Jesus, talk about your slow news day…
What do you think? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Better to glide into a week gently like an old man easing into a bath, or would you rather your week starts with a bang?
I just don’t know. But what I do know is that I’m going to take a little break from singing the numerous praises of and getting lost in the continuous hyper excitement of The Dark Knight, and talk a little about upcoming movies. Let’s talk about those that look like they’re doing it right. And those that just don’t.
For starters… WATCHMEN, directed by Zack Snyder.
Big, blue, and omnipotent or a golden god? Neither. You're a sleazebag for knocking up, then ditching Mary Louise Parker, Crudup.
Which category does it fall in? Simple: Doing it wrong. Big time. Not that the graphic novel of 300 was brilliant, but the movie version was certainly not. It was like a redneck’s version of history. In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say that people who loved that movie are the reason this country is turning into an idiocracy. The Dawn Of The Dead remake was not a great movie, but wasn’t nearly as bad as the diehard angered purists wanted it to be, but still, 300 really hurt any cred that Zack Snyder had in the bank.
And then the teaser trailer for Watchmen, his latest epic comic book movie adaptation was released (on Friday, in front of The Dark Knight in some theaters).
Even Yahoo couldn't come up with a generic caption about how unintersting this looks.
Since you’ll probably be hearing about this again on Counterforce, I’ll keep it fairly simple for now (avoid quibbles like the cgi, which looks about half done): It all comes down to the question of, Hey Zack Snyder, did you ever read Watchmen, or did you just look at all the pretty pictures?
But to cap that off, I’ll leave you with some words from the creator of Watchmen and the “great bearded wizard of Northampton,” Alan Moore, who had this to say about another of his creations coming to the big screen: “I’ve not seen any recent comic book films, but I didn’t particularly like the book 300. I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid.”
"To paint comics as childish and illiterate is lazy. Some comics are very literate - unlike most films." - Alan Moore
Watchmen is probably considered one of the greatest graphic novels of all time, and Moore, who is a crazy fun bastard magician and worships orgy loving snake deities (and also wrote the Batman story “The Killing Joke,” one of the very many inspirations for The Dark Knight), is probably going to go down as one of the greatest writers in the medium, but still… It’s kind of like trying to make a movie out of something like Catcher In The Rye. No, thanks. I’d really rather not watch you fuck on top of something I love, thank you.
Moving on: Terminator Salvation, directed by *sigh* McG.
"Come with me if you want to live."
Another Terminator movie, coming after a pretty pathetic Terminator TV show and directed by, of all people, McG. And it doesn’t even feature the Governator. And yet, you ask yourself, which category does this fall into? Doing it right.
For starters: the cast. Christian Bale, possibly the hardest working man (he’s about to play Robin Hood in the new Ridley Scott movie) in genre movies (seriously, you English bastard, take a vacation before you pass out), Helena Bonham Carter, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anton Yelchin (Chekov in J.J. Abrams upcoming Stark Trek reboot), and Common. The trailer came out the same time as the Watchmen trailer and for a movie that you either A) had no faith in, or B) couldn’t possibly ponder being worth your time, it wasn’t that bad. It told you absolutely nothing, but it was intriguing. Possibly because it primarily just featured Christian Bale and a bunch of robots, but those are two things that probably every movie could benefit from a little of. If Mamma Mia! had Christian Bale and killer robots in it… Well, I couldn’t promise that I’d go see it, but it’d be a hell of a lot more likely, wouldn’t it?
"You're a fucking ugly bitch. I want to stab you to death and then play around in your blood."
It’s still a little early, but I think I could probably say that I’m a little excited to see this. Just a little.
Another movie that’s in the doing it right category for now based on it’s trailer is the next Bond movie, Quantum Of Solace. I had serious reservations going into Casino Royale and especially with the casting of Daniel Craig as Bond, but this movie looks good. A good example of a movie that I’m not that excited about would be whatever the fuck Tarantino is doing next. And a movie that I’m both looking forward to and dreading in an equal WTF cold sweat is Crank 2:
"Does it look like I have 'cunt' written on my forehead?"
It’s like we’re entering a renaissance for big crazy ridiculous movie making.
Oh, and before I go, a few quick links:
Music, music, and good writers.
Life, love, and Neal Stephenson.
Oh, and you keep your friends close, but you keep your frenemies closer.
