Occasionally out of town hillbillies ask me if I ever see any stars living here in Muzak City. Well, yesterday I did. Steve and I where in Lowe's and who walks by but none other than Marshall Breeding. It's not everyday you get to glimpse a library superstar. Who doesn't anxiously await for his annual automation systems survey? Seriously, I do. Truth is I see Marshall around town a lot (usually at the movie theater but I never say anything to him.) I'd call him a library hero but he might be a dick.
Speaking of movie theaters, heroes and dicks, Steve and I went to go see the Watchmen movie at the Imax. It's moronic to compare movies to the books they're based on so I won't for now. As far as the superhero action movie genre is concerned the film gets a B, perhaps even an A if we give a handicap for the intrinsic limitations of said genre.
If the premise of the film was to reveal what superheroes would be like in the real world, it accomplishes this end rather succinctly by revealing that most superheroes would be fascist monsters/pigs. When the Comedian is asked what happened to the American dream after shooting a civilian in the back, his bitter chuckling response, "It came true. You're looking at it," rings true enough to hit home. Audience members not familiar with the original's plot seemed thoroughly amused by its twists and ironic this-is-what-a-cape-really-feels-like hijinks. The special effects were "great," I guess. By this I mean they didn't make me cringe. You could actually follow the fight scene editing. Pandering to the expectations of an a audience addicted to ADHD media and extreme violence, the nonsuperheroes came dangerous close to appearing to have super powers. Everyone one of the lead characters was a fucking ninja except, appropriately, the one who possessed super powers.
Praise for Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup's performances are well deserved. Haley especially. Rorschach is one of the great antiheroes of modern ficton. Thanks to Haley he'll now also be one of the great antiheroes of modern cinema. A script and storyboards ripped verbatim from Moore's prose and Gibbons frames helped a lot towards this end. Crudup's performance as Dr. Manhattan was the ultimate exercise in control. I can only imagine the casting meeting: "okay you're going to play a character that has near godlike powers, but you gotta play it straight, play it for real." As is brought to our attention in the self-referential plot, it's all in his face.
And oh what a plot it is. All three hours of it. By following the plot line of the graphic novel verbatim, the film's length is swollen. By using the comic panels as storyboards, the result is boredom for anyone that has read the book within recent memory. Others in the audience didn't seem to mind.
Where we go next is painful, but necessary. The above is my review without comparing. Of all film adaptations, few invite comparison to the original text as much as Watchmen. Considering Moore's completely indifferent (if not hostile) stance to filmic adaptions of his work, the high degree of intricacy and subtly of Dave Gibbons art found in the original text and its structural function within the plot, the massive critical influence of the original, and on a personal level having just discussed the original in a book club, it was impossible not to compare the film with the graphic novel. Outside of any naive expectation of narrative and visual parallelism, there were three themes fundamental to Moore's intention that I felt needed to be dealt with for the film to succeed in the same way the original did (not the film couldn't succeed on it's own terms). They are: 1) most superheroes represent a fascist worldview (e.g. The Dark Knight); 2) we live in the society of the spectacle in which the image of a thing (even if untrue) is far more important they reality of thing (if there is a difference); and 3) superheroes often represent a deep psychosexual need to the reader/viewer.
It is first theme in which Snyder's film succeeds the most, almost too well. We are told in no uncertain terms that certain heroes are fascist (the Comedian, Rorschach), and that because of this they are bad. Other heroes possess more neutral political stances (Nite Owl, Dr. Manhattan) and are therefore good. Veidt is skewered to the left in the film, where as in the book he is clearly a libertarian. In the film, he's accused of socialism by the leaders of industry. A charge which he does not deny. In the original, Veidt willingly sacrifices his secretary during a faux assignation attempt. In the film, he willing sacrifices Lee Iaccoca and the political implications could not be more obvious. In the original, Veidt represents individual (if not corporate) power. In the film, he opposes it. In the original, as a result of averting nuclear holocaust, Veidt becomes the defacto Big Brother of the new world order. Also eliminated from the film are the competing fringe political journals which jostle for the consciousness of the populous. The journals parallel each other structurally, each having a similar role the puppet show that is world political theater. Their absence eliminates an idea central to Moore's vision. The political ambiguities of Moore's text are erased. Substituted in there place are the political certainties contemporary Hollywood left (read: centrist). Fuck you Sean Penn. The original Watchmen was beyond good and evil. The film version is entrenched in it.
As mentioned above, most the elements found in the original to represent the mechanisms of the spectacle have been eliminated. The competing political journals, the apocalyptic band "Pale Horse" reinforcing newspaper headlines about the doomsday clock, the Black Freighter comic reinforcing the moral nihilism of the Comedian, and most importantly the numerous artists, writers and designers sacrificed by Veidt to create his alien monster. Is there more of fictitious spectacle than an alien monster from outerspace? All the these elements show us the creative artists are just as complicit as anyone in perpetuating the illusions of freedom and justice. Of course these elements are cut from the film. Snyder isn't going to bite the hand... As opposed to critiquing the society of the spectacle, Snyder's film is
a part of it, an endorsement of it, a glaring neon sign telling of the
benefits of its perpetuation.
It's not by accident that the alien monster's cephalapodic body is shaped like a vagina. The implication of sex, as Veidt tells us in the original, ensures a more potent psychic repercussion on the unsuspecting populous. And so it goes with superheroes in general. The spandex, the leather, the dominance, the power fantasy, the submissive fantasy, the boots, the booties: it's all there. Superheroes satisfy the fantasies of the reader/viewer on many different levels simultaneously. Moore's Watchmen psychoanalyzed fanboys whether they liked it or not, revealing to them exactly why they got hooked on comics at such a young age. The film only reinforces this addiction without comment. There is a large difference between showing that some people get off by cracking skulls / getting their skull cracked, and showing that by cracking skulls is how to ensure how to ensure you will get off. Watchmen the film definitely falls into the later category. The sexuality of latex hot pants is a topic of discussion in the graphic novel. The film merely shows asses in hot pants, asses which inevitably end up being fondled by taunt muscled boy men who have earned this "right" (no pun intended) by rituals of violence.
Despite all these flaws, I'm going to the give the film a C- in its task of portraying the themes I thought essential to succeed in the same way the original succeeded. Why not an out and out failing grade? The film is saved by one scene towards the beginning in which the Comedian is shown assassinating Jack Kennedy. This alone is enough to save the film from complete ideological failure.
[fanboy aside: if you've made it this far, I can show you my true face. In the book, at the very end Veidt is meditating and Dr. Manhattan tells him that nothing ever changes then vanishes from the face of the earth. In the film, this is transubstantiated into Silk Spectre II telling her mother, "John would say nothing ever changes." Meredith says what the fuck?]
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I've started putting instant coffee in my protein shakes.
I've often admired Donald Trump's hair. Not its formal qualities but what it accomplishes. It looks terrible but by refusing to change it he forces others into an uncomfortable position. It's the ultimate power play. His hair is constantly psychologically off-balancing anyone else in the room. The gumption, the balls, the brilliance. And, no matter how much you hate his hair, no matter how much you hate him, the Trump he is still richer and more powerful that you.
I'm thinking of buying myself a gun for my next birthday. An object of high aesthetic value, yet which exists solely to cause violence strikes me as intensely sacrilegious.
This appeals to certain aspects of my personality.
