Spoilers! Write "Spoilers!" in case some of the gang haven't read the book!
----- Original Message ----- From: "Augustus Augustus" <jazzynupe_...@yahoo.com> To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 10:36:30 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Watch The Watchmen this is by far, the best review that i have read of The Watchmen. it hits all the points that i made 2 my circle of friends who were/are wavering on seeing it. the only thing that is missing was the dynamic in the relationship between Silk Spectre I and II. and what about the Comedian being the person who actually killed President Kennedy? brilliant! Fate. --- On Fri, 3/20/09, ravenadal <ravena...@yahoo.com> wrote: From: ravenadal <ravena...@yahoo.com> Subject: [scifinoir2] Watch The Watchmen To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Date: Friday, March 20, 2009, 2:40 AM http://blackplush. blogspot. com Watchmen is big and gorgeous with plenty to say and the misanthropic chutzpa to say it. Rarely has such a fully realized alternative future reached fruition on the big screen. I gloried in the opening montage where cherished cultural touchstones were embraced even as they were twisted and perverted. I howled inside when Alfred Eisenstaedt' s famous "V-J Day in Times Square" photograph was subverted by the sailor being replaced by the super butch super heroine Silhouette (Apollonia Vanova). The use of such hoary but hilarious devices as the ersatz but dead nuts on John McLaughlin Group (featuring a faux Elenor Clift and a fake ass Pat Buchanan) to advance story and provide context is inspired. Every frame of the movie is chocked full of information (if ever a movie would reward frequent viewing, Watchmen is it). Watchmen is the movie The Dark Knight is reputed to be. While The Dark Knight is just a big fat comic book, Watchmen is true to its lineage as the first graphic novel to win the Hugo award. And while I loved it, that is not necessarily a good thing. A real movie about real guys in tights, Watchmen doesn't show any inclination to don super suits. Which is kind of a problem, this being a superhero movie and the first rule of Superhero Club is to dispense with the exposition and cut to the chase. Not only does Watchmen violate that rule, it trammels it, exposition leaking out of every sweaty, blood soaked pore. Built on the simplest and most sturdy of narrative chassis, Watchmen opens with a splashy murder and then follows a sad sack detective - Jackie Earle Haley in fedora and rumpled trench coat - on a lonely but relentless search for the truth and justice (if not the American Way). Haley is a revelation as Rorschach the human ink blot. He inhabits his deeply flawed, psychologically damaged but relentlessly "moral" avenger with a steely humanity that is often thrilling. His one man against many stance while incarcerated is an exhilarating set piece. His mission statement: "I am not in prison with them; they are in prison with ME!" is tattooed on my consciousness. In many ways Haley's performance is as impressive as Health Ledger's turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Equally impressive is Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian and Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan. The blue-skinned Dr. Manhattan is a marvelous construct and Morgan's sweaty, hormone oozing, cigar chomping, pure id performance as an opportunistic soldier of fortune with a heart of lead is the messy glue that holds this dystopian narrative together. The duplicity and complicity of Morgan's character both informs and illuminates. His and Dr. Manhattan's jingoistic stomp through the killing fields of Viet Nam won my heart and my mind. At its core, Watchmen is a Superman movie where Lex Luthor (Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, the smartest human on earth) wins. It also takes the notion of the all powerful superhuman to its inevitable conclusion. And, frankly, it's more than a little disconcerting.