. The ENTIRE POINT of turning these books in to movies is for the COOL factor of seeing how well they can replicate the pages in to a live action film.
If a critic is going to make commentary about the film then in these cases you MUST read the source material or anything you say besides "it was cool" is going to be off-base. The book came out TWENTY years ago so it just pisses me off that this dipshit thinks he has anything new to say about it whatsoever just b/c now it's in "his" territory of movies rather than "someone else's" media.
Interesting. As someone unfamiliar with the source material, I'll reserve judgment and will wait to hear from you about seeing the picture when it hits theaters.
ReplyDeleteDoes it really contain the line, "This awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children”? I have to admit, that made me laugh.
I can't recall that exact line, but yea... there's many similar ones. But spoken by the character that is clearly obsessive and a bit deranged and focused on justice for justice's sake above all else... so it easily fits the character. That's what this ass is missing.
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